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Eternally confused.

BTW what's your budget?

for บ bucks LESs you can get a geforce2 MX, which would be a lot faster and actually have drivers.

If you're going to go much higher, then either get a Voodoo5 or a geForce2 (hint - which one is NOT from a defunct company?)

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I don't believe in stereotypes. I prefer to hate people on a much more personal level.

quote:

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Originally posted by CatKnight:
voodoo4=๊ bucks

for บ bucks LESs you can get a geforce2 MX, which would be a lot faster and actually have drivers.

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Hate to burst your bubble CatKnight, but that's a geForce2 MX-200 - an incredibly lame version of the MX with 64-bit SDR memory, meaning half the bandwidth again. If you must buy an MX due to budget, buy a "regular" one, without a -200 or -400 suffix. (Or a GTS.)

It's also going to depend what kind of games you run. In TnL games (Q3A, Giants) an MX will stomp all over the Voodoo4. But if you plan on playing non-TnL games, or with FSAA enabled, the Voodoo4 with tear the MX a new asshole.

In general, the MX is better. nVidia q0WnZ j00 l4m0rs.

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I don't believe in stereotypes. I prefer to hate people on a much more personal level.

I recommend the Radeon LE.

According to ATI the radeon LE does not support the HyperZ technology suite.. this is a half-truth. The chip on the LE boards is actually a full radeon core, and the hyperZ features are (partially) disabled in firmware.

You can then download a program called "RadeonTweaker" from sourceforce, which allows you to then enable the HyperZ on the LEs.

You can then overclock it. The LE's defaultly 148MHz, but a lot of users have no difficulty hitting the faster speed of 166MHz, and if you're lucky 183MHz. The LE has only a heatsink, so you may wish to slap a blue orb or something on it, however, it may not need it. Enabling hyperZ and overclocking it you'll probably get nearly the same (if not the same) performance of the ordinary 32Mb DDR model.

Oh, and Ati is about to send nVidia home to it's mother.

This message has been edited by DuSTman on June 06, 2001 at 07:43 AM

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Eternally confused.

This message has been edited by d1ce on June 06, 2001 at 01:03 PM

OpenGL was initially designed by SGI, but is maintained by the Architecture Review Board, made up of delegates from various affected parties (nvidia, ATI, othe gfx card manufacturers).

Direct3D is controlled by microsoft.

In my experience, programs that use both D3D and OGL tend to be slightly faster in OGL than D3D, I believe this is the case for the VSA100 cards as well.

As far as Direct3D, OpenGL, and GLide, here's my lowdown:

Direct3D - controlled by Microsoft. Most if not all cards support this API, and many games use it (1nsane, Giants).

OpenGL - designed by SGI for high-performance workstations but now open to the world, this API is supported natively by all newer cards and many games (Quake III). The Voodoo4 and Voodoo5 have "true" OpenGL support, as opposed to the Voodoo3 which required drivers to mimic it. OpenGL does tend to be faster than Direct3D.

GLide - 3dfx-specific API, designed for Voodoo and Voodoo only. Games optimized for GLide (Unreal Tournament) will run ridiculously fast. However, with nVidia's recent 0wning of 3dfx, new GLide games will be in short supply.

You're quite correct about the Radeon LE, DuSTman - a quick registry hack can re-enable HyperZ, and the performance boost associated with it.

Oh yes - I'm not worried about ATI's "TruForm" technology on the Radeon II. I've seen it, I like it, I've been interpolating triangles on the fly for a long time without any ATI help. It's called nPatching, and unless the Radeon II is going to pack a core in excess of 75+ MTris, you're going to take the same framerate punch as you would if the models were designed with that many polys. There will be less AGP traffic due to fewer verts/polys needed to transfer, but they're going to need a hell of a core to nPatch, transform, light, retexture, AND maintain a decent framerate.

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I don't believe in stereotypes. I prefer to hate people on a much more personal level.

sorry, that's the only 3d related thing I know that hasn't been said

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