🚀 go-pugleaf

On Mon, 15 Sep 1997 07:59:42 -0700, lugy@loop.edu (Lugy) wrote:

>Currently, I'm leaning towards a Power VR card (either an Apalcalypse 3Dx
>or a Matrox M3d).  However, I am unsure if I can obtain decent game (e.g.,
>Quake) fps (at least 25 fps) with my 133 Mhz Pentium CPU (which happens to
>be the minimum CPU requirements for a Power VR PCX2 card).   Of course, I
>could always wait towards Christmas and buy a Pentium 200 Mhz MMX at sub
>$200 but that would seriously strain my economic resources as I am a bum
>and am unwilling to go back into prostitution.    On the other hand, were I
>to opt for an 3DFX card, I would have to choose between an Orchid Righteous
>3D or a Diamond Monster 3D.  I have heard about slower rated RAM in the
>Orchid card causing some problems.  But these RAM were supposed to be
>replaced with faster versions.  Concerning the Diamond card, a while back,
>I heard some rumors concerning slightly more game incompatibility problems
>when compared to the Orchid card.

The PCX2 is a good chipset, unfortunately it is one of the more CPU
dependant chipsets out there. With your CPU and your inclination
towards quake I would opt for a vanilla 3DFX card, maybe one of the
new 6meg cards like the Canopus Pure 3D, although you wouldn't really
go wrong with the Orchid or the Diamond 4meg cards.

The memory issue isn't really an issue. All the problems were with old
batches and only related to being able to overclock the card to a
faster speed. (Which most people have found doesn't really give *that*
much of an increase)

Now I imagine all the standard voodoo cards can be clocked up to 57mhz
without too much trouble (except extra heat)

As for the pass thru cable being a problem, I dunno, I've got an early
Orchid model and run same as you, a millenium, I run the millenium at
1600x1200 on a 21" Iiyama monitor and have ZERO problems with the pass
thru. (I even have BNC cables on standby if I do experience problems,
but I can't see the difference between the BNC and the passthrough)

I think that looking back over past posts most of the people having
problems with the pass-thru cable are Diamond users, I dont know why,
it may even be that some cables are better than others and I just
lucked out.

OK.. so yes the 3DFX will give you the most bang for your processor,
and it will scale upwards if you get a faster CPU, (i.e. you will get
faster framerates in most games with a P200MMX.) The jump won't be as
noticeable as if say you went from a P133 with a PCX2 to a P200MMX
with a PCX2)

But the PCX2 only starts to catch up with the 3DFX at that clock
speed, but no-one really knows what the PCX2 is capable of because the
drivers have been so poor in the past and it only really shines with
direct ports to its own drivers.

Yes the PCX2 can do higher resolutions, but it requires a mother of a
machine to make those higher resolutions work fast enough to compete.

Maybe having matrox on their side will help. I don't know, I find it
interesting to not be aligned with one chipset over another and be
open minded about the entire thing, I hope the PCX2 does get good
drivers and it does well. I also hope that 3DFX come out with a
chipset in the near future that kicks everyones butt, coz then the
others will have to up the ante and make a better card to catch up,
which gives us all more choice and stops all the companys sitting on
their laurels and not giving us better and faster gfx.

-
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