Got my Radeon 32mb DDR today and I am not content with it already!

[kendogg]

Was excited up until I installed the card and played my games which consisted of Counter Strike, Quake3, and q2. Before I go any further I had a V3 3k agp installed and both 2d, 3d quality were awesome!

Right now I am regreating I got this card because my games are Fvcking DARK and slow!!!! I just cant stand that!!!!!!! unlike the voodoo3 settings ati does not allow you to change the gamma or brightness in the openGl tab. I have even tried raising the brightness to the max in the game options and its still dark for game play. Is there any setting that can change this?

I am so frustrated right now I dont even feel like talking about it... Can someone please show me a screen shot of there opengl setting for optimized play in Counter Strike.


I also did a timedemo in q2 in 1024x768 res and i got 46fps.... on the other hand my v3 got about 70+...... this is just sad.... what am i doing wrong

 

[BFG10K]

I have even tried raising the brightness to the max in the game options and its still dark for game play.

Yes, that's one of my major concerns with upgrading from my V3. Most old games are far too dark even with their sliders turned up on full and only 3dfx seem to have a way to raise the gamma.

I also did a timedemo in q2 in 1024x768 res and i got 46fps.... on the other hand my v3 got about 70+...... this is just sad.... what am i doing wrong

Did you reformat your HD and reinstall Windows? That will likely fix your performance problems.

 

[kendogg]

I timedemoed the q2 before i installed the radeon..

do u think there future drivers will allow you to change brightness settings!! if not I am gonna throw this POS away.... Sorry.... im just really disatisfied with this card.. im also going to add the packaging was the sh!ttiest I have ever seen.. when i opened the box it was half way out of the electro static package, for god sake they didnt even care to seal it with a sticker. When i got my V3 retail box.. i was just amazed at the packaging....

I feel like crying right now.. such a disappointment... Its just that so many people were ravin about this card.. Ive never bought from ati before because my friend had an ALL IN WONDER 128 something something.. that sucked.. So now I give em a chance.. and all i ended up with today was heartache

 

[Smbu]

Did you benchmark the Radeon in 16bit, or 32bit color. Everybody knows that the Radeon's performance is terrible in 16bit color. I don't think you would compare the v3's 16bit score w/the Radeon's 32bit score at the same resolution, right?

You should also do what BFG10k says and reformat and reinstall Windows.

 

[kendogg]

hmm reformatting is the last thing I wanna consider doing right now...


As for drivers I have installed 4.13.7068

should i try using different drivers? if so which driver?

on windows me, Athlon 700mhz, 384mb ram.


hm..... does anyone know of a good radeon Forum?

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Kendogg:
Big mistake- you've GOT to have a Voodoo card if you want to be having those 3dfx!
What were you thinking?!

LOL

http://www.rageunderground.com/

Ken:
The Radeon will BLOW AWAY your V3 in any game that doesn't run in Glide only.

I assume you changed your video card to std pci vga and rebooted before installing the Radeon? If not, do so, after putting in the Radeon CD and uninstalling the Radeon drivers.

If that does not work, reboot, hit F8 while doing so, go to "Safe Mode" and open the Device Manager. (My Computer>Control Panel> Device Manager>System>Device Manager) Look under Display Adapters. If you see anything 3dfdx, remove it.

Of course, Fdisk/format/install would take care of this as well.

Also, you could turn AGP to 2X on your Athlon board.

 

[oldfart]

Rage3D is a good forum, but has been down since they are moving to a new server. I went from a V3 to a Radeon also. I play the games you list and a bunch more. I have no problem at all getting any game bright enough by just using the in game adjustments. I also never had to use the gamma adjustment on the V3 card to compensate for ANY game I ever played. This is both OpenGl and D3D. I left them at their default 1.3 settings. Q2 being an older game is the minor exception. You have to tweak the config file. I've found this to be true with ANY video card that I've used (Rendition, 3dfx, Nvidia, ATI). Its always too dark to start.

For Q2, add the below to your autoexec.cfg, or create one if don't already have one:
set cl_particles "1"
set gl_dynamic "1"
set gl_polyblend "0"
set gl_playermip "0"
set gl_flashblend "0"
set gl_ext_swapinterval "1"
set gl_swapinterval "1"
set gl_ext_palettedtexture "0"
set gl_picmip "0"
set gl_bitdepth "0"
set gl_round_down "0"
set gl_modulate "3"
//gl_modulate controls brightness of shadowed areas. Higher is brighter. default is 1
set intensity "2.5"
//intensity is overall brightness
set vid_gamma "0.800000"
set gl_triplebuffer "1"
set gl_texturemode GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR

Everyone's monitors, and preferences are different. This is a "High Quality" config. You may need to tweak this up for your liking, but it should get you a start.
Have your desktop set for 32 bit color. Q2 will run @ the 32 bit desktop color depth. Q2 looks MUCH better with the Radeon as compared to my V3. Just look at the RG spiral. A beautiful crystal blue series of dots instead of a pale blue blur.


If you go to an Nvidia card you will see the same thing. 3dfx is the only card that has separate gamma adjustments for desktop, and 3D API. Here are games that I play:

Q2, Q3, Q3TA, Half-Life, Op force, Counter Strike, STVEF, NOLF, Unreal, UT, Serious Sam (demo) Rogue Spear. All of them are plenty bright enough by just using the brightness adjustment in the game.

 

[nitrousninja]

I upgraded from a V5500 to an Radeon 64MB VIVO and noticed an increase in framerate and image quality. Maybe you didn't remove all old video drivers from the registry. That could cause many problems. The 32MB Radeon should spank the V3 in every measurable way, if not you're doing something wrong. Just make sure you do everything you're supposed to before you start blaming the card. Also make sure the card is on its own IRQ, sometimes it gets put with the sound card and that degrades performance. Just give the card a chance and I'm sure you'll be happy with it. Great combination of framerate,image quality, and DX8 features. BTW I didn't have to reinstall or reformat. Good Luck!

 

[dougjnn]

Here's a simple suggestion. Maybe you are past this. but if not ...

You should always uninstall your old drivers. The best way of doing that is to do a reformat and a complete reinstall. If you don't do anything else with your computer but play games, that is no big deal. But if you do, even surf the web a lot and have a lot of downloaded teaks and utilities and stuff, that is a huge pain -- even if you have been religious about categorizing your downloads to a download directory for saving and then the reinstalling.

Instead try uninstalling your drivers only. By deleting your video card in my computer| device manager. You can also try physically deleting your video drivers entirely from your HD by using find. If you have a clue as to some distinctive part of their file name.

 

[sweetca]

this doenst have much to do with your prob...but i dont think going from a v5 to AIW is an upgrade...i have seen both. the voodoo5 looks a lot better in games. maybe you just didnt have your v5 setup right ninja

 

[BW]

Well i had my Radeon 32meg for a couple of months and just sold it last week.My 5500 was faster in everything except 3d mark2000 what a joke that program is anyway.I even reformatted to try and get it fast.I think my problem was my athlon based system.The radeon ran good but puased alot in games and just wasnt as fast as my 5500 even in 32 bit.

 

[oldfart]

46 fps in Q2?? You have something really foobar'd. With the Q2 SQH config I posted above, I get 106 fps 1024 x 768 x 32. If I use the "out of the box" Q2 config, @ 1024 x 768 x 32 I get 157 fps.

 

[BFG10K]

KenDogg:

do u think there future drivers will allow you to change brightness settings!!

I hope so but I doubt it. I'm also hoping that maybe the other cards use their desktop 2D gamma setting to control the game brightness, or that maybe there's a 3rd party utility to control the gamma levels.

Jethro Bodine:

Big mistake- you've GOT to have a Voodoo card if you want to be having those 3dfx!

Eh? I didn't understand that sentence at all.

Oldfart:

I have no problem at all getting any game bright enough by just using the in game adjustments. I also never had to use the gamma adjustment on the V3 card to compensate for ANY game I ever played.

I do. GLQuake, Quake 2, Unreal and Return To Na Pali are *waaaay* too dark with the game set at maximum brightness and the drivers set at the default level. In fact GLQuake is almost completely black and I can barely even see the brightness slider, even when it's set to full.

I have the Direct 3D and OpenGL brightness sliders set to 2.76 in the driver control panel and the games look great. Oldfart, does your 2D desktop gamma have any effect on 3D games? Try cranking up the brightness and see if your games are brighter.

I'll take a look at that Quake 2 config of yours.

 

[amgkid]

Something is really wrong with your q2 benchmarks, it's not the Radeon's fault. I just upgraded from a v3 3500 to a radeon ddr 32 and in 1024x768, i got ~100fps and ~150fps respectively.

 

[PeAK]

www.rage3d.com is "the" source for Radeon information and on configuration/help. It has just completed its move to a new server and is finally back up after four days of difficult birthing.

The first thing to read in the Radeon Guide prior to installing a new Radeon card on top of any other graphics card. Last, Quake 2 at 46 fps with an Athlon 700 is a sure sign of major install problems. Quake 3 should be running at about 90 fps on a system like yours. Check here for quake install related posts.

WinMe does have problems with games.

 

[RobsTV]

BFG10K wrote:
Yes, that's one of my major concerns with upgrading from my V3. Most old games are far too dark even with their sliders turned up on full and only 3dfx seem to have a way to raise the gamma.

nVidia drivers use sliders for adjusting gamma, brightness, contrast, and individule colors.
I never had to use the V3's adjustments, as games all played correct. Same with the nVidia card. Both the V3 and nVidia display the exact same brightness in each game, and in my case, it is not to dark at all.

Anytime you switch from a 3dfx card (perhaps other cards as well), to another brand, you should do as BFG10K says, and reformat and install Windows and games with the new card. 3dfx cards will still leave some effect on the system, even if you correctly un-install the drivers, remove all traces of files, and edit the registry to finish the clean out. Some hidden 3dfx stuff still will remain.

KeNDoGG wrote:
Sorry.... im just really disatisfied with this card.. im also going to add the packaging was the sh!ttiest I have ever seen.. when i opened the box it was half way out of the electro static package, for god sake they didnt even care to seal it with a sticker.
A while back I heard of a lot of people buying SDR boards, and then buying DDR boards, swapping the cards, keeping the DDR, and returning the SDR in the DDR package far a refund. Hopefully you didn't end up with one of these SDR returns.

 

[oldfart]

BFG, we've talked about your darkness thing before. Either you have some strange monitor, or setup issue, or you have a preference for a VERY bright look in games. I never had any problem getting any game bright enough on a Voodoo card or the Radeon. This is with just using the in game brightness adjustments, which do not even need to be cranked up all the way. I never had to use the 3D API gamma adjustments in the Voodoo card to compensate. BTW, those Q2 settings may not be optimized for a V3 card. You may have to tweak then a bit more. Try these tweaked to above:
set gl_modulate "2.5"
set intensity "2.0"

Kendogg, any progress? This may be an obvious question, but you are using default opengl, not 3dfx opengl, right? Also, did you ever have Wicked3D installed? It replaces some opengl files with special 3dfx tweaked minigl's

 

[kendogg]

Hey oldfart you stated that you are having no troubles with the dark display in games, would it be possible for you to post a counter strike screen shot? Game play is so difficult because the darkness, for instance in counter strike its hard to differentiate between your team and the enemy from a distance.

After I installed the radeon the first thing I did was uninstall the 3dfx tools, rebooted, then installed the radeon drivers. No I never had wickedGL drivers installed on my system.

Can someone please take a screen shot of there OpenGL tab? I wanna see how yours is set up.. This is how I currently have mine set up

Click on Radeonprop

 

[snow patrol]

Counterstrike is a little dark for me as well.

How do we actually set gamma/colour levels for OpenGL or Direct 3d? I don't see those options in the driver control panel settings...?

 

[kendogg]

Snow patrol you can't there are no options.

 

[kendogg]

Also I am experiencing STUDDERING in all my games... any ideas on whats going on?

 

[Taz4158]

Have these and ONLY these as your reg keys:
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ATI Technologies\Driver\0000\atidxhal]
"EnableWaitUntilIdxTriList2"="1"
"TableFogEnable"="1"
"WFogEnable"="0"
"ZFogEnable"="1"
"DisableHierarchicalZ"="0"
"DisableHyperZ"="0"
"FastZClearEnabled"="1"
"Vsync"="0"
"AntiAlias"="0"
"ZFormats"="15"
"ExportCompressedTex"="1"
"DitherAlpha"="1"
"ExportWBuffer"="0"

 

[UltraWide]

as taz said, this is the key:
ExportWBuffer=0

 

[oldfart]

KeNDoGG, did you ever get Q2 to run @ the frame rate it should? Your fps is about 1/3 of what it should be. Half-Life is loosely based on the Quake engine. Whatever problem you have with Q2 could be the root of your CS issue also. I know you don't want to hear this, but if you can't get it running right, a clean format and install may be needed. I went from a V3 to the Radeon, and didn't need to do this, but every case is different. I'm traveling this week (I'm on my laptop in a hotel now). I cant take any screenshots of anything till I get back, which is not till Friday. I'll see if I can do some over the weekend. BTW, you can tweak gamma and brightness settings in HL, and I assume CS since it's a mod. Again, because I'm on the laptop, I can't look at my config info.

Taz and UW, those tweaks are for D3D right? How would they have any effect on HL/CS which is an OpenGL game??

I just looked at tweak3d and they have an
autoexec generator for HL. It does have brightness/gamma options. I never tried it but give it a shot.

 

[BFG10K]

RobsTV:

nVidia drivers use sliders for adjusting gamma, brightness, contrast, and individule colors.

So if you use the slider to increase the brightness, do your 3D games get brighter as well?

Hopefully you didn't end up with one of these SDR returns

Really? Wow. Switching cards a nasty and sneaky thing to do. :frown:

Oldfart:

Either you have some strange monitor, or setup issue, or you have a preference for a VERY bright look in games.

There's nothing wrong with my monitor setup and my game settings aren't excessively bright. They're just bright enough so that everything is clearly visible.

BTW, those Q2 settings may not be optimized for a V3 card. You may have to tweak then a bit more.

I don't need the tweaks right now because I use 3dfx's gamma sliders. The reason why I was interested is if I get a new video card and need to brighten the game.