Please help a new Voodoo 5 owner! Slow frame rates in Win2K.

[BlvdKing]

I bought a Voodoo 5 5500 AGP on the same day 3Dfx got bought by NVidia. I need to know why my frame rates are so bad. Here's the specs:
TBird 800 (7*114) on an Irongate K7Pro
Voodoo 5 5500 stock speed

Quake 3 settings:
Details max
Color and texture 32bit
*Everything on*
set r_ext_compress_textures 1

Driver settings 1.01.beta for Win2000:
3D Filter: on
Alpha blend: auto
Legacy texture compression: off
LOD: -1
Max Buffered frames: 1 pend buffer
Mip Mapping: on
Forced 32bit rendering
Triple Buffering: enabled
***** The driver says that the card is a Voodoo Series. I have heard there is a problem with this.

These tests are with FSAA off:
Timedemo 1
1024*768: 35 fps
800*600: 47.2 fps

My GeForce MX got 72 fps (TC on, 1024*768) and 102 fps (800*600 TC on) when overclocked to 220c/210m! The Voodoo 5 5500 has get better frame rates than I am getting. It looks like I am only using one of the chips to render the frames. It also looks like I am not using 32bit colored textures - the fog level in Q3A has alot of banding. I have looked at some of the tweaking articles on other websites and nothing has helped. Do I need to do a clean reinstall of Win2K?
Thanks in advance!
BlvdKing

 

[RoboTECH]

first off, go here:

NTCompatible 3dfx FAQ

2nd a few hints about your driver settings:

1)set your LOD @ -0.5 or -0.25 (-1.0 is usually for FSAA)
2)turn off "forced 32-bit rendering". THat's only for a 32-bit framebuffer under glide
3) no problem with "voodoo series", that was only the original
4) Use the latest 1.04 driver with DX8 installed, although hell if I know where you can find it, the damn link is broken presently, and I have no idea if it'll come back up

 

[BlvdKing]

Thanks Robo-
I thought I downloaded the latest betas for Win2K from 3Dfxgamers.com. What are the latest drivers for Win2K? I could only find 1.01 betas at 3Dfxgamers.com.
Also, the ntcompatible link is down. Is there another site with a similar FAQ?
3Dfxgamers.com is also giving me troubles.
Thanks again

 

[BlvdKing]

A couple other things: I don't have an '3Dfx information' tab in the Display properties and when I try to run the 3Dfx overclock program (which will bring up the overclock tab in the display properties it says that I don't have 3Dfx tools installed when I clearly do. Will performance be less under Win2K than under Win9X (ME)?
Thanks again.
-BlvdKing


EDIT: ROBO, I just found the 1.04's on 3Dfx gamers.com. I will try them out when I get home tonight. Thanks again

 

[BFG10K]

BlvdKing:

Don't use triple buffering! That setting is likely causing all of your slowdowns. It's only faster if the game you play doesn't use many textures. For a texture-hungry game like Quake 3, it will slow you down a *lot*.

Also make sure you enable "refresh optimisation" and set "depth precision" to "faster" or "fastest".

3dfxgamers is working just fine now so download all of the drivers you think you'll ever need because I don't know how long they'll stay up there. Also make sure you download the beta 1.04.01 drivers as well because they have preliminary support for HSR.

 

[RoboTECH]

yeah, forgot about those basics

<slaps self>

I downloaded all the drivers I could today

got everything for V2, V3 and V5, Win2k and w98, heh.....just in case.

 

[BFG10K]

Win2k

Oh crap! I forgot about the Windows 2000 drivers. I'm off to download them now.

 

[BlvdKing]

Yeah, I just download all of them too. I will probably burn them to a cd today.

 

[BFG10K]

I've just finished downloading the Windows 2000 V3 and V4/V5 drivers.

I will probably burn them to a cd today.

Good idea. I'm keeping them on my HD because they're only ~8 MB each and I have plenty of space.

 

[BlvdKing]

BFG10K,
I installed the newest Win2K drivers (1.04.00) and turned off the settings that may have been holding me back, and I get very playable framerates in Q3A now. I estimate I get on average of 50fps with all settings cranked (1024*768). Very admirable for a card with such excellent visuals! I became emotional when I saw the sky in Q3A wasn't blocky and textures weren't bleeding all over like on the MX.

Two problems:

1) How do I enable Refresh Optimization? I don't see a tab for it in the Display Properties.

2) Why is the fog level in Q3A (the orange level) so banded? I can tell the V5 is in 32 bit color, but on the GeForce MX the level was crystal clear with no evidence of banding!

Also, I upgraded Q3A to 1.27 and now I can't run timedemos. How do I run timedemos with the newest point release?

Thanks all.

 

[BlvdKing]

BTW RoboTECH,
what was that 'Windows 2000 drivers' I downloaded from the FAQ site? Does it help?
Thanks

 

[RoboTECH]

Blvd, those are &quot;hacked&quot; drivers

The guy who runs the site hacked those together, and they give quite a nice framerate increase

 

[BFG10K]

BlvdKing:

How do I enable Refresh Optimization? I don't see a tab for it in the Display Properties.

I think it's in the &quot;3dfx Advanced Features&quot; tab under OpenGL/Glide. I'm not sure because I have a V3 and I don't have that setting.

Why is the fog level in Q3A (the orange level) so banded? I can tell the V5 is in 32 bit color, but on the GeForce MX the level was crystal clear with no evidence of banding!

It shouldn't be banded. Even with 16 bit colour the banding should be noticeably reduced because of 3dfx's 22 bit post filter. With 32 bit colour it should be totally smooth. Check the Quake 3 settings and make sure both colour options are set to 32 bit, not default or 16 bit.

Also, I upgraded Q3A to 1.27 and now I can't run timedemos. How do I run timedemos with the newest point release?

Go back to 1.17. Trust me, it's much better.