Wow, V4-4500s out in CrapUSAs

[BurntKooshie]

[L]http://www.viahardware.com/v445004.htm[/L]

For the same price, if gaming was my thing, I'd go with the mx. If 2d was my thing (Nvidia's apparently poorer [i've not seen it personally, so i can't say from experience] 2d...), then between the two, i'd go for the V4. But then again, if 2d was my thing, I'd have a G400max....

The V4 gets beaten, except in unreal...where it wins by less than 3 percent.

Of course, I would have made the benchmarks more exhaustive...but if I were into gaming on a budget, i know which one would go into my system. Mx. But, to each their own...

 

[BFG10K]

The fact that the GF2 MX has more features and is faster and cheaper than the V4 makes the Voodoo a poor deal.

 

[basara318]

I just bought a voodoo 5 and am a happy camper

 

[BenSkywalker]

<< Because, since there's no significant software that is optimized for T&amp;L, it's pretty much a non-issue for me. >>



That should read no significant games that you care for that rely on it significantly. There is plenty of software, 3DSM, Maya, Lightwave etc., that is designed from the ground up to utilize hardware T&amp;L.

For games there are also many, MDK2, Q1-3, F1 WGP '99, HM FAKK2, MM2, TD6 and many more that run faster with hardware T&amp;L and at least one, Evolva, that you can't run with the highest quality settings without it. Perhaps performance and/or vastly superior visual quality aren't that important to you

 

[Wingznut]

Yes, you are correct. I am, of course, speaking as to my personal preference.

&quot;Perhaps performance and/or vastly superior visual quality aren't that important to you&quot;

Those are extremely important to me. And along with stablility and compatibility, the main qualities I look for in a video card. Which is exactly why I chose a V5-5500. V5's FSAA rocks. Period. Running games at above acceptable levels is not something I have a problem with. I'm not a benchmark freak, so whether Q3 gets 65fps instead of 80fps, is not an issue to me. It's all about whether or not I can play the games I want at acceptable levels.

I'll say it again. The GTS line of cards are excellent products. It's just that they don't offer me anything the V5 doesn't. While the V5 offers me more than nVidia's cards. It's really quite simple.

 

[Hardware]

The major point is the V4500 and V5500 are just simple too late!
If the GTS2U come out q2/2002 I would say this too &quot;simple too late&quot;
I gfx business all is about timing your great card can be a lame duck after one year
Thats the main reason the G450 is crap its just too late to gome out with another g400 style card

 

[Wingznut]

That is such a &quot;cop-out&quot;, Hardware.

What specificially is too late about my V5? I can run all the games I'd like. I can run them all at well-above acceptable frame rates/image quality. Compatibility is 100%, stability is 100%.

Had the V5 been released six months earlier, it would've been ahead of it's time. Now, it's just at the right time.

You also mentioned earlier that 3dfx has &quot;mediocre drivers&quot;. What's mediocre about them? Maybe you meant to say &quot;boring&quot;, because they just work. No worries about if something doesn't work with the latest drivers. I've seen plenty of times where people have to use an earlier nVidia driver release, because the latest drives don't work with a particular app. There's absolutely no compatibility or stability problems with 3dfx's videocard drivers. Maybe that's just too boring for you.

I guess I like mediocre drivers.

 

[pen^2]

OneENG: i do agree v3's were very underrated... in fact it was a very decent card, pretty much toe to toe with tnt2u's. they both o'ced pretty well and in most cases were trouble free (altho v3 was a tad better in terms of compatibility) but you sayin it looks better than nvidia cards in 16bit? i think its quite arguable... maybe that 22bit stuff filters out some of the dithering effects; however the v3, unlike the v5 had noticably blurry and washed out look, which had nothing to do with gamma level and lod bios nor there was a way to remedy those.

wingnut PEZ: i ve seen people goin a bit overboard bashin 3dfx but i dont think this is one of those threads. you should take into account v5 line cards <b>reportedly</b> dont overclock as much and they dont like overclocked FSB's. i aint makin no claims here since i never owned a v5 based card. as for being late to the market, remember the rendition v2200. the card had phenomenal image quality for the time and was the first card to beat voodoo1 in terms of speed by a significant margin. the only problem - it was waaaaaaaaaaaay too late

 

[Goi]

Hey, I had one of those V2x00s, a Diamond Stealth 2 S220 with a Rendition V2100. I don't think it was waaay too late. It was released at the time where the original Voodoo, Riva 128 and original PowerVR were cutting edge 3D, and it was very competitive with all of them. Of course, soon afterwards the Voodoo2 was released and totally killed everything else.

 

[Fisher999]

GOI: I'm sorry to have to &quot;enhance&quot; your comments about the Rendition V2x00 series but it WAS LATE!!!
It was released right around the time that the Voodoo II was released. I still have Boot Magazine's March 1998 issue in which the card I had just purchased, the Hercules Thriller 3D (with Rendition's Verite 2200 chipset and 8 MB SGRAM) was pitted against Diamond Monster II (with 3dfx Voodoo II chipset), the STB Velocity 128 (a 4 MB card with nVidia's Riva 128 chipset), a card with the Permedia 2 chipset, a card with the PowerVR chipset (probably one of Videologic's cards) and a card using whatever dismal chipset ATI had out at the time, I think it was the Rage+ (but I'd have to pull out the article to double check). The article was divided into THREE areas: Performance ( fps on benchmark games of the period), Visual Quality and Features. The ONLY areas where the Rendition Verite beat the competition was in VISUAL QUALITY (just slightly above the Voodoo II) and in Features. In fps, it got it's butt kicked by Voodoo II and Riva 128 in almost EVERY benchmark by significant margins. It DID, most of the time, distance itself somewhat from the Permedia 2, PowerVR and the ATI card.

I STILL have the Hercules Thriller 3D in a backup system and I STILL find the 2D image quality acceptable, and as you point out, respectable 3D image quality running apps of it's &quot;period&quot;.

 

[Plester]

three cheers for the old Thriller 3D, it was a little gem.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

Here in Canada a voodoo 5 5500 cost about 500$$$ and most people who buy retail have hewlet packard or compaq crap computers. Since they only have pci slots they buy mostly v3 pci versions.Now they have a new reasonable pci vid card to buy a v4 4500.