Tribes 2 - Unplayable on a V5 w/AMD 1.33, 512 memory??

[UILanMan]

I bought Tribes 2 immediately when it came out, and to be quite honest, I've been very disappointed with the performance on a V5. Here's my system:

AMD Tbird 1.33 (running at 50 degrees C)
Asus A7V133 (latest BIOD upd.)
512mb PC133 memory
IBM 45g ATA100/7200rpm
Voodoo5 5500 AGP (w/latest Win2k drivers)
Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer
Linksys 10/100

I'm running Windows 2000, SP1, and I've installed the 4 in 1 drivers, registry fix and Win2k patch for the AGP problem, and a fresh install of DX8. I patched Tribes2 before I played - and have never had any problems with the game functioning outside of very VERY bad video support.

In the game menu, just like in the old Tribes, as you move your mouse cursor around, the graphics of whatever you're highlighting will get messed up.. so operating the menu system is horrible. Then as you play the game, it gets worse - you get jagged effects (mostly on water, and some buildings) - Here's an example. And that's not even close to how bad it's gotten.

Then the worst thing of all.. we're on a cable modem, so I average about a 30-90ms ping on most servers.. but no matter what game I join... as the map starts, and you look close to a building, HUGE chunk. I mean, as I'm scrolling around I may be lucky if I get 2 fps as I've moving past a building (in my view). Then as soon as the building is behind me, BAM... very quick. What the heck is going on?! I've played Serious Sam, Quake3, Counter Strike, and none of these have this issue. I've read reports of some other V5 owners seeing some of the same problems.. have any of you? My roommate has a 1ghz tbird, less memory, slower HD, but has a GeForce2 - it's unbelieveable on his system. And the game does *not* allow me the option of choosing D3D - only available choice is OpenGL. Please tell me I'm not alone!

 

[Wag]

Well, Dynamix says 3dfx users should use D3D so there's your problem.

 

[UILanMan]

Seriously? Hmmm.. then I don't know what's up, because when I drop down the list to choose what mode, OpenGL is the only option. And I breifly remember seeing someone else have that problem too.. guess I'll do some more digging.

 

[Smith]

Here is the answer from: TribalWarfare

Q: I have a Voodoo 3Dfx card and I'm getting some weird looking graphics, any help available?

A: You may get better results if you use Direct3D instead of OpenGL on 3dfx cards. There's a few tricks to getting this working:

1)Make sure you are using DirectX 8a, which is available at the Microsoft Site.
2)Run Tribes 2 and make a few changes in your game config, then close the game. This will make Tribes 2 generate some default folders we need to change.
3)Open up GameData\Prefs\ClientPrefs.cs. You can use Notepad to do this.
4)Near the bottom, look for this line: $pref::Video::allowD3D = "0";
5)) Change that "0" to a "1". So the line looks like this:
$pref::Video::allowD3D = "1";
That should allow you to select Direct3D from within the game's Graphics settings. If that still doesn't work, try setting $pref::Video:referOpenGL to "0" in that same file.

Good luck !

 

[doog519]

I feel your pain ! I ended up getting rid of my voodoo 3 card for a GeForce2 MX 64 (Quick fix)$105.00 local putor shop.
My fps went from 10-30 to about 30-70, 110 inside building.The 30 is when I am doing hard fighting.I have everything maxed except I am still running 16 bit I didn't see much differnce between the 32 bit and 16.I did gain some fps by switching to 16 bit. It's makes me mad because T1 was a voodoo game! They sure screwed alot of people.

AMD Athlon T-bird 1000mhz
ASUS A7V
Crucial 256MB CAS2 pc133
IBM Deskstar 75GXP 30GB
GeForce 2MX 64 meg
Phillips AE
Cambridge SoundWorks 5.1
10 x 8 x 32 Plextor CDR

 

[UILanMan]

Thank you guys so much!! That was driving me nuts! I'm gonna try that first thing when I get home Smith - that rocks! And Doog, I was so close to doing the same thing.. upgrading my vid card. I know lots of other people have been doing the same thing - I just can't afford it right now (still feeling the effects of that Iiyama Visionmaster Pro 510 I got 2 months back.. owww). That helps tons. Thanks again!

 

[Durron]

It's a known issue with Tribes 2, any and all Voodoo cards suck bigtime running it. Most people in the old Tribes1 community are now forced to upgrade to Geforce based cards just to be competitive. Which really sucks cause in Tribes 1, if you wanted smooth gameplay you had to have a Voodoo based card =/

Gotta love it.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

So what did you expect? Them to optimise for Glide and only sell to people with obsolete video cards?

Glide = 3dfx (dead, old tech)

D3d = everyone else, inc. new cutting edge tech