01

I reported two days ago that NVIDIA has changes the multitexturing (MT) implementation in the OpenGL part of the v1.73 drivers. The result: Quake2 benchmarks with TNT2 do not show the real performance. The values are lower as they could be (although they are a lot faster as TNT with MT). The same problem exists with Kingpin and other games based on the Q2 Engine. So be carefull watching TNT2 scores of these games. They will change in future! (after a patch is available). The use of drivers based on v1.2X does´nt help. Tests show that these drivers can´t use the high fill-rates of the TNT2. So we have to wait a bit until we can see the real Q2 performance of the TNT2!
Interesting here: You can´t see such things in Unreal v2.24... this let´s me speculate if Unreal OpenGL is using MT at all... is this the answer to the performance problem?!?

Additional questionmarks are behind values of Turok2 and Expendable. The results vary with the monitor rehresh rate - even with V-Sync OFF !! A explanation could be the tripple buffering capabilities of these games. It seems the driver ignores the VSYNC setting here. But why is 3DMARK99 MAX not influenced by this?
An additional issue in Turok2 is the high amount of harddisk acces during the benchmark which influences the values. So I think Expendable and Turok2 are not very suitable for performance testing of graphic cards.

id´s Brian Hook wrote a bit about Quake3 and graphic cards in his .plan-file:

Ugh, the e-mails have begun..."how will accelerator XYZ work with Q3TEST?"

Here's a quick run down of accelerators we have tested and that we find acceptable or better for Quake3, assuming the most up to date drivers are installed (note: up to date drivers for nearly all of the following accelerators will be available when Q3TEST is released).

3Dfx Voodoo Graphics
3Dfx Voodoo2
3Dfx Voodoo2 SLI
3Dfx Voodoo3*
3Dfx Voodoo Rush (tested out of house, but supposedly stable)
3Dfx Voodoo Banshee
3DLabs Permedia 2 (ugly, some serious visual artifacts)
ATI Rage Pro (4MB and 8MB)
ATI Rage128*!&
Intel i740
Matrox G200 &
NVidia Riva128
NVidia RivaTNT*!&
NVidia RivaTNT2*!&
Rendition V2x00 (not very fast, but it works)
S3 Savage3 &

* high performance
! supports stencil volume shadows
& 32-bit rendering

We have not done significant testing on the following boards simply because they were not undergoing full shipment at the time we were wrapping up Q3TEST:

3DLabs Permedia3 Matrox G400 S3 Savage4

However we do not anticipate any problems with any of the above, since they are newer, faster, and should be real nice.

Note that ALL of the above boards are supported through a complete OpenGL implementation, NOT through minidrivers of any kind. And with the exception of Voodoo Graphics, Voodoo 2, and Voodoo Rush, all of the above accelerators are supported using the standard Win32 OpenGL ICD driver interface (because of limitations in Microsoft's WGL OpenGL specification, 3D-only cards must be supported by direct loading of their DLL instead of using the standard GDI interface).

CPUs that we have tested on and support include:

AMD K6-2 AMD K6-3 AMD K7 Intel Pentium and above

So here's the scoop: if you have a pimped out PIII/500 w/ a RivaTNT2, you're gonna be stoked with a sweet looking game running at a very fast clip. If you have an $800 AMD K6-2 w/ a 4MB ATI Rage Pro, we got you hooked up too, but it'll run slower and not look quite as good. But you'll still be able to play, and I'm not talking "it'll load up, be happy" -- you'll seriously be able to PLAY the game on a $1000 machine. Q3TEST runs fine on a first generation Voodoo Graphics w/ 4MB (remember those?), and it doesn't look half bad either.

Dig this: Intel i740 boards are available at Fry's Electronics for $49.95, which is about what a new game costs. The Intel i740 plays the game VERY well, albeit with 16-bit rendering and some other minor visual artifacts. For $59.95 there were some some white box Riva128 boards, and those play the game at VERY high performance, but look quite a bit worse than the i740. For $99.95 there was the Creative Graphics Blaster w/ RivaTNT, which has to be the best bang/buck ratio in graphics accelerators right now.

So that's three boards under $100 that run the game extremely well, for those of you looking to upgrade on a budget.

If you've bought your desktop machine in the past year, odds are that you will be able to play Q3TEST once you have up to date drivers installed.

Compatibility Issues:

We have seen a lot of problems with some AMD chipsets (specifically, ALI) and also the Intel LX chipset used with a lot of PII/333 machines.

These problems are not specific to Quake3, but are usually problems with the chipset drivers or design. They manifest themselves as just strange system hangs, and it can happen regardless of the brand accelerator installed.

Metabyte became very famous in the last months with its new technology called 'stepsister'. The official called PGC Technology lets you use two or more graphic cards in one system to increase the 3D performance.

Wicked3D to Leave the Hardware Manufacturing Arena

Fremont, California, May 4, 1999; Today, Wicked3D, a division of Metabyte, Inc., announced a change in company direction to shift its focus back to its core competency in software development. The Wicked3D hardware product lines will be discontinued but support for current Wicked3D customers will continue.

"Wicked3D has created a very successful hardware business that resulted in tremendous exposure and brand building," says Steve Gleitsmann, former Director of Worldwide Sales and newly appointed General Manager of Wicked3D. " With our recent developments in graphics technology we have the potential to become a significant force in the industry in a very short period of time. Having said that, we feel that it would be much more beneficial for the industry and for us if we concentrate on doing what we do best - and that is to develop software technology and allow others to bring it to market. It basically came down to a decision about whether we wanted to develop technology exclusively for our own products or concentrate efforts on providing technology on a more global basis. With eighty percent of your staff being highly skilled and innovative software engineers, the decision was clear."

Fans of Wicked3D need not be disappointed, Wicked3D is on a very aggressive path to enable a variety of OEM partners to bring their various technologies to market.

"This is a very exciting time for us here at Wicked3D. Not only will this new direction allow us to concentrate on further enhancements of our technologies, but the consumer will greatly benefit from this change as well." says Kerry Philpott, spokesman for Wicked3D. "The availability of Wicked3D enhanced products will be more readily available to the consumer as we enable other companies to bring it to market. Just look for the 'Powered by Wicked3D' logo on the retail box of our customers products to find our technology inside." Wicked3D will be announcing partnership agreements over the coming weeks.

The Hive reports that ALienware will use Wicked 3D´s PGC technology in future. They plan to use a TNT2 and a Voodoo3 card all together in one system.

JC: You will soon be offering both TNT2 and Voodoo 3 in the same system. What is the technology behind that system?

Gonzalez: Yes, we will. We have the drivers in beta right now and they are working pretty well. The dilemma that hardcore gamers face is that they may want the 32-bit rendering capabilities & 2048 x 2048 texture sizes TNT2 can offer and have the flexibility to play Voodoo Glide based games on a superfast Voodoo III. Unfortunately if you want to have that combination you would have to use a Voodoo I or Voodoo II in the system which is based on older technology. We felt that we always want to offer the latest and greatest product that NVidia and 3Dfx have to offer, so we made a decision to implement a special utility within the display properties along with a switchbox that would enable a TNT2 board and a Voodoo III PCI board in the same system. We want to give the gamer the flexibility of having the best of both worlds. This again shows to the gamer that we are committed to making unique, innovative, and powerful gaming computers

Read the whole interview here. (Source: Rivazone)

I got a lot many mail telling me about poor performance or bad optics with Unreal and the latest patch v2.24. So I want to say a few words how you get average performance in this game. First you should have a new installation of Unreal without older patches. THen install the patch v2.24. TNT drivers must be based on NVIDIA Detonator. This may be the NVIDIA reference drivers v1.09 (or higher) or drivers from your cards manufactorer that are based on these drivers. Take a look into the readme file that comes with your driver if you are not sure.
Check the follwing points in the tweak menu of your drivers or in the registry: (here with NVIDIA reference drivers - may diver with vendor drivers (for example ELSA instead of NVIDIA Corporation)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\NVIDIA Corporation\RIVA TNT\OpenGL
EnableBufferFlipping (1) - set to 0 if you get flicker.
EnableVBlank Wait (0)

After that start Unreal and check Options and then Advanced Options. Chosse OpenGL in the Drivers menu:

Close the window with the X on the top right corner. The resolution can be changed in the Unreal game menu Audio/Video - that´s all. Press Escape to show/hide the menu. You can run a timedemo by using the unreal console (german key "ö" or US-keyboard "~"). Now enter the words "timedemo 1" and close the console with the same key. Now you can see a framecounter in the top left corner that shows you the average framerate of the last castle flyby etc. This does also work in the game itself. You mosztly get higher values in the game itself. Besides of these graphic settings you should have enough system RAM (128MB) and a large windows swap file. Most hangs in the game are caused by harddisk access. More information about Unreal in the Unreal-FAQ at Planetunreal, at GTIs Online or here.

Diamond officaly announced the Viper V770 and Viper V770 ULTRA:

Viper V770 (125/150)

The Viper V770 is a lot of fun to use. Why? What other product can boast of such convincing facts and specifications:

32 MB video memory: higher resolutions and screen refresh rates for 2D and 3D applications
AGP 4x: maximum bandwidth for transmitting, editing, and viewing complex 3D graphics and large textures
32-bit rendering: precise rendering of high-quality 3D objects
HIgh-res textures: Viper V770 processes textures up to 2048x2048 bit format for incredibly realistic viewing
Maximum rendering power in this class: also suitable for CAD/CAM and animation with DirectX™ or OpenGL™
AMD-K6 and Pentium III support: optimized for more performance thanks to the new CPU generation

Multimedia is the talk of the town - Viper V770 brings it home to you. The SoftDVD Decoder, included as standard, offers high-quality DVD playback on your computer. Via the optional TV-out, you can experience this quality together with friends or family on the big TV screen.

Viper V770 ULTRA (150/183)

Diamond has again upped the ante in the performance sweepstakes, to the delight of freaks everywhere. The Viper V770 ultra is based on the RIVA TNT-2 Ultra. Special Diamond tuning delivers optimum 3D display quality at maximum frame rates. This represents a further performance boost over the already outstanding performance of the Viper V770.

Here is what awaits you:

RIVA TNT-2 Ultra by Nvidia for high-speed 2D/3D, 128-bit graphics
32 MB ultra-fast video memory
maximum display quality: 32-bit rendering & 32-bit Z/stencil buffer, AGP 4X support, textures up to 2048x2048
optimized for performance freaks: high-speed hardware layout, active chip cooling (fan) and drivers for 3D tuning
extensive software bundle with current games (to be announced) and Diamond InControl Tools 99 as well as Zoran SoftDVD
supports the latest generation of CPUs by Intel and AMD

Are you ready for performance in a class by itself? The Viper V770 Ultra will be available at a dealer's near you starting in May 1999.

Epic finaly released the Unreal Patch v2.24v

General

Fixed new problem in 220 where users who had performed a partial install of Unreal (with maps kept on the CD) didn't see any maps listed in the Deathmatch/BotMatch menus.
"FOV #" command now takes effect permanently.
Minigun and stinger sounds are now properly replicated to all clients.
Botmatch skill bug in 220 fixed.
Lookspring fixed.
Kevlar vest pickup sound and dead guy in Vortex Rikers sound fixed.
Bubbles now float properly on clients.
Fixed projectiles not appearing on client side because local player ran into them.
Carcasses are now simulated for smoother death animations, and all the nali and skaarj gibs are properly replicated.
Fixed bug where quick taps of fire button didn't register in network games.
Slightly reduced damage multiplier in Hardcore mode (150% instead of 170%), and rocket damage radius in Classic mode is back to the old value.
Fixed razorjack sound crash problem with 3D sound.
Fixed problem where the editor light torches were showing up in some levels in network play.
Fixed client prediction going through portals.
Eliminated menu bar when playing in windowed mode.
Fixed inability to join a network game while you are running a non-dedicated server.

Video

Fixed menu bar disappearing when switching from Glide to the software renderer.
Fixed potential crash while taking screenshots on 3dfx.
Works properly on Voodoo3. Voodoo3 support was broken in Unreal 209 through 220.
Supports compressed S3TC textures (though there aren't any in Unreal 1).

OpenGL Beta Driver

New, rewritten OpenGL driver.
Works quite well on the Riva TNT. Important: you need the latest TNT Detonator drivers from NVidia's web site for this to work.
Other cards are in the early testing phase now. Don't expect a lot. We can't provide support for getting Unreal OpenGL running on other cards or answer questions about them at this time.

More info in theReadme-File. You can choose a download location on this site.

Skywell announced a TNT2 card. The card is allready in production and ships next week:SW-TGATNT2, TGATNT2TV W/TV OUT

Introduction

The Magic TNT2 use the nVIDIA RIVA TNT2, the fastest, the only true 128 bit 2D/3D chipset supporting 2^nd generation TwiN – Texel in single pass and 32 bit color, 32 bit Z-buffer rendering, can display maximum 3D/2D resolution 2048 x 1536, and support high resolution 1,920 x 1,200@75H.

With 150Mhz, 32MB SGRAM memory, 300Mhz RAMDAC, Magic TNT2 can deliver 300Mpixel/sec fill rate, 9M million triangles/sec peak, massive 2.9GB/sec frame buffer bandwidth, and with excellent 3D Game features like 32 bit rendering, 32 bit Z-buffer, 8 bit stencil buffer, anisotropic filtering, bump mapping, it also include DVD/MPEG-2 software player, and TV out function((optional, PAL/NTSC, S-Video and Composite video output, SW-TGATNT2TV), to be a complete solution in Multimedia system.

With AGP 2x/4x interface, full sideband support, AGP texturing, Magic TNT2 can have a wide range of applications from the hottest 3D games to full screen, 30fps DVD playback.