Windows XP No VooDoo

[Swift Death]

I was very unhappy to hear that nVida will not be programming drivers for Voodoo video boards. They won't even give the source to Microsoft. What do you guys think, is a petition in order?

[cluthu]

Supposedly the old RC1 drivers that were released prior to 3dfx's being purchased will work with XP. While hardware/software that allows the Voodoo series to work is legally the intellectual property of nVidia (and thusly not something that they'd be required to give away), I agree that it would be nice if they were to release source for some of the more basic functions of the card and allow third parties to create drivers.

[Rargh]

even if u are able to do a petition, there will be no hope for the voodoo cards to resurrect:

nvidia has bought 3dfx in order to erase one the opponent in the videocard buisness race from the list....
nvidia has bought 3dfx so,
nvidia has all the rights to do what he wants w/ 3dfx.
Anyway, 3dfx was almost dead when nvidia decided to buy it....

now, there are only a few competitors:

nvidia, ati and matrox.
business is the only rule.

bye

[cluthu]

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-6561337.html

An injunction to stop XP, eh...

[Raziel]

Originally posted by Rargh
now, there are only a few competitors:

nvidia, ati and matrox.
business is the only rule.

Hey!
You forgot the creator of the Kyro2,ST Microelectronics.
How could you? They're gonna do a fine job in eating nVidia's cake(understand:they're going to sell more and more card).

[Rargh]

they re not the actual leaders......

[sxamiga]

Rargh is right. Kyro cards are not even considered a threat by Nvidia right now. Especially w/the new GEForce 3 cards coming. But ATI w/the new Radeons is definately going to give Nvidia something to think about. Nvidia bought 3DFX because the new Voodoo Cards had the potential to topple Nvidia as the top of the heap. Since 3DFX was in trouble, it was easy for Nvidia to do this.
sincerely,
sx/amiga

[Rargh]

And ati is just a threat in the cheap card market.
The radeon LE chip is more powerful than a geforce 2mx one.
The radeon is (sorry for its owners) nothing compared to the technical specifications of the geforce 2 for the same price so...

[Raziel]

Sorry sxamiga but you're wrong.
Just a while before the release of Kyro2 based cards,nVidia sent to all major card manufacturers a little booklet explaining why they shouldn't work with STM,they said(and showed with screenshots)that the Kyro2 had no T&L support,right but,how many games do support it right now? 10 maybe 15.
They also showed that Mercedes Truck Racing(or whatever it is called) had some display bugs(almost not noticeable without a zoom)with Kyro2 cards,but what was funny is that at that time the game wasn't even running on nvidia cards(I've heard it's now fixed).
Most of the things discussed in this booklet were just lies.


So,sxamiga,I ask you,why nvidia would make such a thing if they didn't felt threatened?
To protect the manufaturers interest? Someone kill me if they do care about them(except for the fact that they're the ones that keep nvidia alive by buying their chips).
And I don't think Guillemot/Hercules is that displeased with the STM cards,since they're selling pretty well.

[Rargh]

>>>"...had no T&L support,right but,how many games do support it right now? 10 maybe 15."

I agree w/ ya, it s true that it is useless to buy a card in order to play just a few games for now...
So no need to buy a nvidia card for a few games.

>>>"but what was funny is that at that time the game wasn't even running on nvidia cards"

so: it seems it s not important to have a few games fully supported by gforce, but if one game isn t supported at all, it really matters....
Well i don t understand ur way of thinking...


>>>Most of the things discussed in this booklet were just lies.
why nvidia would make such a thing if they didn't felt threatened?


If u have to sell a thing to people. Would u say that the same thing is better and could be found cheaper elsewhere?
I guess not...
It s business.

[Raziel]

Originally posted by Rargh
[B>>>"but what was funny is that at that time the game wasn't even running on nvidia cards"

so: it seems it s not important to have a few games fully supported by gforce, but if one game isn t supported at all, it really matters....
Well i don t understand ur way of thinking...
[/B]
I was just saying that it was ridiculous from nvidia to say that this game had a very little bug on Kyro2 cards(and at that time,it was beta drivers)when it didn't even run on nvidia cards.

[Rargh]

I think that if they ve said that, this is because STM had demonstrated that kyro cards could support it, and nvidia 's ones not.
It would be stupid that nvidia has claimed what u told, knowing that they weren t even able to run it!

[Swift Death]

Yah, I guess 3DFX is dead. They were great wern't they? I remember when i first put in my voodoo, and I was getting an extra 30-50 fps in most of my good 3D games on my little P1-200. Well, I guess nVida just didn't think that they could compete with those great cards.

[Rargh]

BTW, knowing u have a geforce2 pro and that u don t like nvidia...
Could u give it to me for example? I m going to upgrade my old geforce256, but if I could have a GF2pro for free....
Of course i can buy a kyro2 for u if u want :D

[Raziel]

I never said I don't like Nvidia's products,but I don't like the way they acted recently(High prices,trying to dominate all the market with the nforce coming,and all sorts of stuff).
They kind of remind me MicroSoft(guess they'll end up with an Antitrust trial too:D ).
And since you don't seem to believe me,go here,where the files are archived:
http://www.savagenews.com/articles/hardware/video/nvidia/nvidia-on-kyro/nvidia-on-kyro.html

[Rargh]

mmmm

So i guess STM is really a worth opponent for nvidia then.
Why would say say such things like that?
Perhaps they ve tried to buy them, and , due to the decision of stm, they ve tried to break them.

Well, many people are going to believe this crap.
As i said before, business is the only rule..heh.

[cluthu]

I liked the pictures that showed the supposed "weaknesses" of the card. "Look there! You'd never notice it in real life, but if you squint just right and stand on your head, you can see a rendering error! Oh boy!"

Seriously though, has anyone here used a Kyro with ePSXe and/or VGS? Are the drivers any good?

[Raziel]

A friend of mine has a Kyro 2,and last time I tried ePSXe,it looked fine.
I don't know a lot about the drivers,but they seem quite hard to use(not well explained).

[Demigod]

I don't think 3Dfx was anything of a viable competitor to nVidia. 3Dfx's been trailing behind nVidia since the Voodoo 3 and it was very unlikely that they'd reclaim the throne again anytime soon. The Voodoo 5 was hardly a competitor against nVidia's GeForce 2 GTS, and their upcoming Rampage chipset wasn't due for a whole year. But still, 3Dfx's been nVidia's main competitor for a long time and I think they sleep better knowing that they're out of the loop. ATI is now nVidia's most prominent threat and although the Radeon is technically inferior to the GeForce 2, it has a heap of features that make it worth it. The A-I-W Radeon costs just about the same as the GeForce 2 GTS but has a TV tuner, hardware MPEG-2 decoding, industry standard DVD decoding, superior 16bit 3D quality(nVidia's 16bit quality blow hard), and has excellent 3D accelerator support. Truly an All-In-Wonder card. Hope to get one myself later this year :) NVidia may have their technical prowess but ATI's been dominating the 2D video card arena for years, and they're now making headway into the high-end video card market. Of course nVidia has their new GeForce 3, which brings a whole new set of technologies to the table but the industry's been slow to catch onto them (just look at the amazing support for T&L) and I haven't seen a single game that uses the pixel shading abilities of the GeForce 2. I think it'll be a while before anything comes along that takes advantage of the GeForce 3's abilities. Rendering speed is everything nowadays and ATI's roadmap shows plans for a Radeon MAXX, which would completely rock in terms of speed.

[Badaro]

Originally posted by cluthu
Supposedly the old RC1 drivers that were released prior to 3dfx's being purchased will work with XP. While hardware/software that allows the Voodoo series to work is legally the intellectual property of nVidia (and thusly not something that they'd be required to give away), I agree that it would be nice if they were to release source for some of the more basic functions of the card and allow third parties to create drivers.

Bad news: The Voodoo 3/4/5 drivers for Windows 2000 worked perfectly until WinXP Beta 2, but they're me causing a lot of problems with RC1. Glide and OpenGL doesn't work, and D3D is significantly slower.

Guess I'll have to go back to Win2000. :(

[]s Badaro

[Rargh]

hehe...."guess i ll have to go back to win2k"...
And u headed for winXP instead of win2k... -_-

well, imo xp is nothing more than a very good source of informations about urself for microsoft.... I think u ve heard of it...

Win2k is perfect.
XP isn t nothing more than an ersatz of it...Using its kernels and rewritten a bit for more *cough* compatibility w/ 9x programs....

still want to change w/ xp?
I guess i ll wait for a more reliable OS.....

[Badaro]

Originally posted by Rargh
hehe...."guess i ll have to go back to win2k"...
And u headed for winXP instead of win2k... -_-

well, imo xp is nothing more than a very good source of informations about urself for microsoft.... I think u ve heard of it...

Win2k is perfect.
XP isn t nothing more than an ersatz of it...Using its kernels and rewritten a bit for more *cough* compatibility w/ 9x programs....

still want to change w/ xp?
I guess i ll wait for a more reliable OS.....

I have nothing against Windows 2000, it's one of the best OSes I've ever used, I'm just a bit disappointed because I REALLY liked XP, have been using it since Beta 2, and now I'm having a lot of problems with the RC1. :(

BTW, read this article (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/20282.html) on the activation thing. Seems like there's no need for paranoia.

[]s Badaro

[KillerShots]

Tell me something real quick...

If I were to upgrade from Win 98 to Win 2k (or ME), what would be improved? Bear in mind that my current system gives next to no BSOD's, runs smoothly, and plays DOS software still (VERY important to me). Any reason for someone like me to even look at it?

Hardware -

CPU - T-Bird 1 Ghz @ 266 BUS speed
RAM - 128 Megs DDR @ 266
Video - Voodoo3 3k (the one thing even slightly unstable)
Audio - SBLive! Value
2 DMA HD's on primary IDE cable
1 72x True-x drive on secondary master (DMA)
1 6x DVD player on secondary slave (DMA)

All movies run great on DVD, all software that will even work on a voodoo3 will run...general good stuff. Is there something "interesting" about the updated windows that might make me want to take a look?

[Demigod]

Originally posted by KillerShots
Tell me something real quick...

If I were to upgrade from Win 98 to Win 2k (or ME), what would be improved? Bear in mind that my current system gives next to no BSOD's, runs smoothly, and plays DOS software still (VERY important to me). Any reason for someone like me to even look at it?

Hardware -

CPU - T-Bird 1 Ghz @ 266 BUS speed
RAM - 128 Megs DDR @ 266
Video - Voodoo3 3k (the one thing even slightly unstable)
Audio - SBLive! Value
2 DMA HD's on primary IDE cable
1 72x True-x drive on secondary master (DMA)
1 6x DVD player on secondary slave (DMA)

All movies run great on DVD, all software that will even work on a voodoo3 will run...general good stuff. Is there something "interesting" about the updated windows that might make me want to take a look?
Better networking - Internet speed will be greatly improved. Where Windows 98 downloads at 30 kbps Windows 2000 can do 45+

Ultimate stability - Expect the system to stay completely stable, no matter what you do. My friend ran Windows 2000 on his computer for a month straight without any problems. There may be some problems with 3D gaming though...

Better security - Windows 2000 uses a hierarchical user system with guess access disabled by default. You can make sure that no one will be able to access your computer if you don't want them to. The NTFS file system is also inaccessible by anything besides the NT OS so no one will be able to access the computer outside the OS either.

That's about it. There isn't really anything more that Windows 2000 will do for you(that I can think off the top of my head). Windows 2000 doesn't make your programs run faster or anything. I would suggest you keep with your OS if you're happy with it. You have to take into consideration the software and hardware support you will lose if you switch to Windows 2000(16bit software and a lot of Windows 98 software will not run on Windows 2000). I do a dual-boot with Windows 2K and ME so you can maybe try that. NT has some very good features, but it's a pretty big jump from 98, and if DOS is important to you, then don't even think about it.

Windows ME works very well for me (more stable and boots a lot faster than my previous Windows 98 installation) but I know some people who've had problems with it. If you're happy with your current system, then keep it, no need to upgrade to anything just yet.

[KillerShots]

Originally posted by Demigod79

Better networking - Internet speed will be greatly improved. Where Windows 98 downloads at 30 kbps Windows 2000 can do 45+

I'm not quite sure what you mean here...when downloading, I get up to 120 kbps (real speed). However, if the other things that it offer is only security and a new filesystem, you're right, I don't think I'll upgrade. Thx!

[Demigod]

Originally posted by KillerShots


I'm not quite sure what you mean here...when downloading, I get up to 120 kbps (real speed). However, if the other things that it offer is only security and a new filesystem, you're right, I don't think I'll upgrade. Thx!
Windows 2000 has better net speed's all, and you can very clearly tell the difference. I was once downloading a game (from IRC) at a measly 14kbps (just barely below the cut-off line :() in Windows ME. I rebooted into Windows 2K and downloaded it again and I got 25kbps off of the same server. Downloading off the web I can get over 200 kbps off a good server in Win2K. Internet, or networking in general is so much better in Win 2K. You can even shut down and start networks without restarting(and it doesn't have the printer share hole like in Windows 98), and it has it's own internet sharing software(which works for cable/DSL, Win98 only seems to share dial-up).

[KillerShots]

Originally posted by Demigod79

... and it has it's own internet sharing software(which works for cable/DSL, Win98 only seems to share dial-up).

Don't speak too soon about Win98 only doing dial-up. I use the Win98 internet connection sharing program to share my Cable connection across 6 computers. I never encountered any problems during the setup, I'm not entirely sure what problems you may have run into. Then again, the problem I run into there is internet gaming...I can join ANY internet game out there, but I can host NONE :(. I think that's either a limitation of the Win98 program or the fact that in order to do this legally, I need to have only a single IP address visible to the internet (All 6 computers look like the server on the outside, all 6 with the same IP address, though none know their IP as a server I guess).

[Badaro]

Originally posted by KillerShots


Don't speak too soon about Win98 only doing dial-up. I use the Win98 internet connection sharing program to share my Cable connection across 6 computers. I never encountered any problems during the setup, I'm not entirely sure what problems you may have run into. Then again, the problem I run into there is internet gaming...I can join ANY internet game out there, but I can host NONE :(. I think that's either a limitation of the Win98 program or the fact that in order to do this legally, I need to have only a single IP address visible to the internet (All 6 computers look like the server on the outside, all 6 with the same IP address, though none know their IP as a server I guess).

When using ICS, as well as most "sharing" programs, you'll only be able to act as a server for something (like online games) by mapping the correct TCP/IP ports to the computer acting as host.

As an example, if you want the computer with the "fake" IP Address 10.0.0.1 to host a Diablo II game, you'll need to map ports 4000 and 6112 to that computer.

I don't know if ICS can do it (I use WinRoute), but it might be worth a try.

[]s Badaro