HSR; Major performance improvement in beta drivers for Voodoo5's in GL!!!

[madthumbs]

Betas 1.04.01

Run this bat file to open programs (configured for Quake 3a)

@ECHO OFF
PROMPT $P$G
SET FX_GL_HSR=4
QUAKE3.EXE

(to make bat file, open note pad, cop+paste this into it. Save the bat file as q3.bat Place the file in the same folder as your quake3.exe file, and run it.

This is HOT news, so I havnt tested this myself yet. Performance gain is expected to be almost double!

Link to beta drivers on 3dfx's site;
beta 1.04.01 for win95-ME/ V4/5

 

[Soccerman]

"Performance gain is expected to be almost double!"

if it's normal HSR, then I would highly doubt it, though u never know what other tricks they have.. after all, they just DID buy Gigapixel a while ago..

EDIT: 3dfx released 1.03.00's a week ago or so right? where are the 1.04.00's! they release beta 1.04.01, yet no 1.04.00?

 

[NFS4]

Sounds sweet as hell

 

[andylawcc]

<<performance almost doubled>>
pls don't BS, or try to keep it real,

you are why 3dfxer are called zombies....

 

[extra]

Link for some evidence

although i can't try it
stoopid win2k

 

[madthumbs]

Actually I got more than double performance in Q3a timedemo 1 for 32 bit color. BUT i screwed up the .bat file. It should read;

@ECHO OFF
PROMPT $P$G
SET FX_GL_HSR=4
QUAKE3.EXE

You can change the HSR value from 1-4 for increased performance (less for less corruption/ speed)

 

[madthumbs]

I am far from a 3dfxer. Ask DaveB3D. I hate the way 3dfx treats its customers, and I have personally been mistreated by them. On the other hand these drivers are legit, and they have had the 1.04 that worked with the other HSR bat file I posted here.

Still if I had to recommend a card it would be a Radeon flavor currently.

 

[Sephiroth_IX]

So this is only for Quake3?

 

[madthumbs]

It worked flawlessly for Soldier of Fortune with the old driver set and the other bat file I posted. Just change the quake3.exe in the file you make to whatever file you want it to run, however it will only work with the GL api.

 

[madthumbs]

Ok, I have run into some minor bugs with this so far, but it is still definetely worth using. bug1- graphics are slightly messed up (at least on the higher HSR settings) bug2- I tried 32bit color and it seemed to make the game choppy and slow, but showed tremendous gains in the timedemo results. bug3 I tried to run it at 1280xXXXX with 4xfsaa, and it froze up my PC.

 

[RoboTECH]

holeee $hit.

/me gotta try this tomorrow when i get home from work

wow!

it would be interesting if this is correct

 

[Paul]

Does this work with Half-Life

 

[madthumbs]

It should work for any GL game. Just make sure you are playing Half Life in GL or OGL. The higher you make the graphic settings like res, detail, and color depth, the greater improvement you will see from the old performance at those levels. HSR 3&amp;4 are known to still have minor visual glitches which may be reduced by using 32bit depth precision set at <fast> . Best performance I've seen so far is HSR 2 and DP-Fast.

 

[Wingznut]

Unlike Robo, I couldn't wait until tomorrow...

Q3, 1024x768x32, High Quality
Without HSR: 81.3 fps
With HSR: 96.2 fps!!!

No video anomolies, either. I'll do some more messing around tomorrow.

Soccerman... The 1.04.00 drivers have been available since 11/9/00. The 1.03's have been out for a few months.

 

[Pete]

Wingznut, any FSAA speed improvements?

 

[snow patrol]

This is awesome!!! Come on - we REALLY need to see some hardware sites re-reviewing the voodoo 5 in light of these new drivers.

BTW - is it possible to fiddle with the HSR settings via some kind of control panel or do you need to put it in the command line when you run a game? Cheers

 

[RoboTECH]

whoa!!! Wingnut, gimme your exact settings!

96 fps! that's not with depth precision set to &quot;fastest&quot;, is it?

what HSR setting? What other 3dfx tools driver tweeks did you use?

I'm impressed

if this is &quot;real&quot;, then it looks like the 5500 is actually FASTER than the GTS, and almost as fast as a GTS Pro, which is literally twice as expensive.

hehe....i'm hoping this is real. gotta wait until I get home to try it tho.

 

[snow patrol]

Hey Robo - can't you be 'sick' and have to go home early?

 

[madthumbs]

Hardware site reviews; Currently these driver enhancements are in beta form and not made &quot;useable&quot; because there are some configurations that still get graphic anomolies. This drivers set is neither WHQL, or is the HSR enabled in them on it's own. So a &quot;preview&quot; would be more like it. It is possible that 3dfx will add this feature to D3D as well in the future, but don't hold your breath... It has taken them quite a while, and they still aren't done with this GL HSR.

 

[madthumbs]

UPDATE***

Using FSAA can make this glitchier (Quake3a). I finally ran it in 1280xXXXX with 32bit color/ textures and my jaw dropped as I benched it with demo 001 at 18.6sec and 72.4fps! If you are having a lot of flashing going on, it may be reduced by this command in the console; seta com_maxfps &quot;40&quot; You can try other settings, but this is what I saw suggested. You can also change it permanently in the config file found in baseq3 folder. If using this driver set on Heavy Metal FAKK2, you may want to disable multi-texturing, as there is a bug and the game is said not to work even with HSR off.

Even more impressive; I took the old .bat file and made the HSR=4 for SoF;

@ECHO OFF
SET FX_GL_HSR=4
SET FX_GL_ZCULL_ENABLE=1
SET FX_GL_ZCULL_FAR=32767
SET FX_GL_ZCULL_NEAR=4
sof.exe

Still working great! I recommend keeping the res down to 1024x768 and the FSAA down to 2x due to slow down on foggy, or smokey areas.

 

[RoboTECH]

hey thumbs, I thought that little batch file you posted caused some strange visual anomalies?

also, can you try capping your fps to, say, 80 or something to see if the visual &quot;weirdness&quot; tyou talked about happens in 1024x768x32?

 

[madthumbs]

The original .bat file I posted for SoF worked inerrantly on SoF. It caused anomolies in Quake 3a, and even this new one appears to as well. But they are less, and there are settings to reduce them, like seta com_maxfps &quot;45&quot;, no FSAA, and guardband clipping enabled.

 

[Wingznut]

(Heh, there's like three of these threads going.)

My System
P3-933eb, 128mb RAM, V5-5500 (166mhz)

Q3, 1024x768x32, High Quality

No FSAA
HSR=2: 89.0 fps
HSR=4: 96.2 fps

2x FSAA
HSR=2: 68.4 fps
HSR=4: 88.6 fps

4x FSAA
HSR=2: 38.0 fps
HSR=4: 71.6 fps



There were no graphical anomolies w/out FSAA and with 2xFSAA/HSR=2. However, the other benchmarks had significant issues.
What's the commands to max fps, and to show fps during the benchmark?

 

[Deeko]

Woah, those 4x FSAA scores are amazing! That's near what I get now with no FSAA! What is your 4x score with no HSR? Man....71 fps with 4x FSAA, that's amazing.

 

[JayPatel]

i got some major visual probs but man the speed increase is insane.