banshee or voodoo3

[statix84]

I have to make the choice beetween V3 and banshee. A lot of people say that V3 is really good.Can you really tell the difference beetween the two? I can get V3 2000 for 95$ and I can get Banshee for $61 is V3 worth $34 more.

[WhoKnowsWho]

Since you have a 400mhz celeron, you would be better off with anything other than the banshee, it would be a large bottleneck, why are you even considering it? TNT2 or V3, final decision depends on what games you want to play... Glide or not glide, that is the question... if you don't know yet, get a TNT2...

[statix84]

the games I want to play require glide. 3Dfx is used by nearly every game. That is why I want V3 or something with 3dfx support.

[WhoKnowsWho]

Almost every game also uses OpenGL or direct3d, the only popular game that comes to mind that is really playable Glide only is Tribes, and now thanks to Creative Labs Unified Drivers, even that really isn't Glide only anymore.

[Hurt_Me_Not]

I've a celeron running at 416mhz with a banchee overclocked to 130mhz chip and memory speed.Q2 at present is doing 59 frames per sec on demo 1 with 800x600 full textures and high quality sound.

Ok now for the question http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif Will a Voodoo3/tnt2 improve this much?

Also is the voodoo3 a stand alone card or an addone?

[WhoKnowsWho]

Same Celeron at 416 here... when I had the V3 2000, at 1024x768, it ran demo1 at 70 fps or so... if I remember correctly... and I would suppose the drivers are still being improved. My current TNT2 runs the demo at 65 fps, even though as far as I know... multitexturing isn't used correctly since the TNT2 doesn't use the same method that Quake uses last I heard. Once you get a newer card... a game like Half Life will perform tons better, since it is more taxing on the video card than Q2 now.

[Taras]

As i know, TNT cards (& TNT2 cards too) dont have two MTU processors (to support multitexturing) that do have 3dfx Voodoo 3 cards. If anyone have ever seen the comparison grahics & chats of competiting V3 & TNT2 - in resolutions over 800*600 (in 16bit for TNT2, V3) V3 always wins (i mean V3 3000, V3 3500 wins undoubtably). Besides V3 can process nearly 24(or 32)bit True color, its called 16bit dithering that is called 22bit color. In addition all V3 cards can be easily overclocked (V3 2000 up to 175 clock speed (instead of 143), V3 3000 up to 198 (instead of 166) (be sure to place a cooler on the V3's processor). So my choise is a V3 card. But i must say that TNT cards beat Voodoo Banshee in almost all points.
Thats all...

[AuraEdge]

Ive also heard that the V3 image quality is the same as V1 picture quality..which is pretty appauling. Ive also seen a V2 in action, and my TNT has way better image quality. And the V3 skimps so much on texture maps (64x64 max i think) where TNT and TNT2 support sumthin around 2048x2048 or sumthin...dont rememebr the numbers, but WAY higher than V3's.

[WhoKnowsWho]

No multitexturing? Wow, that would make a lot of people really disappointed in the performance... TNT = TwiN-Texel = 2 pixels per clock cycle and single-pass multi-texturing just like all the other fast and good cards. As far as Q2 goes right now, the multitexturing method the TNT2 uses is different than that which is supported by Q2 but a new version should fix that soon and make it even faster.

22-bit vs 32-bit... the 3DMark99 demos which actually use 32-bit color (almost all games now don't...) show the difference between true 32-bit and 22-bit. And 32-bit looks tons better. Dithering is dithering, and no matter what, it usually looks ugly when a large number of colors is needed and is not supported... (Q3 Arena... look at a wall close up...)

And TNT2 cards do overclock well... Just look at the Hercules Ultra line, normal speed for Ultra was supposed to be 150 core, and 175 memory, the Hercules cards ship at 175 core and 200 memory and can still be pushed more. My Vanilla Guillemot TNT2 easily does 150 core and 175 memory, and it's stable. So I have an Ultra for the price of a Vanilla card. I have no complaints about that overclocking ability.

The V3 image quality is actually tons better than a V2... and it wasn't just because it was fast. The V2 was a bit better than a V1, but the V3 really made a leap. It's still not as good as a TNT2... but until a voodoo card supports large textures (all other new cards support 2048x2048, I think V3 is still stuck at 256x256 like V2 and V1) and 32-bit color... it will come nowhere near to matching a TNT2.

[statix84]

well Ive decided to go with V3. I always see 3dfx interactive on games and thats what I want. Thanks for the advice anyways I apriciate it.

[[WaRpEd]]

Voodoo Banshee is a good and cheap card so it the voodoo 3 one of my friends got a banshee and i well very happy with it and when he tried the v3 he was disapointed...get the banshee for now and wait for the NV10 or a Voodoo4 In around Sept and Oct.Or a TNT2 Or Ultra if you want to spend so much money.

It's as simple as that.

[statix84]

well I got the V3 and Im having some trouble. The monitor goes blank when I boot up. I can fix it but I have to go into safe mode. When I get the option to go into safe mode it won't let me select it. If u have any bright Ideas please share.

[Plaster]

Don't get a Banshee. Statix84, What Monitor are you using? Are you using the drivers supplied by the manufactuer? The Voodoo3 will set refresh rates for all modes to optimal, which is usually the highest the monitor driver supports. If you're using a different monitor driver, this could be the cause. I had the same problem at first, but it let me in safe mode. I have a 15" InSync monitor that has refresh rates up to 120@640x480, but the Win98 Plug&Play driver would only let me select up to 75. I used a driver for a 20" Viewsonic and was able to use the higher refresh rates. I had to change it back to Plug&Play and it fixed the standby ****.

[statix84]

My monitor is an MGC 15" monitor but I don't know what the refresh rate is.I also don't know if im using the right drivers.Where do i find the right drivers, and can I install the correct drivers before I put the card in the slot.Thanks for your patience.

[This message has been edited by statix84 (edited 06-18-99).]

[BBA]

Static, you need to boot up to safe mode and select the 648x480 res and select 16bit color and select 60Hz refresh rate, then reboot.

You will get the properties screen again, just set it to like 800x600, keeping the refresh rate at 60hz, since the black screen is caused by monitors not being able to handle the default refresh rate of the card ( probably like 85Mhz ).


The real problem is your cheap monitor.

BBA

[statix84]

Where do I set my 60mhz refresh rate?

[statix84]

well I would just like to thank all of you for your Help. I have my card up and running great.I am soooo Happy "blush".

[bigslammer]

to junior member, you said you overclocked your ati mach 64 without a heat sink and that it was upgradeable to 8mb. first did did you use the ati rage tweaker to overclock or did you change it through the bios. also mine is an ati 4mb that is integraded into the motherboard and i would like to get it to 8mb. any suggestions?