2 GeForce2 or not 2 GeForce2...that is the question?
I have run Voodoo cards forever and have never had trouble with any game or O/S and have been totally satisfied with 3dfx fixes,patches, and driver updates. They are on top of everything. I want to buy a GeForce2 card now because everyone says how wonderful they are.
I have run Voodoo cards forever and have never had trouble with any game or O/S and have been totally satisfied with 3dfx fixes,patches, and driver updates. They are on top of everything. I want to buy a GeForce2 card now because everyone says how wonderful they are.....if they run. Does anybody have any insight into this.Everything I read everywhere describes all the trouble everyone is having getting their games to run. Is there any hope for this card or should I just crawl back to "old security" and get the voodoo5 for 32bit operation.
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I've posted a few messages about this under other threads that have gone 'off topic'
The NVidia cards are the cards to own.
Their specs and speed make them un-touchable by other card manufacturers.
When these cards work, they are amazing.
However.....
As far as I can see, NVidia can't write drivers to save their lives.
It seems we have about 4 'current' drivers available and depending on what games you want to play you need to download the relivant driver.
I'm a Matrox G400MAX owner.
I know that my card is nowehere near as fast as the NVidia's.
But, I have no issues what so ever with games.
If the game is Win2k compatible then I know that I will be able to run it.
No downloading an older driver just to get things working.
Just my opinion, but until I see a 90% stable NVidia driver that runs 99% of the games it should, then my next purchase will definately be a G800.
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PIII 650 Coppermine, ABit BE6-II, 384MB PC100 RAM (Samsung), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA66 22GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410.
The NVidia cards are the cards to own.
Their specs and speed make them un-touchable by other card manufacturers.
When these cards work, they are amazing.
However.....
As far as I can see, NVidia can't write drivers to save their lives.
It seems we have about 4 'current' drivers available and depending on what games you want to play you need to download the relivant driver.
I'm a Matrox G400MAX owner.
I know that my card is nowehere near as fast as the NVidia's.
But, I have no issues what so ever with games.
If the game is Win2k compatible then I know that I will be able to run it.
No downloading an older driver just to get things working.
Just my opinion, but until I see a 90% stable NVidia driver that runs 99% of the games it should, then my next purchase will definately be a G800.
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PIII 650 Coppermine, ABit BE6-II, 384MB PC100 RAM (Samsung), Matrox G400MAX, SB Live! Value, Intel 10/100 NIC, Adaptec 2940UW, IBM 7200 ATA66 22GB HD, IBM 7200 ATA66 20GB HD, Pioneer 32x/6x SCSI DVD, Yamaha 4416 SCSI CD-RW, Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Internal, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 410.
I have a GeForce 256 DDR card, and so far I haven't had any troubles running any of my games. About the driver releases...once again I don't seem to have any problems, and I've been running each new reference driver since 5.14 as it was released. My only real gripe is that Unreal Tournament has pretty lousy Direct3D support and even worse OpenGL. On the plus side, I get 60fps in Quake 3 Arena running 1024x768 with everything on
I can only imagine what the GeForce 2 GTS must be capable of running. Now if only I could find a better way to run UT so I could break that pesky 40fps barrier.......
I can only imagine what the GeForce 2 GTS must be capable of running. Now if only I could find a better way to run UT so I could break that pesky 40fps barrier.......
I own a GeForce 256 SDR (Creative Labs), and have never had any problems with it in Win2K with any of released or leaked NVidia or Creative Win2K drivers.
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"Being married to a programmer is like owning a cat: You talk to it but you're never really sure if it hears you, much less comprehends what you say."
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"Being married to a programmer is like owning a cat: You talk to it but you're never really sure if it hears you, much less comprehends what you say."
Here is my NVidia story:
I own/have run under Win2K TNT2 (Guillemot), TNT2 Ultra (Guillemot), GeForce SDR (Leadtek)and GeForce DDR (Elsa).
I never had a problem with these cards which could not be easily solved (never had any prob under Win98).
The only prob I have is with UT: slowish D3D and no opengl since 5.14. The culprit is not Nvidia but the game engine itself which is basically a glide engine.
I will not buy a GeForce2 thu. Not enough performance extra as compared with 256-DDR.
I'll wait for next generation (next Xmas?).
On the other hand, I never got my SLI Voodoo2s to work under Win2K because of zero-level support from 3dfx.
I own/have run under Win2K TNT2 (Guillemot), TNT2 Ultra (Guillemot), GeForce SDR (Leadtek)and GeForce DDR (Elsa).
I never had a problem with these cards which could not be easily solved (never had any prob under Win98).
The only prob I have is with UT: slowish D3D and no opengl since 5.14. The culprit is not Nvidia but the game engine itself which is basically a glide engine.
I will not buy a GeForce2 thu. Not enough performance extra as compared with 256-DDR.
I'll wait for next generation (next Xmas?).
On the other hand, I never got my SLI Voodoo2s to work under Win2K because of zero-level support from 3dfx.
With my old TNT I was able to play expendable in win2k when it was in beta. Later I got a G400, and it still today can't run that game in win2k. It was also very unstable and unbereably slow in certain games. I also have a Voodoo2, that one never have had any real win2k drivers. until now I guess..
Today I own a geforce2 (gladiac) and all I need to say is I play Dungeon Keeper 2 in win2k with AA on, and it is very smooth. This is with 2x2 (or 4 sample) AA and high quality mip-mapping. Quake 3 is stable and fast (72 fps in 1024@32 bit HQ etc).
nvidia is the only company that has NT OpenGL SMP support for their graphics cards and I believe that says a lot about their driver support. ATI and Matrox are still struggling with their OpenGL ICD and 3dfx have never had anything else than a Glide Call port.
I have not seen any voodoo5 benchmarks in win2k yet, anyone else? They won't support SMP I know but I don't know about performance.
Today I own a geforce2 (gladiac) and all I need to say is I play Dungeon Keeper 2 in win2k with AA on, and it is very smooth. This is with 2x2 (or 4 sample) AA and high quality mip-mapping. Quake 3 is stable and fast (72 fps in 1024@32 bit HQ etc).
nvidia is the only company that has NT OpenGL SMP support for their graphics cards and I believe that says a lot about their driver support. ATI and Matrox are still struggling with their OpenGL ICD and 3dfx have never had anything else than a Glide Call port.
I have not seen any voodoo5 benchmarks in win2k yet, anyone else? They won't support SMP I know but I don't know about performance.