voodoos and opengl

[sockless]

I'm building a new system and also replacing my son's video card. I haven't followed the video scene much lately and would like to know if 3dfx's opengl icd is a true icd, like nvidia's, will it run anything opengl,screen savers especially? I'm looking at the voodoo 5500 for myself and/or the 3000(for my son). All the reviews I've read have said nothing about the icd other than running some games. Any help and comments would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

[BenSkywalker]

The V5 does have a full OpenGL ICD, but comparing it to nVidia's is a bit of a stretch

If you are worried about screensavers and the like, the V5 should handle that perfectly fine. The only real problems with their OpenGL support is in pro applications, and even then they are mainly performance issues.

 

[JACKHAMMER]

I run 3ds max w/ a v5. The Icd does has some bugs but is no less buggy than the unified one from nvidia. The v5 can do anything the nvidia can do

 

[RoboTECH]

yeah, essentially, the 5500 can do anything OpenGL

but it won't do it as fast as a GTS.

their ICD isn't a true "to-the-metal" ICD, but it gets the job done quite well. as ben said, you won't get breathtaking speed in professional OGL applications, but in games and screensavers and the like, the 5500 will do wonderfully

 

[BFG10K]

The OpenGL ICD works fine but 3dfx need to tweak it a bit more so that performance in CPU limited situations increases.

 

[BoberFett]

I was just about to ask this question, good thing I searched. I hate looking like a newbie.

Anyway, you say a full ICD, does that include windowed 3D? With my V3 windowed 3D has always been limited to software rendering, and from what I can figure it's that lack of a full OpenGL ICD, and incomplete D3D implementation. So Ben and others, are you saying that a V5 will do windowed 3D properly?

 

[Deeko]

Hmm...I THINK I've done that before on my V5...not positive though, so don't hold me to that At least I know I've had windowed glide/D3D, both from UT.

 

[sockless]

BoberFett- Are you running the latest drivers for your v3, because if you look at the files it says opengl icd, and if you are then I guess that rules out getting a v3 for my son's computer and settling for a nvidia product(trying to keep the price down, 2 cards can get expensive)for a fic 503+ mb.

 

[BFG10K]

At least I know I've had windowed glide/D3D, both from UT.

I don't think the Voodoo3 supports 3D acceleration in windowed mode. I'm not sure about the V4/V5 though.

 

[BoberFett]

I'll mess around with it some more, to see if I can figure out if the V3 does in fact support windowed 3D. But I'm not hopeful.

Games I play full screen anyway, so that's not an issue. But I noticed in one of those $50 home design programs that it refuses to use hardware acceleration, and Lego Creator refuses to as well. Both of those programs run in software mode on my V3, but my wife's old TNT card handles them just fine and runs them faster. So I know the programs work.

I just installed 1.07 or whatever the latest drivers were last night. I'll let you know the result.

 

[RobsTV]

Another example of how well 3dfx does OpenGL is the just released demo of Nascar 4. The Sierra Nascar 2, 3, and Truck series, were one of the best for Glide, and they had glide patches early on, and built-in with later versions. All of the Sierra products featured glide as the API of choice. That has now changed. With Nascar 4, no Glide support. O.K., then what else? Sierra recommends OpenGL for the best visuals and speed, unless you have a 3dfx card. The 3dfx card's OpenGL won't cut it in this game, so they recommend 3dfx owners use D3D.