posted 02-01- 10:39 AM            

I would like to hear from people who are running SDOE on a V5 rig, and GeF2 rigs, how much trouble it was to get SDOE running for you, and what if any graphic issues there are. For instance I loathe those messed up runways that appear in D3D mode, and apparently GeF2 doesn't support glide - is it possible to have the game display properly (@$%@!#%!) in D3D with a GeF2??

I know I've asked a lot of questions about this, and they're all similar to each other, but this is a big investment and I'm not satisfied that the full explanation is out there, so once and for all, unequivocally, I'd like to know if there are people who can run SDOE the way it was meant to look in either of the aforementionned setups.

Thanks,

Werner *frustrated with hardware* Molders

posted 02-01- 10:43 AM               

maybe the new drivers will help..

posted 02-01- 11:52 AM               

I have the same questions/concerns that Werner has. I'll be doing an upgrade soon so cpu & memory won't be a problem. But I will probably change from a glide card to GeForce and I am concerned about texture problems in D3D that you read about here. When you crank it up to 1028X768 do you still have texture problems?

posted 02-01- 12:19 PM               

i don't have any problems in D3D then really low fr's and when i say low i mean 40 or 50 when a lot of planes. (over a 100 when it's just me)

i was getting 50 or 60 in glide but i had lockups and the texture problem with glide.

One thing you have to know is the glide for this was setup for Voodoo2, and tweaked for rush. The game had been out for sometime when Voodoo3's was released and the drivers are old.

That's why you can only go 800x600 in glide due to bugs. I'd just get a GeForce since i hear Tailslide gets good FR's at really high res.

But then again it's up to what you want to get and afford.

posted 02-01- 12:29 PM               

I'm still on my banshee and at 800x600 by myself I get 70s with everythign cranked.

What is your processor.

And are you buying for SDOE or for a bunch of games.

posted 02-01- 01:08 PM               

Directly from the 3dfx website:
"After aggressively pursuing a wide range of options that take into consideration the interests of our creditors, our shareholders, our employees and our customers," said Alex Leupp, president and CEO, 3dfx Interactive Inc., "we strongly believe that to reduce expenses, sell our assets and dissolve the company provides the highest return to our creditors, shareholders, and employees."

"We expect that the combined technologies of 3dfx and NVIDIA will continue the legacy that 3dfx began in 1994, " Leupp continued. "NVIDIA is the number one supplier of graphics technology to the OEM market. With the addition of 3dfx's high-quality technology that leads the retail market, we believe the combination of the two will result in even greater PC graphics leadership."

This should answer your question.

One more thing to consider. If the coice is between a GeForce MXII and an ATi Radeon DDR card, the Radeon is the better card. But if you have a chance to pick up a full blown GeForce2, go for it. I'm not a fan of ATI, but the Radeon does support FSAA.

Two more items of thought.
1. Nvidia bought the rights to Glide, Voodoo technology, and the Voodoo name.

2. Glide will run on hardware other than 3dfx. Creative had Glide running on their TNT2 boards thru an interpreter(they used an interpreter to avoid copyright hassle, the engineers said they could have run it directly otherwise). It wasn't perfect as they were beta drivers, but it was impressive.

3. The NV20 chipset is coming out, like the GeforceMX, Nvidia will turn out a cut back version to put the price below $200.

Does this mean you'll see Glide on nvidia boards? Maybe or maybe not, but knowing nvidia's marketing strategy, it's a distinct possibility. This would give them a HUGE advantage over ATI.

posted 02-01- 01:38 PM               

The major differences so far for me are the gamma - cockpits are way too dark, and my gamma in game is as high as it will go; and online, when I have the plane ID's on, they flash on/off at a rapid rate sometimes. Other than those 2 issues, I am happy with the GeForce card and SDOE, although I might say that I preferred the brightness of the Glide over D3D. I use the Det3 6.31 drivers, BTW. Frame rates seem only marginally better, I might also add. ( 30 to 70, where the 16 Mb Voodoo2 was giving me 30 to 45 on average ).

So, I would call it a success, but others' mileage may vary.

------------------
nealg=FC=

posted 02-01- 02:04 PM            

Gamma problems, eh? hmm. I really like my bright cockpits, and while I really only care about the fuel gauge it would suck to have everything really dark. Strobing tags would throw me for a loop too, lag is bad enough. On the other hand like Razer said the glide was built for earlier Voodoo boards... To answer Spanky, I am buying for other games, primarily IL2 but I absolutely must be able to run SDOE on whatever my new rig is, as I am not abandonning the game by any stretch of the imagination. I'm also buying a new mobo and cpu (P3 800Mhz).

Here's a wacky question for you: Can you have two boards (not SLI mode or anything) and switch back and forth between which one you're running? I mean my banshee runs sdoe like a dream, and so far it seems any way you cut it (GeF2 or V5) there are some "minor" issues to contend with.

Oh, and I did take a look at the nv20s, but I don't want to wait that long to get my new rig, and what money I save by getting a GeF2 or V5 I'm putting towards RAM anyways.

Razer - Can you have fog with D3D? What about your runways, do they ever show up fuzzy?

WM

posted 02-01- 04:46 PM               

FWIW, I've "yet" (I just jinxed myself I know it).. to have to turn "any" bells or whistles down to play a game.
I generally run at 1024x768, but have recently dropped down to 800x600 while running FAA 2X.

I've pretty much eliminated all graphic problems/artifacts/jaggies by tweaking settings and running FAA 2x.

800x600 with FAA 2x and all the bells and whistles... My framerates are between 30 and 75 FPS, depending on the "type" of aircraft in mission... The number of aircraft in mission doesn't effect the framerates much until they exceed 12+ aircraft.

posted 02-01- 05:19 PM               

The only problems with Glide and SDOE are this:

Texture corruption and loss after a long play. This is a driver problem as my V3 3000 AGP with 1.04 drivers did not do this.

For you to beable to run SDOE in Glide with the latest V3 and V5 drivers, you MUST have your desktop set to 32 bit at 1024x768. (I dont know about the V4)

You cannot turn off FAA with the V5 otherwise SDOE will dislplay a jaggy corrupted picture. Some other old Glide games have similar problems with FAA. (WWII Fighters and Homeworld both have some type of FAA problem. You either have to turn it off or turn it on, depends on the game really.)

You cannot go above 800x600 unless you want to resize the screen. (I dont think this applys with the latest Beta patch for SDOE.)

I think thats about it. Oh yeah the V5 is a HUGE card so make sure you have room in your case. If you run in Glide, you do not get the display glitches and clipping problems that D3d gets.

posted 02-01- 07:43 PM               

~WWKahuna (Red Baron 3D) http://www.wingwalkers.org
Big Kahuna in SDOE

posted 02-01- 08:25 PM               

Yeah I don't see any reason you can't run your banshee or voodoo2 and a geforce what ever at the same time.

You could swap the plug back and forth or buy a switch to switch the monitor back and forth.

In fact that sounds like exactly what I would do. EXCEPT. I don't have 2 AGP ports.

I have thought of getting a voodoo2 pci or voodoo3 pci.

BTW werner, why not upgrade everything but the vid card and see how you like it and then wait for IL-2 to come out and see if its worth spending and upgrade on and see what card everyone else is liking for it?

posted 02-01- 09:42 PM            

I'm going for my upgrade all at once because I got recommended optimum specs from Oleg at Siggi's forum, and I trust the man. I don't see any reason to drag the upgrade process out any more than it has to.

Razer, another Q for you if you don't mind - you said you get FRs higher in one mode than the other, and that you have a GeF2, but since it doesn't support glide, how are you setup so that you can compare like that? Do you have a glide card in one of your machines and your GF2 in the other?

I hate to say it, but I'm seeing a trend with cards here (as they get newer) and that is that despite getting things like the V5 to work (Argon, for example), problems are piling up, and unless the dual-card thing works in a few years we may find ourselves caught between running SDOE or running the next, "next generation" of simulations.

Werner

posted 02-03- 03:02 AM            

Works like a dream. Tex memory is a tad low, I get funny white tracers and blocks if I go above about a dozen a/c offline.

WM

P.S. After talking with TS (who gets jaggy runways occasionally, btw) I'm going fullblown GF2, despite what it'll do to SDOE.

posted 02-08- 05:20 PM               

No i have a Voodoo 5 5500 not a geforce.

No youcan't have fog in D3D just glide, and that is one of the things i miss a lot.. i had the fog cranked and you would get a nice mist over hills and stuff.

i get low FR's in D3D since glide runs faster but i've learned to deal with them and thats ok.

posted 02-08- 08:46 PM            

Werner

posted 02-14- 03:20 AM               

Oh, I use D3D cause it looks better (V3 2000), I have a big monitor and 800x600 looks like crap in glide, there again I've heard said that a voodoo with 4xAA looks great at 800x600 in glide though, still, for me thats not an option.

posted 02-14- 12:24 PM               

I tried d3d on my banshee and the FPS is lower and you get all those defects like the clifs and airfeild edges and stuff.

posted 02-14- 05:45 PM            

From my experience...
Sdoe on a PII-450 with Voodoo2 which is glide,, is Better than a TNT2 Ultra, and Geforce graphically.

At resolutions 800*600

I bought a AThlon 850,, put in 256 of PC133mhz ram and the SAME Geforce card 32Mb SDR and now I run 1024*768.
It's basically better now than the TNT2 Ultra because of this High resolution , and the frame Rates Peak whilst giving you taht extra perspective of WIDE Vision.

Graphically still not as good, ie smooth looking than Glide. But I changed My perspective on what I want,

AND have disabled Antialiasing and just get pure fps boost!, no matter how many planes in the air,
I don't have time to look at the cliffs in combat ,

Any drop below 20 fps is bad news for me,,
average
80-30fps,, all scenarios

Depends what you want.

Of course leaving the glide was hard
but getting into the battle and sdoe is great for that , you can forget there is any scenary at all , especially if you are High altitude.

Of course , I want a NV20 integrating FSSA using GLide technology,, and Thats what I want to buy,, saving all my money not buying B17-II and other Pay as you play simulations!!!,,,

If you Buy SDOE and stick with it,, you save money to get the Hardware to play the only game you wanna play!

posted 02-14- 08:09 PM               

And the TNT2U IS NOT glide, sorry but your mistaken there.

Some of us care how the ground looks, why not just have one big flat texture if all we care about is what we see in combat.

In fact why even have real water, lets just have the planes go boom when they hit the ground, Its not like it makes a differnece in combat right?

I personally never forget there is terrain below me, even at high alt.

I doubt the NV20 will support glide but at least theres a chance.

posted 02-14- 09:37 PM               

General picture quality is low even with voodoo settings maxed for best picture. ALL edges that should be straight look jagged in Glide (800x600 sucks) Aircraft just look to "boxy" I personaly find that although D3D has some texture probs with the clifs and runways, it's not too bad when I max out the settings, and thats minimal when compaired to how bad aircraft look in Glide. Hell I can hardly make out what the enemy aircraft is in Glide, but D3D I can see it clearly.

FPS is exactly the same if I use 800x600 in glide, or 1024x768 D3D, but the quality is better obviously at 10x7. Also if I push up to the max in D3D of 1793x1344 I don't loose that much in FPS, but since my machine is slow (533mhz K6-2) I can't realy play in that resolution, but if like most here I had somthing in the region of 700mhz I reckon it'd play fine.

I guess after that you might wounder why I would still buy the V5.. well, simply because it has Glide "and" D3D and I don't only play SDOE, for example I can play Unreal ect at max res in Glide with all effects turned on and it looks stunning when compaired to D3D.

posted 02-14- 09:45 PM            

Borrowed that from Bullet...

To those of you who love your D3D cards, do you ever get runways that look like the above? I don't know how many times I've seen guys with D3D cards post pics here and the runways look all blocky like that or worse. I don't know if Bullet has a D3D card or not, it's irrelevant, I'm using the pic to illustrate my point. My Banshee displays everything as it should, no problems whatsoever, and I disagree with the notion that planes look like crap in Glide, as Nat said. Then again Nat you have trouble downloading from Simfiles, so perhaps your whole rig is hexed. (Just a joke Nat, no need to rant about simfiles)

I think Razer's many beautiful screenshots in the last few weeks really show off what Glide can do in this game. It's tremendous. This isn't to say D3D sucks, but at this point I don't know if those of you who love D3D are just ignoring the above runways as a fact of life or not.

Werner

posted 02-15- 02:02 AM               

OK, Here goes...

V3 2000 in Glide @800x600 (20.7fps)

V3 2000 in D3D @ 1600x1200 (very slight loss of pic quality dure to resizing - 20.2FPS)

Now granted here you see very little difference at all. Where I see the difference is in flight when the enemy aircraft look like christ knows what in glide, but you can see the shape of them in D3D..

But still, if I didn't put heading to the pics, could any of you tell which was D3D and which was Glide? (other than seeing how tiny the letters are which show it's in high res lol)

I'm sorry, I just have to add that the Glide aircraft look like it has jagged edges to me, it's obviously much lower quality, the D3D pic is so much sharper and clearer...

now you tell me, which would you rather fly, NO! Not glide damn you!!

posted 02-15- 02:22 AM               

Lower FPS due to number of aircraft and crappy CPU lol

posted 02-15- 03:14 AM               

ITS THE RESOLUTION MAN.

Run glide in 1600x1200 and it will look pretty much the same.

I will admit though that glides textures don't look as sharp sometimes.

That I Find has always been a shortcoming of glide.

Man you can tell that your not pushing your vid card at all if its the same FPS at 8x6 in glide and 16x12 in D3D.

LOL

Don't worry my CPU sucks ass too and You actually have a better vid card then me.

Does anyone know how to get it so I can select higher then 1024x768 in glide?

posted 02-15- 04:47 AM               

I run 1028x768 in the betas in glide and get about 20 to 40 more FPS then i get in D3D and i always have crappy areas around islands in D3D and you loose the cool fog in D3D also.

glide is dated though and soon everything will be OpenGl or D3D so it doesn't really matter.

you'll have to learn to love D3D or just play old games.

heres some pics.. (note i have winamp, photoshop 5.5, ICQ, and 5 other programs running in the background so FPS is lower then normal)
D3D 2x FSAA

Glide 2x FSAA

(don't mind the stuff in the glide pic, it's beta debug and shadow bug)

our biggest complain is the washy graphics on the runways and around the islands.

------------------
Tony "Razer" Martin
FS Hangar