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**Guru** · 10 July 2001, 04:42

If you are going to use it for gaming go with the G400

**Gurm** · 10 July 2001, 09:08

Swap...

Tell you what.

I'll swap you, even steven, my G400DH for your FireGL2.

No joke!

- Gurm

**Lemmin** · 10 July 2001, 09:15

hmmm...

Thanks for the offer, Gurm...

*BUT* I already have a G400, and I am not unaware of the value of the FGL2 (around £500 when new, I think). Besides, one day I may get back into using 3DS Max. If the day comes when I want to swap an FGL2 for a G400 I'll let you know....

I have done some extensive browsing on the FGL2 today, and on paper it should be faster than the G400, even for gaming, so it all comes down to how good the drivers are. I think I might do some benchmarks when I get a chance, to see whether the G400 is better for gaming.

Lemmin

**Gurm** · 10 July 2001, 11:36

Funny how I didn't think you'd go for that.

Don't count on good gaming drivers though, it's really not their focus at all, and I pretty seriously doubt that you'll find them to be up to snuff.

- Gurm

**EvilDonnyboy** · 10 July 2001, 14:41

I'm thinking here. What makes gaming card's drivers fast is because they leave out a lot of things to speed things fast. This is because games dont' use all of OpenGL. But what makes gaming card driver's crappy at pro OpenGL is because Pro applications utilize much of OpenGL's features, requiring complete drives for best results.

So a pro card like FireGL will have very complete OpenGL drivers. They will be slow in gaming of course. But I'm thinking, games should run rather mostly bug-free, since the openGL drivers are so complete. The only problem would be gaming performance. But the FireGL has significantly better spec's than the G400, I'm guessing the pure speed will make up for the slow drivers.

None of this is based on any real knowledge, I'm just guessing. So don't cut me up if I'm wrong.

**Indiana** · 10 July 2001, 14:49

I don't think he'll have any problems with OpenGL games as well.
DirectX, now that might be another issue.

But I'd keep the FireGL for sure.

**EvilDonnyboy** · 10 July 2001, 15:12

One thing I'm curious about, how does the FireGL 2d quality compare to the G400's?

**Lemmin** · 11 July 2001, 01:47

Update

Just an update on progress - after a monster computer-building session last night, I finally got to play with the FireGL card.

My first thoughts: its useless for games! Not just slow, but most of them don't work. Quake3 demo and full game both crash at the first menu, Quake 2 has issues (but with the OS not the card I think), SOF has issues with the card. In fact the only game I managed to get working was Unreal Tournament, which had interesting results.

UT ran at approximately 5 times the speed using OpenGL than it did using either software or D3D, which both had trouble keeping above 30fps - using the OpenGL drivers the game ran at 120fps+.

Regarding quality, its very hard to judge in a game because they are all so damn dark! But in 2D its fast, sharp and the colours are good.

So I think I will have to go back to my G400, at least in the short term. Anyone want to make me an offer on a FireGL2?

Lemmin

**Alec** · 11 July 2001, 03:46

That FireGL, is it from what manufacturer? (ATI, Diamond or 3dLabs?) If you can, post an hyperlink to its specs page...

**Lemmin** · 11 July 2001, 03:52

Specs

Alec,

The manufacturer of the card is a good question. Its actually an ATI card:

http://www.ati.com/na/pages/products/workstation/fire_gl2/index.html

BUT the drivers say Diamond, and the Bios says S3! Although the release notes for the drivers say ATI... Its sort of confusing, and I attribute the confusion to the fact that FireGL changed hands rapidly in the last 12 months.

Theres also a fairly good review of the FireGL2 on Tom's Hardware at:

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/00q4/001213/

Enjoy..

Lemmin

**Alec** · 11 July 2001, 04:55

Thanks.

**Alec** · 11 July 2001, 05:10

Quite a nice card you´ve got there, shame about the no-gaming optimization. Great if you´re working in 3D-OpenGL graphics.

**Gurm** · 11 July 2001, 05:32

There is actually no GOOD reason a card can't have both good gaming drivers AND good professional drivers.

However, since game programmers take absurd shortcuts you will find that despite the robustness of the drivers... many games just don't work.

As for the darkness, that seems to be a problem indemic to professional cards running games in OpenGL. Quake and Quake2 were both too dark to see on the Permedia and Oxygen cards... id released a workaround.

If you want more detail because you are hideously curious about this sort of thing, please speak up. Otherwise I'll leave it right where it is now.

- Gurm

P.S. I'll give ya $100. (wink)

**Lemmin** · 11 July 2001, 07:09

IMO the FireGL has worse (gaming) drivers than a lot of pro workstation cards. I remember playing Quake3 on a 3D Labs Wildcat 5110, and it ran fine, and wasn't at all dark (although the speed wasn't as good as I'd hoped for). Other GL games also ran much more reliably on the Wildcat than they have so far on my FGL2.

As regards the darkness issue, I'm interested as to why games are so dark on modern 3D cards - I don't think its just pro 3D cards though, since a lot of modern 'gaming' cards seem to make modern games dark. I don't think its just that I have the brightness on my monitor turned right down, is it?

If I get a chance tonight I'll swap the FGL2 and the G400 between my server and workstation and re-run some games to see what the difference in performance and quality is.

Any recommendations for a decent, fairly cheap, reliable, good quality modern gaming card, with good drivers and decent 2D? Kyro2?

Regards,

Lemmin

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