🚀 go-pugleaf

When you look to buy a new piece of comp hardware, the price should be the
main point. Top of the range card at the mo is the GeForce 2, with the plain
GeForce 1 being the best midrange (NVidia does have a new, low end, card
coming out - at about 150USD with near GeForce 1 capabilities). Having said
this, EQ seems to have been built with Glide in mind (only available on the
Voodoo  cards) and people have reported better than expected with this over
DirectX.
I would like to see reports back on the whole range of cards outthere -
should really be on one of the websites methinks <g>

Andrew.


Lawless <lawless@smgfan.com> wrote in message
news:3960B6F7.5F083356@smgfan.com...
> I want to get a new 3D card (I'm currently using the Nvidia Ultra TNT
> 2).  I was wondeirng if anyone had any suggestions for a good card
> since I don't really keep up with 3d news.  I noticed the Voodoo 5500
> card was out, as well as a new card by Nvidia called the GEForce2
> which sounds pretty good.  I'll mainly use the card for gaming.
>
> Anyone have any suggestions or know of any good web sites that review
> cards?

Your TNT2 should be more than adequate, but if you simply must have the best, go
with the Voodoo5 5500 (as EQ was written for the 3Dfx GLide graphics language)
or the GeForce. The GeForce2 is hampered by the fact that its memory cannot keep
up with its processor, and do you really want to be replacing expensive video
memory 3 months down the road?

For a review of graphics boards, and especially the dirst on the GeForce2, go
to:

www.tomshardware.com

Paul

P.S.: If your power supply is anything less than 250W don't bother with any
GeForce, you haven't got enough juice. If you have lots of cards in your
computer and/or more than the basic 1 CD/1 HD/1 floppy for drives, you want
something more in the 300W range. I don't know about the power requirements of
the 3Dfx boards but I bet they're up there.

pblonde2 <pblonde2@home.com> wrote:

>Your TNT2 should be more than adequate, but if you simply must have the best, go
>with the Voodoo5 5500 (as EQ was written for the 3Dfx GLide graphics language)

Yep, if your *only* consideration is EQ and other glide-specific games
(as someone noted, D3D seems to have been an afterthought for EQ),
Voodoo is still the way to go.

However, it's wise to consider any other uses as well (other games or
applications). I'm doing OpenGL programming, so Voodoo didn't make
much sense. 

>The GeForce2 is hampered by the fact that its memory cannot keep
>up with its processor

That's pretty much the case with all high-end video cards anymore.

I'm running a 64Meg GeForce2 card, and with FSAA turned off for D3D,
it's flawless running EQ at 800x600 (limited tests at 1024x768 seemed
good, as well, but the text in this game is already hard enough to
read). Even in heavily wooded Kunark zones, with the clip plane pushed
out to its extreme limit and all special effect (sky, detail) at max,
it's smooth.

>P.S.: If your power supply is anything less than 250W don't bother with any
>GeForce, you haven't got enough juice.

If anyone's trying to run a serious machine with less than 300W, they
need to upgrade no matter what.

>I don't know about the power requirements of
>the 3Dfx boards but I bet they're up there.

Doesn't the Voodoo 5 come with it's own power supply? 

--
www.enteract.com/~lokari
"No one of consequence"

> >Your TNT2 should be more than adequate, but if you simply must have the best, go
> >with the Voodoo5 5500 (as EQ was written for the 3Dfx GLide graphics language)
>
> Yep, if your *only* consideration is EQ and other glide-specific games
> (as someone noted, D3D seems to have been an afterthought for EQ),
> Voodoo is still the way to go.

So nice of you to take my statement out of context, by clipping off the part that
said "or the GeForce."

> However, it's wise to consider any other uses as well (other games or
> applications). I'm doing OpenGL programming, so Voodoo didn't make
> much sense.

So don't get one, as I said, the Voodoo5 5500 OR the GeForce are pretty much the only
2 cards that would be a game-upgrade from the original poster's TNT2, without going
to the high-cost high-end extreme of the GeForce2 or the (still unreleased, AFAIK)
Voodoo5 6000. And when it comes to gaming, there really aren't any other players (pun
intended).


> That's pretty much the case with all high-end video cards anymore.

The GeForce2, however, is the extreme case, becaus it is one processor talking to all
the memory, unlike the Voodoo5 5500, which has 2 processors, each talking to their
own share of memory.

> I'm running a 64Meg GeForce2 card, and with FSAA turned off for D3D,
> it's flawless running EQ at 800x600

But not really that much better than the original GeForce, at what, about half the
price? And if you're programming OpenGL with a GeForce2, do remember that not
everyone can or even wants to blow that kind of money on a new graphics card, so
unless you're targeting a very small market, make sure what you make will run on
merely mortal hardware.


> (limited tests at 1024x768 seemed
> good, as well, but the text in this game is already hard enough to
> read).

What, you have a GeForce2  and a 15" monitor?

> Even in heavily wooded Kunark zones, with the clip plane pushed
> out to its extreme limit and all special effect (sky, detail) at max,
> it's smooth.

I never had a problem with my original Voodoo2 unless I was in a crowded area, and
most of that is due to server lag, not graphics performance.


> If anyone's trying to run a serious machine with less than 300W, they
> need to upgrade no matter what.

Mostly true, but it can be done. When EQ was released I was still running a
FireGL1000Pro, single Voodoo2, 2 hard drives,1 floppy, CD-ROM and ZIP on a
Pentium-200MMX with a 230W power supply. It wouldn't accept a second Voodoo2 for SLI,
but when I bought a new K6-2/300 the 250W was plenty for the one added card, but
wouldn't handle the GeForce256 I finally filled the AGP slot with, even after
removing the 3 original PCI cards, which surprised me as I hadn't heard of the
problem before. I had to go to the only thing I could get at the time, which was a
270W. That machine still runs fine with the GeForce and and added CD-RW.

> Doesn't the Voodoo 5 come with it's own power supply?

Never looked, wasn't my machine. If so, why would you need a beefy power supply in
your main box, as long as it had enough power to run everything else in there?

Paul

I don't want to spend more than $400.  I'm pretty confused about the
whole 3D card thing.  Is the GeForce just a graphics chip, and then
card manufacturers use that chip to make cards?  And the Voodoo5 is a
manufacturer that uses the 3DFX chip?  I tried to find the Feforce
card at computershopper.com and some places, and they had a couple of
companies that made it. I thought it was just a card like the voodoo 5
that you bought.

andrew davies wrote:
> 
> When you look to buy a new piece of comp hardware, the price should be the
> main point. Top of the range card at the mo is the GeForce 2, with the plain
> GeForce 1 being the best midrange (NVidia does have a new, low end, card
> coming out - at about 150USD with near GeForce 1 capabilities). Having said
> this, EQ seems to have been built with Glide in mind (only available on the
> Voodoo  cards) and people have reported better than expected with this over
> DirectX.
> I would like to see reports back on the whole range of cards outthere -
> should really be on one of the websites methinks <g>
> 
> Andrew.
> 
> Lawless <lawless@smgfan.com> wrote in message
> news:3960B6F7.5F083356@smgfan.com...
> > I want to get a new 3D card (I'm currently using the Nvidia Ultra TNT
> > 2).  I was wondeirng if anyone had any suggestions for a good card
> > since I don't really keep up with 3d news.  I noticed the Voodoo 5500
> > card was out, as well as a new card by Nvidia called the GEForce2
> > which sounds pretty good.  I'll mainly use the card for gaming.
> >
> > Anyone have any suggestions or know of any good web sites that review
> > cards?