Here's the deal... I am running an 800 Mhz Athlon T-bird on an Asus A7V mobo and a TNT2 Ultra vid card. In Q2 I get a pathetic 89.9 FPS with v-sync off, about 59FPS on!!! Now i realize that is good enough to in most cases play the game smoothly, but every once in a while gameplay gets really choppy during online gaming, and the only way to fix it is to mess with un-installing/re-installing drivers or just update the drivers if one is available. The thing that really pisses me off is my trusty old celery300a o/c to 464 with a voodoo2 would easily pump out over 100FPS with v-sync off. I have had nothing but problems ever since I bought this piece of crap nvidia card. Well, maybe it isn't the cards fault, maybe it's the lame-ass drivers or whatever, i don't know. Point being that I NEVER, EVER had any problems at all with a 3dfx product. They just always worked. Anyway all I want to know is am I missing something, or is that the kind of performance I should expect out of this thing? Is it even a vid card problem, or possibly a mobo or CPU issue? I really don't follow all the issues concerning product compatibility or driver problems anymore, I just want some trouble free online fragging! BTW, I am running Win Me, and have tried driver versions 3.68, 5.14, 5.22, 6.18, and 6.31 with no difference. Thanks for any help!!!
OK, I've had enough... PLEASE HELP!!!
- Thread starter sodcha0s
- Start date
Sorry I can't help you, but since you have never had a problem with 3dfx, maybe you can help me?
I have 3 machines connected lan, and trying to play latest version of Half-Life.
1 has 3dfx V3 2000 PCI, 2 has 3dfx V3 3000 AGP, and 3 has nVidia GF2 GTS.
Machine 3 worked fine without any patches or mods needed.
Both 3dfx machines failed OpenGL, until I copied miniGL from gldrv folder to halflife root.
But now, when ending game on either 3dfx machine by hitting escape, system locks solid.
Any ideas, as I've never had the V3 work in a game yet without some tweak here or there?
Using latest official 3dfx drivers, Win98se or WinMe, and DX7.1.
Also, NFSPU kicks back to desktop if I don't select a race from menu within 10-20 seconds.
This occurs on V3 3000 machine. If I select a race quick enough, it plays fine.
Last off, if the V3 card's system is not rebooted for a couple days, or after some gaming, the maximize/minimize, and other small desktop icons, will turn into black boxes. Running 800x600x16, and 1024x768. Happens on any machine with V3 in it.
Since you never had 3dfx trouble, hopefully you can help!
I have 3 machines connected lan, and trying to play latest version of Half-Life.
1 has 3dfx V3 2000 PCI, 2 has 3dfx V3 3000 AGP, and 3 has nVidia GF2 GTS.
Machine 3 worked fine without any patches or mods needed.
Both 3dfx machines failed OpenGL, until I copied miniGL from gldrv folder to halflife root.
But now, when ending game on either 3dfx machine by hitting escape, system locks solid.
Any ideas, as I've never had the V3 work in a game yet without some tweak here or there?
Using latest official 3dfx drivers, Win98se or WinMe, and DX7.1.
Also, NFSPU kicks back to desktop if I don't select a race from menu within 10-20 seconds.
This occurs on V3 3000 machine. If I select a race quick enough, it plays fine.
Last off, if the V3 card's system is not rebooted for a couple days, or after some gaming, the maximize/minimize, and other small desktop icons, will turn into black boxes. Running 800x600x16, and 1024x768. Happens on any machine with V3 in it.
Since you never had 3dfx trouble, hopefully you can help!
90 fps is pretty good! I think you have selected a great motherboard in the ASUS A7V running the KT133 chipset from VIA. These chipsets have run very well on the Radeon graphics cards under Quake 3 and would probably smoke in Quake 2.
To see if this would be a good choice, I've created a link for you so that you can see what other ASUS A7V users have found about coupling these two product together.
Beyond framerate, you can see the other comments about happy Radeon campers
Sorry RobsTV, can't help you with your problems, never owned anything later that a VooDoo2. And while I do agree that 90 FPS is "pretty good" PeAK, how come a setup that was 350Mhz slower in CPU speed, and had an inferior video card ran 15 to 20 FPS faster? But my main issue is why does my system flake out and run so choppy for no appearent reason? Oh yeah and i just remembered, before I upgraded to Win ME, about 1/2 the time when I would start Q2 it would crash the system. This only happened after I "upgraded" to the TnT2. It has happened a couple of times in Win Me and Win reported a failure in the video driver. With that all I had to do was reboot, when it would crash in Win 98 I had to hit the dreaded reset button...lol Anyway, has anyone else had problems like this? Maybe I need to clean out all my vid drivers completely and then do a fresh install. What is the best way to do this?
Wow, Rob. My Voodoo 3 plays Half life just fine. I can use OpenGL, the 3dfx miniGL or the Wicked3D miniGL. I played though that game like 3 times with my Voodoo3 (3dfx mini). If you are using the 3dfx miniGL, it should be version 1.48. HL ships with an old one that was meant for Voodoo2 cards. I had the demo version of NFSPU. I never saw that problem, but never really looked for it either. I cant emember if I ever waited 10-20 seconds. Never seen the desktop isssue you have either. Had my V3 3000 for over a year before I moved to the Radeon. Every game I had worked great with it. The only "tweaks" that I had to do would be installing miniGL for Quake 2 and Half-Life. Everything else, just install the game and go. I still have two of these cards (a V3 2K and a V3 3K) in my kids PC's. They work perfectly also.
I had a voodoo3, it played half-life perfectly with mini/gl. checkout some these site for info:
http://www.voodoosource.net/vsnet/index.html
http://www.3dspotlight.com/tweaking.shtml
http://www.voodoolinks.net/
http://www.voodoo.dk/
http://www.tweak3d.net/tweak/
http://www.3dfxliveson.freeuk.com/
http://www.omegacorner.com/
http://www.x3dfx.com/
http://www.techextreme.com/links.shtml
http://www.hardocp.com/
http://www.voodoosource.net/vsnet/index.html
http://www.3dspotlight.com/tweaking.shtml
http://www.voodoolinks.net/
http://www.voodoo.dk/
http://www.tweak3d.net/tweak/
http://www.3dfxliveson.freeuk.com/
http://www.omegacorner.com/
http://www.x3dfx.com/
http://www.techextreme.com/links.shtml
http://www.hardocp.com/
Yep, my old patched halflife played fine when I had it in my machine months ago with V3 3k. Of course when I had the card, I debugged it, and tested many drivers and combinations to get the most compatable results. Now card is in another machine, latest updates, patches, and drivers. Just got the new Platinum Halflife version(files dated Oct 2000), which includes latest version of updates, (v43/1.1.0.4). I think it is a problem with the new V3 drivers. When I was using card, I never could get it to work correctly unless I had old original shipping drivers from April '99 installed. I figured by now, and after all the once a month driver releases, 3dfx would have made a decent working driver.
Why I brought it up was because the Half-Life problems occured on 2 different machines, at the same time, with all the latest stuff, and I keep hearing how I am the only one with 3dfx problems, and no one else has any, so I figured here you go. 2 different machines, same problem at same time, so it must be duplicated by everyone else, right? Also NFSPU was messed up with the 3k, so I thought others have seen this as well. New stuff, new crop of problems Guess not. Must be I have the only 2 defective cards that 3dfx ever made. And no, it's not the games, as they all work perfectly with the GeForce2 GTS card in my machine.
EDIT:
Just checked out the Half-Life forum at Sierra, and I'm in luck!
Others are getting the same lockup when hitting escape key with V3 cards, so it's not just me.... You guys sure you actually have a V3?? Perhaps it is because I do not overclock the V3 or have any additional cooling?
Why I brought it up was because the Half-Life problems occured on 2 different machines, at the same time, with all the latest stuff, and I keep hearing how I am the only one with 3dfx problems, and no one else has any, so I figured here you go. 2 different machines, same problem at same time, so it must be duplicated by everyone else, right? Also NFSPU was messed up with the 3k, so I thought others have seen this as well. New stuff, new crop of problems Guess not. Must be I have the only 2 defective cards that 3dfx ever made. And no, it's not the games, as they all work perfectly with the GeForce2 GTS card in my machine.
EDIT:
Just checked out the Half-Life forum at Sierra, and I'm in luck!
Others are getting the same lockup when hitting escape key with V3 cards, so it's not just me.... You guys sure you actually have a V3?? Perhaps it is because I do not overclock the V3 or have any additional cooling?
I haven't played HL for awhile now. I dont remember what V3 driver version I was using then. It wasn't what is out now. Did you try the WickedGL? Give it a shot (its free). I do remember a tweak for that slooooow menu animation. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Half-Life\Settings, and change CPUMHZ to "1".
BFG10K
Lifer
- Aug 14, 2000
- 22,709
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sodcha0s:
Apparently a clean install of Windows is necessary in most cases before switching to nVidia after being with 3dfx.
RobsTV: (regarding Halflife)
Both 3dfx machines failed OpenGL, until I copied miniGL from gldrv folder to halflife root.
Hmm, that's odd. I ran the very first version of Halflife (ie unpatched) and both the MiniGL and Default OpenGL settings worked fine. Are you having problems with any other OpenGL games?
But now, when ending game on either 3dfx machine by hitting escape, system locks solid.
Well when using "Default OpenGL" in Halflife the menu occasionally did exhibit some minor artifacts, but it never locked up. But again, this is with the orginal Halflife so it might have been a problem with game which has since been fixed.
Last off, if the V3 card's system is not rebooted for a couple days, or after some gaming, the maximize/minimize, and other small desktop icons, will turn into black boxes
Nope, I've never seen that before. The only similar thing I've seen is with some early beta versions of 3dfx's drivers made some icons look a bit funny after extended system use. A quick restart fixed that problem. But like I said, those were with very early beta drivers.
Edit: Oldfart, it looks like all of the UBB tags are broken. My smilies and <B> tags aren't working.
Apparently a clean install of Windows is necessary in most cases before switching to nVidia after being with 3dfx.
RobsTV: (regarding Halflife)
Both 3dfx machines failed OpenGL, until I copied miniGL from gldrv folder to halflife root.
Hmm, that's odd. I ran the very first version of Halflife (ie unpatched) and both the MiniGL and Default OpenGL settings worked fine. Are you having problems with any other OpenGL games?
But now, when ending game on either 3dfx machine by hitting escape, system locks solid.
Well when using "Default OpenGL" in Halflife the menu occasionally did exhibit some minor artifacts, but it never locked up. But again, this is with the orginal Halflife so it might have been a problem with game which has since been fixed.
Last off, if the V3 card's system is not rebooted for a couple days, or after some gaming, the maximize/minimize, and other small desktop icons, will turn into black boxes
Nope, I've never seen that before. The only similar thing I've seen is with some early beta versions of 3dfx's drivers made some icons look a bit funny after extended system use. A quick restart fixed that problem. But like I said, those were with very early beta drivers.
Edit: Oldfart, it looks like all of the UBB tags are broken. My smilies and <B> tags aren't working.
BFG10K
Yes, a clean install of Windows was the only way I gained stabilty after switching from V3 to nVidia. Must be some lingering 3dfx and windows shared files that registry editing can not remove. Anyway, all was well after formating and fresh install.
It appears as though the 3dfx minigl problem only happens with the newest patch v43/1.1.0.4, or newest version, Platinum. In the Sierra Half-Life website forum section, and other Half-Life sites, this is becoming more well known, and they say to edit the file drvmap.txt, but I found that simply copying the 3dfxgl file to the root and Valve folder of Half-Life corrected the "not compatable" OpenGL error. Still crashes on Esc, but it is not just the V3, as V5 owners are now reporting the same thing with the newest V5 drivers.
As to the dark boxes instead of "_" and "X", I heard of problems before with some V3 drivers and I.E., that sounded similar. But, I always try using the latest versions of everything here. Black boxes occured with 80% of the 3dfx drivers, but never with the original drivers, which was what I usually went back to when I had the card.
EDIT:
As usual to what I did before, I'll just ignore the problem. It's easy to do that now, as the V3 3k is in wifes PC, and the son's V3 2k is gone with him now that the holidays are over. I'm not gonna bother with the 3dfx cards unless I have too.
Yes, a clean install of Windows was the only way I gained stabilty after switching from V3 to nVidia. Must be some lingering 3dfx and windows shared files that registry editing can not remove. Anyway, all was well after formating and fresh install.
It appears as though the 3dfx minigl problem only happens with the newest patch v43/1.1.0.4, or newest version, Platinum. In the Sierra Half-Life website forum section, and other Half-Life sites, this is becoming more well known, and they say to edit the file drvmap.txt, but I found that simply copying the 3dfxgl file to the root and Valve folder of Half-Life corrected the "not compatable" OpenGL error. Still crashes on Esc, but it is not just the V3, as V5 owners are now reporting the same thing with the newest V5 drivers.
As to the dark boxes instead of "_" and "X", I heard of problems before with some V3 drivers and I.E., that sounded similar. But, I always try using the latest versions of everything here. Black boxes occured with 80% of the 3dfx drivers, but never with the original drivers, which was what I usually went back to when I had the card.
EDIT:
As usual to what I did before, I'll just ignore the problem. It's easy to do that now, as the V3 3k is in wifes PC, and the son's V3 2k is gone with him now that the holidays are over. I'm not gonna bother with the 3dfx cards unless I have too.
Try the Wicked3D and lets us know if it fixes it. I put HL on a friends PC awhile ago (V3 card). It was the 1104 version with the latest V3 drivers and WickedGL. Never saw any crashes. His system is an MMX 233 with 64 meg ram, so it pretty much sucked, but it worked with no problems.
BFG10K
Lifer
- Aug 14, 2000
- 22,709
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Ahhh, it looks like the tags are working again, and we know have a cool new menu next to each of the threads. 
RobsTV:
Yes, a clean install of Windows was the only way I gained stabilty after switching from V3 to nVidia. Must be some lingering 3dfx and windows shared files that registry editing can not remove.
Yeah, that is rather odd. You'd think that after a full sweep of the registry and HD you'd get everything. There must be some other entry(ies) there that don't contain the words "3dfx", "glide" or "voodoo".
It appears as though the 3dfx minigl problem only happens with the newest patch v43/1.1.0.4, or newest version, Platinum.
In all honesty I'd recommend you use the "Default OpenGL" setting in all OpenGL games and ignore WickedGL and MiniGL. 3dfx's OpenGL driver is a little slow but it's very compatible.
but I found that simply copying the 3dfxgl file to the root and Valve folder of Half-Life corrected the "not compatable" OpenGL error.
Do you mean "3dfxOGL.DLL"? That's the OpenGL ICD. If that's what you're using, it's bizarre that you actually have to copy it over to the game folder. Your OpenGL games should be detecting the driver normally.
Does Quake 3 work OK with the system OpenGL ICD in your system?
What about GLQuake?
I'm not gonna bother with the 3dfx cards unless I have too.
That is a shame. I've found the Voodoo3 to be one of the best boards I've ever used.
RobsTV:
Yes, a clean install of Windows was the only way I gained stabilty after switching from V3 to nVidia. Must be some lingering 3dfx and windows shared files that registry editing can not remove.
Yeah, that is rather odd. You'd think that after a full sweep of the registry and HD you'd get everything. There must be some other entry(ies) there that don't contain the words "3dfx", "glide" or "voodoo".
It appears as though the 3dfx minigl problem only happens with the newest patch v43/1.1.0.4, or newest version, Platinum.
In all honesty I'd recommend you use the "Default OpenGL" setting in all OpenGL games and ignore WickedGL and MiniGL. 3dfx's OpenGL driver is a little slow but it's very compatible.
but I found that simply copying the 3dfxgl file to the root and Valve folder of Half-Life corrected the "not compatable" OpenGL error.
Do you mean "3dfxOGL.DLL"? That's the OpenGL ICD. If that's what you're using, it's bizarre that you actually have to copy it over to the game folder. Your OpenGL games should be detecting the driver normally.
Does Quake 3 work OK with the system OpenGL ICD in your system?
What about GLQuake?
I'm not gonna bother with the 3dfx cards unless I have too.
That is a shame. I've found the Voodoo3 to be one of the best boards I've ever used.
BFG10K:
I have installed Windows Me from scratch since I switched to the TnT2 Ultra card. I bought it when I was still running Win98 and had a lot of problems until I did a complete sweep of Win directory and the registry to remove all 3dfx files and reg. keys. However, I still had the system freeze problems occasionally. What I am wondering is since I have upgraded the nvidia drivers several times, is if I need to just clean out all the nvidia stuff and re-install from scratch. Do you think that will help? And I still have this perfomance issue, I think it should easily smoke my old v2 setup, don't you?
I have installed Windows Me from scratch since I switched to the TnT2 Ultra card. I bought it when I was still running Win98 and had a lot of problems until I did a complete sweep of Win directory and the registry to remove all 3dfx files and reg. keys. However, I still had the system freeze problems occasionally. What I am wondering is since I have upgraded the nvidia drivers several times, is if I need to just clean out all the nvidia stuff and re-install from scratch. Do you think that will help? And I still have this perfomance issue, I think it should easily smoke my old v2 setup, don't you?
BFG10K
Lifer
- Aug 14, 2000
- 22,709
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Oh sorry sodcha0s. I've been so busy talking to RobsTV I've been ignoring you. My apologies.
I have installed Windows Me from scratch since I switched to the TnT2 Ultra card.
OK, so your TNT2 Ultra is running in a fresh Windows ME system. That's good.
However, I still had the system freeze problems occasionally.
Well nVidia's drivers do have a lot stability issues. Supposedly the official drivers (6.34 I think) have less problems. You can try those I guess. Also you should note that Win ME is a bit slower in games than Windows 98SE.
What I am wondering is since I have upgraded the nvidia drivers several times, is if I need to just clean out all the nvidia stuff and re-install from scratch.
As long as you properly removed the old drivers before installing the newer ones, you should be OK.
Do you think that will help?
Well if you've tried everything else a fresh install might help.
And I still have this perfomance issue, I think it should easily smoke my old v2 setup, don't you?
Yes, it should be faster than a V2. Again, if you've tried everything else a clean install of Windows will likely fix the performance issue you have as well as the stability problems you experience.
Do you have any other OpenGL games to compare framerates? Try GLQuake, Quake 3 or Unreal/UT in OpenGL mode.
Check your OpenGL settings in your driver control panel. You've got quite a powerful CPU so there's a small chance you might be video card limited even at 640 x 480 if you've somehow set your image quality settings too high. Make sure you have all of the options set to the fastest settings rather than the highest image quality, and make sure FSAA is off (if you have that setting).
I have installed Windows Me from scratch since I switched to the TnT2 Ultra card.
OK, so your TNT2 Ultra is running in a fresh Windows ME system. That's good.
However, I still had the system freeze problems occasionally.
Well nVidia's drivers do have a lot stability issues. Supposedly the official drivers (6.34 I think) have less problems. You can try those I guess. Also you should note that Win ME is a bit slower in games than Windows 98SE.
What I am wondering is since I have upgraded the nvidia drivers several times, is if I need to just clean out all the nvidia stuff and re-install from scratch.
As long as you properly removed the old drivers before installing the newer ones, you should be OK.
Do you think that will help?
Well if you've tried everything else a fresh install might help.
And I still have this perfomance issue, I think it should easily smoke my old v2 setup, don't you?
Yes, it should be faster than a V2. Again, if you've tried everything else a clean install of Windows will likely fix the performance issue you have as well as the stability problems you experience.
Do you have any other OpenGL games to compare framerates? Try GLQuake, Quake 3 or Unreal/UT in OpenGL mode.
Check your OpenGL settings in your driver control panel. You've got quite a powerful CPU so there's a small chance you might be video card limited even at 640 x 480 if you've somehow set your image quality settings too high. Make sure you have all of the options set to the fastest settings rather than the highest image quality, and make sure FSAA is off (if you have that setting).
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