Will There Be A TurboGL Driver for NT4 or W2K?

[Giz]

I'm leaning towards getting a G400 Max for a new box I'm putting together, but I was wondering if there will be a TurboGL driver for NT4 or Windows 2000. Thanks in advance.

[Zwisch]

Hi,

Probably not for NT since it is simply not a gaming system and would not have the requirement for it... it does not even work in win95... As for windows 2000, let wait before simple drivers are released first..

[Giz]

Thanks for the reply. Given that does anyone know what performance is like for games like Unreal/Unreal Tournament and Half Life currently with a G400 Max under NT4? I currently play those games under NT4 with my Voodoo3 2000 and both games play quite well under NT4.

Thanks again.

[LightHeaded]

Hey guys,

why is OpenGL always equated with gaming? Those of us using NT professionally have a HUGE need for the fastest OpenGL driver possible. Try rendering and moving in realtime in 32 bit depth on a virtual reality environment consisting of over 150,000 polygons and over 40 MB in textures while evaluating 16 lights with full blend, reflection, refraction and so on. Open GL is the only way to do this. And a slow driver and hardware is death!!!

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PLA Designs, Inc.
Theatrical Consulting
and Lighting Design

Once a Senior Member, then lost, then back again. Very expensive computers that run really fast, and don't really care to brag about anymore. This is, after all, just my job.

[mj12]

The simple fact is that matrox's main aim is gamers. That is why there is just NOW a beta driver for w2k, and it doesn't even support opengl or directx. As much as I love the quality of matrox products, their drivers are another story. Maybe they need to play some hardball with nvidia and hire the best opengl driver dev. that money can buy and chain his ass to a computer. I personally believe that Matrox is dropping the ball with w2k. Gamers are going to flock to it in droves because it is shipping with directx7! Matrox should of had a beta w2k driver when the g400 shipped! Not 3 months later.

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[PaulS]

I can't believe how many people buy the line that "NT is no good for games". NT is only "no good for games" if you have a Matrox card. With a good driver, OpenGL on NT is faster than Win9X, and that shows up in any game that uses OpenGL.

Regarding a TurboGL. It is simply a subset of the OpenGL ICD. There is nothing inherently faster about a mini driver - it just lets the programmers concentrate on the bits that games use.

Matrox did the whole OpenGL thing back to front. Their programmers should have been cutting their teeth on the mini driver to gain some experience, and then progress to the ICD. But instead they made a mess of the ICD, and are now going back to basics. Eventually the optimizations in the TurboGL should turn up in the Win 9X ICD, but who knows how long until the NT ICD fully exploits the card.

If you are building a NT/W2K box with the intention of playing games then a Matrox card is a very bad choice. Don't ever buy a card for what it may be able to do in the future.

Paul.


[This message has been edited by PaulS (edited 13 October 1999).]

[This message has been edited by PaulS (edited 13 October 1999).]

[DetroitP]

To back up PaulS's remarks about NT's superiority to Win98 for OpenGL, my benchmarks from q3test 1.08 q3demo1 on high quality settings(800x600, 32bit color)

G400 MAX (PD 5.25) on PIII-600 running Win98: 41 fps.

CL TNT2U on Celly300A@450 running NT: 43 fps.

(Now with TurboGL, the former setup now hits 48 fps)

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MY TNT2 bumper sticker reads: My MAX is in my friend's computer

[This message has been edited by DetroitP (edited 13 October 1999).]

[Zwisch]

Hi PaulS,

We still need to understand that the main purpose of NT is not games... while win98 is much more optimized for it... We also need to remeber that NT only support directX3... that tells us pretty much it's game support.. don't you agree?

Z

PS : but don't worry I have no grudge against NT

[PaulS]

Hi Zwisch,

The main purpose of NT is, like any mass market OS, to be able to do what the end user wants - fast and reliably. NT4 has an extremely fast graphics subsystem, whether you are walking through a building simulation, or shooting aliens! It is excellent for non-DirectX games.

The lack of DirectX support in NT was a mistake. NT 5 / Windows 2000 was originally scheduled for release a little after NT4 sp3. The DirectX support added in sp3 was a stop gap measure - video functions were given kernel level privileges after NT 3.51, so support for (hardware) DirectX needed to be written into the kernel also. Hardware DirectX was saved for the rewrite of the NT5 kernel.

I don't think anybody expected that the NT4 kernel would still be in use today, but rest assured that the only reason it doesn't support DirectX is because MS has everybody working on Windows 2000. Do you know that Microsoft's game console is based on DirectX and the NT kernel (Windows CE)? Why would they do that if they thought NT was no good for games? Obviously they're doing it because NT is better for games than Win9X.

Paul.

[cirrus]

Hmm... NT4 currently is no good for games and gamers. But NT core can be and will be modified so that it'll support gaming as good as other things too (Win2000). And why to choose NT core over to win98 core when building new game box is obvious. Win98 isn't fully 32bit OS. And of course in NT core lies the gaming future. After Windows codename Millenium Win98 core will be burried.

But currently I am not willing to change my PC gaming platform to NT. When Windows 2000 is released, maybe then. People over here have had good experiences with Win2000, but of course we will know better when Matrox releases full drivers for Win2000.

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Arto