OpenGL games very slow under NT.

[Martin K]

Hi!

I've just installed the latest Matrox Millienium G-200 driver under Windows NT 4.0 sp5. This driver includes an opengl ICD (G200icd.dll). However the performance under Unreal and Gl-Quake (1) is terribly slow. GlQuake listing in the console shows: GL_Vendor: Microsoft Corporation. Unreal is running just as it doesn't use the ICD.

So I'm wondering, are these games using the MCD instead? How to I get them to use the ICD?

Thanks in advance.

[Kruzin]

I don't use NT myself, but from what I've seen on the Matrox Hardware forum, sp5 does not do that well with OGL. People using sp3 are having better luck...

[Galvin]

I tried QuakeII and QuakeIII demos.
They both run pretty slow I did a timerefresh
in quakeII got around 20 to 25fps.

The openGL driver for the G200 is way behind
everyone else which may make G400 a hard
sell.

This test was done on NT4 SP5 with a PIII-450
using 256megs of ram.

I didn't dare use the quake setup thing because that installs openGL drivers and
didn't want that messing up my G200 ICD
support.

Quake is just barely playable if you run
it at 640x480 you'll get good performance
but even then sound skips every sooften.

Guess we'll have to wait for Win2000.

[Bastieeeh]

I use NT4 too and I have no problem to run games like QuakeII or QuakeIII. My computer is a little bit old (P2-300, 128Mb) but it works as expected.
In Q2 640x480 TD1 : 33fps
In Q3 640x480 Demo: 18fps

[MfG] Bastieeeh

[Tumu]

If you are using bootleg NT DX5, install DX3 which comes with any SP over 2. If NT doesn't give an error message when starting OGL app with DX5, it will use the Microsoft MCD for OGL, not the Matrox one. I had similar problems with DX5 on NT before LightHeaded told me to install DX3. After that all were fine and I'm using SP5.

-Tumu, using SP5 and DX3 without problems.

[Kjell Nedrelid]

For faster Quake-1 based games, start the program with -bpp 16 on the command-line.
This leads to a HUGE difference... (jumps from 0,6 fps)

I've got some interesting timedemos:
Quake1-demo1: 640x480x16: 26,2 fps (NT4-sp3-one cpu)
Quake1-demo1: 640x480x16/32: 20,8 fps (NT4-sp5 smp)

Quake2-demo1: 640x480x16: 14,5 fps (nt4-sp3)
Quake2-demo1: 640x480x16: 10,6 fps (smp)
Quake2-demo1: 640x480x32: 9,4 fps (smp)

All tests with sound.

The low smp-scores is maybe due to my old voodoo1. It interferes at least with gl-quake and hexen-2, leading to a blank screen if I don't uses -bpp 16.

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P2B-DS, 2x pii-333MHz, 256 MB; g200mill8MB; SB-pci128; Encore dvd 2x

[Galvin]

QuakeII demo runs much faster and smoother
under win98 than it does under NT4 SP5.
Moving around in quakeII demo under NT4 is
choppy at times, not as smooth as win 98.
So the openGL driver for the g200 is not
as well made as the one for win98.

I never put DX5 on my NT. DX5 is a hack
it was made for win2000, there was never
an official DX5 released for NT.

[Scytale]

This really is not a limitation of NT by itself, nor does the non-existent NT implementation of Direct3D have anything to do with this performance issue. D3D is just not there and it's not used. We're talking OpenGL so the ICD is used.

Just try running Quake II under NT using a Voodoo1 or 2 card through Glide. It's quite a lot faster than Q2 with Win98.

[vidmar]

I have run the Q2 timedemo 1, at 640x480 and cannot get above 14fps. As far as I'm concerned 14fps stinks. Not to mention the charaters are not fully drawn. They look like ghosts.

The same thing happeneds in Half-Life the charaters, medkits, ammo packs, sentries, are not fully drawn.

Don't count on Win2K to be a gaming OS. WAY to much overhead. I'm running the exact same machine listed below under Win2K RC1. Granted the debug code is still in there, but as far as DirectX is concerned, it is very slow.

PIII 450
196MB RAM
NT 4 SP5
SCSI Ultra2 drives and controller
G200 Bios 2.3
PD 4.13 and the stinky OGL ICD

Alan



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Alan R. Vidmar
IT Professional III
Alan.Vidmar@Colorado.EDU
University of Colorado

[SamBowie]

I use Windows NT4 /w SP3. PowerDesk 4.13.
My system is described in signature.
Here some quick benchmarks with GL-Quake:

640x480x16
demo1 35.0 fps
demo2 36.6 fps
demo3 30.3 fps

800x600x16
demo1 25.3 fps
demo2 27.7 fps
demo3 23.7 fps

1024x768x16
demo1 9.3 fps

So, I can't say that OpenGL games are very slow under NT.

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Cel464/ABit-BX6/128-pc100/6.4GB/G200-8SG/SBLive!
sambowie@hotmail.com