Earnest request @ SFFT & Co concerning drivers

[Raff3DC]

First: I want to thank again SFFT and all other people who are involved in the driver development for their continous nice work. But now we are at a point where we have to decide, I think. Newer games don't work with our Voodoos, as they don't with other older cards. Pixel-Shaders finally made their way to game domination, which represents a "game over" for these cards.

So, what does that mean for the drivers? Focussing on the things that really can be improved! Especially concerning the Direct3D core there are some things that would be nice to have.

I know that most of the last freaks out there primarily use a Voodoo5 5500 as the "biggest" card. 3dfx' masterpiece, the Voodoo5 6000, is rare. Well, it makes sense 'cause it's a prototpe. But: It's huge. In many ways. In the past few months I've tested many drivers using insanely many settings and games. All this results in a big article that will be released within the last weeks of this year. Main test subject: the goddess. And now we come to a problem ... one thing only the V56k has to fight with.

While testing I periodically fell off my chair. Why? Because of the insane power of this card! Holy ****, this beast can beat a GeForce3 and smells GeForce4 air in some cases and settings! The crux of the matter: only in OpenGL (using WickedGL) or Glide. 1600x1200 runs damn great there .... but in Direct3D it's impossible to get her to high framerates. My tests showed that a V4 4500 AGP almost always beats the goddess in 1600x1200 (resp. resolutions above 1024x768x32).

This is where my request starts: Dear driver programmers, SFFT, please focus on the SLI bug! I don't know how long it persists, but as far as I know, it has never been away. It somehow hurts to see what the card could perform with working SLI ... compared to reality in Direct3D. In the upcoming article, the V5 6000 kicks every card up to GeForce3 in OGL ... but loses with a big gap in newer games and/or higher resolutions above 1024x768. It's a crying shame. The card is extremely powerful but can't show it everywhere.

I don't know how much effort and time it would take to investigate and eliminate the problem but I think it deserves the highest priority. The masterpiece deserves it. Let her kick the GeForce's asses, k? I'm so damn impressed after the tests that I just had to write this. Thanks for reading. Took some time to write.

Greetings from Germany,
Raff

[Raff3DC]

Hm. Many read it but nobody posted something.

SFFT, did you read it? Do you agree? I don't know whether you own a V5 6000 (at least I hope so , but if you do ... then I think you know what I mean. This card is awesome, a rare and powerful piece of hardware. 3dfx' masterpiece. Think of it as a "last honor" to fix the problem. The last bad thing that prevents the 6k from real ass-kicking under Windows XP.

If it helps: Using Windows 98 SE and the latest Raziel Evolution drivers the 4-way SLI works fine in 1600x1200. Maybe you could take a look in there if this could be useful.

Greetings,
Raff

[m14radu]

Hy Ralf,
I totaly agreed with your opinion.
Many of the newer games doesnt work any more. I'm also not happy about this.
There is a lot of work to be done on drivers. Especialy the SLI bug, witch is still there.
The thing is that they are very few person witch are writing this drivers.
For them, i have all the RESPECT in the World.
They are doing this for free, and without them the 3dfx dream will never go on...so we have to understand that the development process is longer than usualy.
Many many thanks for this wonderful drivers.

Is there any possibility to help you guys ?
Please let's us known !

Br.
Radu.

[Raff3DC]

Ya. It's definitely nice work, no doubt!

I don't want faster development ... we can't demand that without payment, I think. What I want is a statement from SFFT on what he's going to focus now. Killing bugs in (partially) working games is an important task too. Well, the SLI f*uckup is a major bug ... and it impacts every D3D game.

Greetings,
Raff

P.S: Please call me Raff.

[r21vo]

Well, you all know how rare are v5-6k, therefore fixing SLI bug will have little impact (not saying it's useless, of course).

Another thing to mention - to fix that SLI bug one should have a v5-6k..