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After living with the MAX for about a week, I've come to a couple conclusions:
1) It is, hands down, as fast as, if not faster than, a Voodoo2 SLI rig. Just don't forget to up the _snd_mixahead in any Quake2 engine-based games if you're using an ISA sound card.
** CORRECTION ** It IS as fast, but too unstable. I've had crashes and lockups when EXITING a game (not while in one), so I reinstalled the V2 SLI rig. D3D is fine. It's OpenGL that still has issues. D3D just corrupts the display from time to time. :-)
2) OpenGL has issues, but all the games I play run in D3D (Half-Life, Unreal, etc.). OpenGL is DISABLED for EVERY Display Adaptor under Windows 98, should you have more than one Display Adaptor. If you were looking for OpenGL and multi-monitor, it won't work.
** Yet another reason for the V2's - they do GLide and OpenGL without having to disable other heads **
3) The second output, in multi-monitor, doesn't generate a strong enough signal to push through the minor degradation that my OmniCube introduces (KVM box). I'm reinstalling the Millennium II tonight for my second head.
** Fixed this with great cables from Cables To Go - www.cablestogo.com. MII's out. Needed room for the SB Live! **
4) SoftDVD playback is excellent. You won't need a separate decoder for it. However, a more feature-filled player would be nice, and DVD WON'T output to the second head in multi-monitor mode.
All in all, I'm happy I got it. I'm going to futz with overclocking it a bit to see if I can squeeze a few more FPS out of it at 1280x1024. If anything, it relieves my case of two Voodoo2's, which generate enough heat to warm a small room.
It'll hold me over until 3dfx's Rampage part is released. At that point, I'll migrate it out to another system and add on video in/out a la Marvel, should they make such add-ons available.
Just my $0.02
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Primary System: PIII-540 (450@4.5x120), Soyo 6BA+ III, 256MB PC100 ECC SDRAM, G400 MAX in multi-monitor mode. Two Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 900u monitors, 3Com 3C905, SoundBlaster 32, Altec Lansing AC5 spkrs, 2nd Parallel Port, WD AC41800 18GB HD, WD AC310100 10GB HD, Toshiba XM-6102b CD-ROM, HP 8100i CD-RW, Epson Stylus Pro, Sharp JX-9400 LJ-II compatible, OptiUPS PowerES 650, MS SideWinder Precision Pro USB joystick, Logitech 3-button mouse, Mitsumi keyboard, Win98 SE, Belkin OmniCube 4-port KVM
Secondary System: PII-266, Asus P2B BIOS 1008, 128MB PC100 ECC SDRAM, Millennium II, 3Com 3C590, ADSL Modem 640kbit down/90kbit up, 3Com 3C509, Mylex BT-930 SCSI card, Seagate 2GB Hawk, NEC 6x CD-ROM, Linux distro S.u.S.E. 6.1 (IP Masquerade works!)
Tertiary System: DFI G568IPC Intel 430HX chipset, P200MMX, 96MB of non-parity RAM, Millennium II, 3Com 3C900, SoundBlaster 16 MCD, Fujitsu 3.5GB HD, WD 1.2GB HD, Hollywood Plus DVD decoder card, Toshiba 6x DVD-ROM, OS of the week
All specs subject to change.
[This message has been edited by IceStorm (edited 09-21-1999).]
1) It is, hands down, as fast as, if not faster than, a Voodoo2 SLI rig. Just don't forget to up the _snd_mixahead in any Quake2 engine-based games if you're using an ISA sound card.
** CORRECTION ** It IS as fast, but too unstable. I've had crashes and lockups when EXITING a game (not while in one), so I reinstalled the V2 SLI rig. D3D is fine. It's OpenGL that still has issues. D3D just corrupts the display from time to time. :-)
2) OpenGL has issues, but all the games I play run in D3D (Half-Life, Unreal, etc.). OpenGL is DISABLED for EVERY Display Adaptor under Windows 98, should you have more than one Display Adaptor. If you were looking for OpenGL and multi-monitor, it won't work.
** Yet another reason for the V2's - they do GLide and OpenGL without having to disable other heads **
3) The second output, in multi-monitor, doesn't generate a strong enough signal to push through the minor degradation that my OmniCube introduces (KVM box). I'm reinstalling the Millennium II tonight for my second head.
** Fixed this with great cables from Cables To Go - www.cablestogo.com. MII's out. Needed room for the SB Live! **
4) SoftDVD playback is excellent. You won't need a separate decoder for it. However, a more feature-filled player would be nice, and DVD WON'T output to the second head in multi-monitor mode.
All in all, I'm happy I got it. I'm going to futz with overclocking it a bit to see if I can squeeze a few more FPS out of it at 1280x1024. If anything, it relieves my case of two Voodoo2's, which generate enough heat to warm a small room.
It'll hold me over until 3dfx's Rampage part is released. At that point, I'll migrate it out to another system and add on video in/out a la Marvel, should they make such add-ons available.
Just my $0.02
------------------
Primary System: PIII-540 (450@4.5x120), Soyo 6BA+ III, 256MB PC100 ECC SDRAM, G400 MAX in multi-monitor mode. Two Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 900u monitors, 3Com 3C905, SoundBlaster 32, Altec Lansing AC5 spkrs, 2nd Parallel Port, WD AC41800 18GB HD, WD AC310100 10GB HD, Toshiba XM-6102b CD-ROM, HP 8100i CD-RW, Epson Stylus Pro, Sharp JX-9400 LJ-II compatible, OptiUPS PowerES 650, MS SideWinder Precision Pro USB joystick, Logitech 3-button mouse, Mitsumi keyboard, Win98 SE, Belkin OmniCube 4-port KVM
Secondary System: PII-266, Asus P2B BIOS 1008, 128MB PC100 ECC SDRAM, Millennium II, 3Com 3C590, ADSL Modem 640kbit down/90kbit up, 3Com 3C509, Mylex BT-930 SCSI card, Seagate 2GB Hawk, NEC 6x CD-ROM, Linux distro S.u.S.E. 6.1 (IP Masquerade works!)
Tertiary System: DFI G568IPC Intel 430HX chipset, P200MMX, 96MB of non-parity RAM, Millennium II, 3Com 3C900, SoundBlaster 16 MCD, Fujitsu 3.5GB HD, WD 1.2GB HD, Hollywood Plus DVD decoder card, Toshiba 6x DVD-ROM, OS of the week
All specs subject to change.
[This message has been edited by IceStorm (edited 09-21-1999).]
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