G200 + ICD NT is crap

[AC]

I have a g200 and a voodoo 2.
I use the g200 for 3d graphics and voodoo2 for games. When the icd drivers came out for the g200 it said on g200's page news page something about a special part for 3dstudio max and lightwave. But when i use opengl in the veiwpoints it is really slow and crap.
What the hell are Matrox really going to do about the opengl drivers!!

[This message has been edited by AC (edited 07-19-99).]

[Galvin]

I think they need to take a course
in NT driver programming, maybe they
can share classes with Creative Labs

[Colin Morey]

Out of interest, you did fully un-install the last install of drivers? I know this is specifically mentioned for win98, but I think It may be advisable with WinNT.
Have you checked its not using any old dlls?
I ask this, simply beacause Quake II is quite playable under NT now, unfortunatly I do not have a copy of lightwave nor Studio, so I cannot test them.

[nfs]

Scuze me? You can get Quake 2 to play?

I'm getting about 9 fps and the creatures have vast pieces missing. Others have also reported similar results. I don't describe this as playable. This is on a dual Celeron 433.

I completely uninstalled, switched to stock VGA, and then installed the new drivers.

Also, my OpenGL screensavers run slower than before.

bye,
nfs

[j24]

nfs, what analysis and color depth are you using?
Quake2, 640x480@16bpp, in my system (NT SP5, single PII400, 128RAM, G200 8M SGRAM) is absolutely playable, without any kind of display problems (corrupted images etc.).
Also, at the same settings Half-Life is playable, except the underwater scenes (btw, has anybody any ideas about this issue? I mean I get about .5 fps underwater... Is there any setting for HL that might improve underwater behaviour?).
But, I agree with Galvin, that M needs more resources on NT programming, since at my home system (same hardware, but win98 instead of NT) the new ICD rocks.

[mr stereo]

Stil, don't blame the OS. The poor performance they are describing is the result of a crap card with crap drivers. OpenGL games in NT, KICK ASS on my TNT2 Ultra.

((stereo))

[Stil]

DirectX 3.0 only
No AGP support
Large memory and CPU requirements

NT is probably not your best choice of OS for games, regardless of what video card you have. You will probably see a significant improvement in Quake2 scores on your same system with 98 instead.

[Pedro Tumusok]

Well I got a question since I am having a hard time with this.

After lodsa problems I finally got it to work with Q2, but it is slow as hell and not playable at all!

j24 but at what size are you running your desktop? I am currently running it at 1024x728@16bpp, but then I cant play q2 in 640x480 in fullscreen only windowed. And its major slow, I think the performance is abit better when i change my desktop to 640x480@16bpp but thats quite annoying to todo all the time.

Anybody got any hints and tips?

[Maggi]

just in case:

Make sure your desktop is not set to 24bpp !!!

That colordepth is not hardware accelerated !

------------------
Cheers,
Maggi

I'll be on holyday for the coming three weeks an I miss you folks already ;-)

[Kjell Nedrelid]

Couple of benchmarks:
Q1-demo1: 640x480x16/32: 26,1 fps (1 cpu)
same test, 2 cpu's: 20,5 fps
q2-demo1: 640x480x16: 14,5 fps (1 cpu)
same test, 2 cpu's: 10,6 fps
Tests same result with new nt4-sp3-installs, and nt4-sp5-upgrade. One test-run even without any other card whan the g200 in the machine, and new install of nt4-sp3.
An old test with win95-opengl-beta1:
q2-demo1: 640x480x16: 27,1 fps /x32: 23,4 fps

For "fast" NT, run with /onecpu
If you're using dual system, you get around 30% performance hit, and 30% quality hit.
The terrible quality shows best in heretic2, there Corvus have a big hole in his back.

My old Voodoo1, on the other hand, gives stable 26,5 fps in q2-demo1 under nt4/win2k regardless of 1 or 2 cpu's. In win95, only 26 ,1 fps (last time I had win95 installed.)

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

[j24]

Pedro, I'm using a desktop 1280x1024@32bpp, and I can switch to every analysis in Q2 (up to 1024x768) in both fullscreen and windowed modes.
I've never experienced any kind of problem in changing from windowed to fullscreen mode with Q2 (in both opengl or software mode).
I'm sorry, I'm not a Q2 guru to help you any further...

[nfs]

J24, if by analysis you mean which timedemo map, it's demo1.dm2.

I am running at 16 bit color depth. My system is a dual 433 MHz Celeron (Asus P2L97-DS) with 256 MB of RAM, IBM 10 gig 7200 rpm HD, an adequate system, I would think.

Kjell Nedrelid hit it on the head with his /onecpu option. Performance is vastly better (though still not quite playable) with one of the cpu's disabled, and there are no more holes in the game characters - at least till I shoot them there.

Matrox has apparently released their drivers without regard to their performance on SMP systems, and that needs to be addressed quickly, I would say.

bye,

Norman

[RanDob]

Dual CPU will get a performance boost with the 4.21 drivers.

[ACC3D]

Where the hell did this 4.21 driver crap come from. What are you talking about? Well anyhow I sure hope you are correct...and yes I agree about the processor thing. My system is 2xP3-450, 384MB RAM, G200 8MB SGRAM, SB Live.

[VirtualOlympus]

OK,
Just a quick reality check here. First, I have _not_ been trying to run games on NT. Why you say?? I believe that Stil said it quite eloquently (although not completely true), DirectX 3.0 + Large Memory/CPU requirements (as compared to Win9x, let's not forget that Windows in general is memory happy.) It _does_ support AGP, although not to the same level as Win98.
Secondly, the Voodoo Drivers for Quake are going to be better since they use a _MiniGL_ library, 3Dfx can't even get their act together to _attempt_ to make a decent ICD. So you can forget about Lightwave/3DS. Why do you have a G200 if you want to run 3DS/Lightwave, I think Permedia/Real3D come into mind much quicker. And who was comparing the G200 to a TNT2 Ultra?? Give me a break!
I have been very happy with my G200, now would I give it up for a TNT2/G400MAX?? In a second (if I had the money, but I don't, which is why I have a G200). It still hangs in there with the voodoo2s (not SLI) in Direct3D. The 2D image quality was unmatched when I bought the card and the 3D performance was good enough for me, but as everyone that knows anything about graphics cards know, they only last about 6 mos, before something else kicks it's a$$.
Now I don't know everything there is to know about 3D graphics, but I do know that for the price of a 8MB G200, you can't possibly ask for a card that will do everything you want. Especially under NT.

Ben


[This message has been edited by VirtualOlympus (edited 07-31-99).]