TNT2 M64 or V3 2000 pci?

[g-man]

Should I trade my Voodoo3 2000 16MB pci for a Nvidia TNT2 M64 16mb pci?

[Demigod]

Depends on what kind of programs you run. If you have a lot of programs that use Glide then stick with your Voodoo card, as it'll give the best performance. For Direct3D and OpenGL games the TNT2 might be better, but not by much. I would just stick with the Voodoo3 2K.

[g-man]

Hmmm.. Interesting. Good point about the glide, anybody else?

[n0estoy]

i have a tnt2 m64 16mb card on this comp, and i haven't noticed any significant improvements in performance over the former card (ati rage 129gl), then again, i don't run benchmarks or anything. it's just what i've noticed...or haven't :rolleyes:

[Ali]

Well I am using Asus V3800 which has a chipset of Riva TNT2 m64......I must say that I am quite impressed by the performance of this card.I havs also used Voodoo 3000,16mb........well tell u the truth there is a but improvement but not much ........so stick to your card...!

[g-man]

OK, maybe a little bit more background: I currently use a V5 5500 AGP, but the V3 is in my other PC (400mhz celeron, 96mb pc100). So, I guess the question is, 'Is "the trade" worth it to have both nVidia and 3dfx chipsets? Or is the V3 that good that I should keep it.'

[Neo_ZX]

I have a Voodoo 3 2000 as well and it is a pretty decent card. You can reliably overclock it to about 160-166Mhz from the default 141Mhz, with almost no problems and no additional cooling.

Also, I like to use this card for UltraHLE as the emulation is almost perfect. I have an 16MB nVidia TNT1 (Diamond Viper 550) and the glide wrappers (XGL 2004) don't always produce glide effects the way they should be shown. Example: Using older drivers (6.xx series I believe) with the TNT1 on Zelda 64, I noticed a lot of artifacts and visibility issues (parts of Link's face would sometimes be missing and you can see the his the back of his head and hat instead, entire hills in the intro would be missing and sometime reappear). But Voodoo 3 is perfect. Granted I haven't played the game much further than the first few minutes, but already a noticable improvement with emulation.

But don't forget the latest drivers for V3s crash VGS when pressing esc to pause play.

In any case, there is not much performance difference in both the TNT2 M64 and Voodoo 3 2K. But the Voodoo has glide support, so I'd stick with it.

[FireGL]

for your gfx driver since 3dFX™ died for v series it will be harder and harder for you to get a new driver

[Adair]

I say make the trade. since you have the Glide on your newer PC then you might as well have D3D and OpenGL on your older PC which is still fast enough to play alot of games.

[psk]

just to let you know i wouldn't buy a m64 version of a tnt 2 it just blows if i where you a smarter buy for a few dollars extra would be a geforce MX or if you still want to use glide get a V5 trust me the M64 version of the tnt just doesn't cut it oh yeah and i saw the V5 on pricewatch.com for 95$ so hurry up and get one before you can't anymore if you want the glide support btw if you get the Geforce 2 MX you can use a glide wrapper im not sure how the performance is but you can try :D

[FINALmasa]

Yes, we all know how many driver releases there are for the TNT2......

(I mean real ones)

[g-man]

Well, I'd like to thank you all for the input:) You were all very helpful, and I ended up with the nVidia card. FYI, I was able to test the card before the trade, and I noticed a significant differece while playing epsxe. Using the Detonator 12.41 drivers (after trying the latest OEM drivers), with about the same graphics settings/picture quality @640x480 using Pete's opengl and d3d plugins v1.51 and in Lewpy's plugin v1.34, glide on the v3 was about 10-20fps faster. Since I use Lewpy's glide plugin on this (the V5) system, I decided that I should use Pete's on the other one. Thanks again:)

[hoyoyo80]

I think that voodoo 3 is a lot faster than riva tnt2, i mean a lot...but for graphic detail better go for Riva Tnt2 but slower!!!

[Demigod]

Originally posted by hoyoyo80
I think that voodoo 3 is a lot faster than riva tnt2, i mean a lot...but for graphic detail better go for Riva Tnt2 but slower!!!
Actually it's been proven that the Riva TNT2 is overall faster than the Voodoo 3(I don't know about the M64 version though). As for quality I think the Voodoo 3 outshines the TNT2. Nvidia's known to have crappy 16bit texture quality. Their 32bit isn't too shabby but it chops off 15-20 frames. A lot of older games (UT, Quake series) are optimized for Glide so they show up best on Voodoo cards. But the Voodoo 3 is only proficient in Glide applications. It's Direct3D is slow and it doesn't have a full OpenGL ICD so most OpenGL games won't work on it. Still, it was a very good card for its time.

[liquid]

um the voodoo 3 isn't capable of 32bit rendering. however the TNT2 is. Unfortunately it is a 1999 spec card designed with DirectX6 in mind. So it lacks several hardware features such as S3 Texture Compression and T&L (I bet someone's gonna complain about how overated these features are...usually a 3dfx or Kyro owner).

anyways get a geforce 2MX, because this is the standard run of the mill video-card that most gamers use. It offers good performance and a robust feature set for little money.

glide is dead, 3dfx is dead...no need to stay with them.

[Demigod]

Originally posted by liquid
um the voodoo 3 isn't capable of 32bit rendering. however the TNT2 is. Unfortunately it is a 1999 spec card designed with DirectX6 in mind. So it lacks several hardware features such as S3 Texture Compression and T&L (I bet someone's gonna complain about how overated these features are...usually a 3dfx or Kyro owner).

I am not a 3Dfx propagandist but I think the Voodoo 3 was a very balanced card. It had all the features that it needed to perform. The TNT2 was loaded with all of the newer features but most of them didn't really come into play until the GeForce arrived. The TNT2 had support for 32bit color but it cut 15-20 frames, which is a pretty severe cut considering its limited rendering capabilities. Most people couldn't tell the difference anyways, and I found the 3Dfx texture quality to be a lot better than my TNT2's. It also had 32 MB of RAM so it could scale up to very high resolutions but a TNT2 was best played at low or modest resolutions. At 1024x768 @32 bit color I get around 30 fps in UT, not very good speed in my opinion. I usually stick with 800x600 and use 16bit color to get optimal speeds. The TNT2 also had support for AGP 4X but with its limited rendering abilities it really had no need for it. AGP 2X was more than enough to run any game, even now.

Of course it's always good to keep up with the newest technology but I don't find the advanced features in the TNT2 to be all that useful. The Voodoo 3 wasn't a bad card in my estimation, and I think 3Dfx was heading in the right direction with the Voodoo 5 and FSAA. They were criticized for not implementing outdated features such as T&L(modern processors can do T&L as fast, if not faster than the video card) and AGP texturing. Still, they failed to uphold their position as the "frame rate king".

[Adair]

Heh so what happened? After reading all that I noticed that you have the TNT2 in your system specs. Why not the Voodoo 3?

[psk]

i think only a fool would buy a tnt2 when they can get a geforce 2 MX but thats just my 2 cents :D

[Adair]

Well, yeah of coarse. It would be kinda pointless to buy a TNT2 now, but g-man was trading for one, not buying it. And he already has a Voodoo 5 so a GF2mx would also be a pointless buy, IMHO.

[liquid]

thanks for putting things on the right track...intresting how these threads develop a life of their own...

oh, hell, just keep your old card, you aren't going to gain much performance-wise by swapping to a tnt2 m64 (unless it were a TNT2 Ultra then that would be a good swap).

[psk]

actually no it wouldn't be pointless to get a geforce mx since he has a V5 the v5 blows major ass when it comes to opengl and d3d a gf2mx owns it even with the wicked gl drivers ask anyone who plays any NEW games with out glide support the v5 just don't cut it i update and get a GF or even a ATI card voodoo is Dead

in g-mans situation

anyway if i was g-man i would have kept my v3 cause the m64 version of the tnt2 really does suck i benched marked it against a v3 2000 pci and the m64 was agp the v3 2000 actually beat it in overall score in 3dmark it was pathetic and guess what a m64 tnt2 is about half as powerfull as a regular tnt2 your running on a single pipe instead of a dual pipe and it causes massive slow downs when the gfx gets intense just to let ya know even though the voodoo does the same but only if your running d3d or opengl in glide its actually a pretty good card

[psk]

oh yeah and i forgot to say that 32bit rendering on the m64 is pointless cause in games like q3 you will only hit 60 fps stareing at the wall if you move or when gibs fly your hitting 30 to 20 its just crap

[Demigod]

Yeah, Glide games run very well on Voodoo cards. My Voodoo 2 still runs games very well. I mostly use my TNT2 for OpenGL gaming, although many of the recent games are stressing it. Games like Alice and FAKK2 looks very nice in 32bit color but it's just a bit slow for my taste. It's nice to have the option for it, but for most of the newer games (which actually make a difference in quality) it isn't worth it.

[ice2hot]

lets imagine that both the companies dont provide updated drivers for the games.
so if one would tend to buy a graphic card which one should one go for. I mean which would perform better.
the voodoo 5
the geoforce latest series

[Adair]

Well the latest Geforce being Gefoce 3 will of coarse kick Voodoo 5's @$$. However voodoo drivers do seem to last longer. Maybe its because there are less games that use glide?

[psk]

Nvidia always updates there drivers with the latest technology supported even though most drivers are leaked they still are very stable and 3dfx is no longer around so you make the choice

[Adair]

Well yes of coarse, but it was just a hypothetical situation.

[ice2hot]

Um adair dont u mean they are less games that do not use glide. or there are less games that use glide. What about the open gl mode in vodoo 5 . how well does that work on it

[Adair]

I mean when I go into a game store most of the games I see are for D3D. OpenGL comes up second and Glide is last.
I don't know how well OpenGL works on a Voodoo 5. I'm sure its not as good as a comparable nVidia card though.

[EXE]

i got guide... but not is Tnt2 m64.. is v3 vs Tnt2 Ultra.. maybe you take a look it


www.guru3d.com/tech/v3vstnt2ultra.htm

[psk]

ummm there is a big dif between a tnt ultra and a tnt m64 just to let you know the topic compared a m64 to a v3

[BaD_BURN]

The facts : the TNT2 Model64 is nothing but a Vanta wit 32MB of 64-bit RAM so if you have read or heard people (or even NVidia) claiming that the M64 is a cheap 128-bit solution to the low-end market, sorry to say this but, the TNT2 M64 blows bigtime. IMO, the card works fine on games that have no TnL capabilties and some other stuff the new cards like the GeForce can do, but they work fine for emus like ePSXe. Altho I would suggest getting the V3 PCI. 3dfx may be dead but I've done some benchmarks and found out the V3 burns the M64 in games. Plus you get Glide too.