Hmm... When will there be a TurboGL driver that works with K6-IIIs?

[aNtHrAx323]

I have a K6-III and don't have the cash to burn on an Athlon, yet I want to be able to use TurboGL! I manually installed it, but it crashed. Any help/info?!?!

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-Campbell "aNtHrAx323" Krueger
anthrax32@yahoo.com

[Kruzin]

I told you over on PCParadox that it wasn't gonna work.

There has already been one long discussion today about TurboGL on non-P3/K7 chips. All the same things said about P2 apply to K6...

http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum5/HTML/006520.html

[aNtHrAx323]

whoa, hey now... STOP FOLLOWING ME!!! anyways, there is very little difference between the K6-III and the K7 (NOT the K6-2). wait, let me finish. the only differences are (a) the amount of on chip cache, (b) the core speed, and (c) the slot connector. that shouldn't affect its compatability with the 3Dnow! instruction set. the difference between the P2 and the P3 is, however, more dramatic (when it comes to instruction sets...). the P3 has SSE and MMX, while the P2 only has MMX. TurboGL operates with 3Dnow! and SSE, not MMX. so, my question is a little more sensible.

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-Campbell "aNtHrAx323" Krueger
anthrax32@yahoo.com

[rylan]

Actually, the Athlon has some enhanced 3DNOW! instructions that the K6-2 and K6-III do not have, so that is why the turboGL driver works on an Athlon and not the K6-x line. I'm assuming it uses the extra enhanced single instruction streaming 3DNOW set on the Athlon and the streaming SSE on the P-3 to do the job. Just give them time. It'll take more coding, and probably not be as fast as the Athlon turboGL, but theres been hints dropped all over that it will show up for the K6-x. Be patient, Matrox has a way of showing up with new things out of the blue

[Kruzin]

Heheh.

Who's following who, little MURCette?

Looks like you followed ME.

This issue has been hashed, and rehashed. As it sits, today, only P3 and K7 are supported, regardless of the degree of difference between K6/K7 and P2/P3. There has been no official announcement about any other additional support, and until there is, we have no way of knowing if/when it might happen.

[Rags]

Whoa, hey now!!!(hehehehe)
There is a BIG difference between the K6-3 and K7. The K7 has a completely different core with an extended set of 3DNow! instructions. It has over 200 new possible optimizations when compared to the K6-2/K6-3. Now, there is little difference between the K6-2 and K6-3. The differences are: The K6-3 has on die cache, and the CXT cores (All later K6-2's also have the CXT core). All the CXT core does is give improved write combining features, that's it.

Rags



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Which one is Floyd, and why isn't he Pink???

[aNtHrAx323]

ooh, ok... i always thought the 3Dnow! instructions were identical between the K6-3 and the K7... now i see. i might be better off just buying an athlon anyways.

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-Campbell "aNtHrAx323" Krueger
anthrax32@yahoo.com

[gbm]

Heating up...

No, the K7 supplements K6-2/III 3DNow! with only 3 instructions used mainly in signal processing, not so important for graphics.

Even if someone uses these 3 instructions, it is very easy to substitute short sequences of K6-x instructions for them. So there is no big reason for which K6-x TGL should not be created. I hope we will see one soon, if only Matrox has enough time and resources to debug it (but then you, guys, must understand that you will have to wait for a new card/new drivers a few days longer - their resources aren't unlimited ).

[IceStorm]

You seem to have understood the limitations of the TurboGL, or at least the REQUIREMENTS for the use of the TurboGL driver.

Why didn't you bother to take this into account when buying the card?

If you don't like the G400 without the TurboGL, go get another card.

Why is this so hard for people to understand?


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Primary System: Athlon 550, MSI 6167 mb w/BIOS 1.3, 3x128MB PC100 ECC SDRAM CAS2, G400 MAX (no multi), Millennium II PCI, Two Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 900u monitors, Intel Pro/100+ Management Adapter, SoundBlaster Live!, DeskTop Theater DTT2500 DIGITAL Speaker System (Sweeeeeet!), WDC WD20 5AA 20GB HD, WD AC310100 10GB HD, Toshiba SD-M1212 6x DVD-ROM, HP 8100i CD-RW, Epson Stylus Pro, OptiUPS PowerES 650, MS SideWinder Precision Pro USB joystick, Gravis Xterminator gamepad (no DX7 drivers yet), Logitech 3-button mouse, Mitsumi keyboard, Win98 SE, Belkin OmniCube 4-port KVM, 10/100 5-port Linksys Ethernet switch, Epson 1200u scanner, Epson Stylus Pro printer, Logitech QuickCam Pro with the little stand and the lense kit (cool).

Secondary System: PIII-450, Soyo 6BA+ IV, 1x128MB PC100 ECC SDRAM CAS2, Millennium G200 AGP, V2 SLI rig, Intel Pro/100+ Management Adapter, SoundBlaster 32, WD AC41800 18GB HD, Creative Dxr3 DVD decoder card, Hitachi GD-2500 6x DVD-ROM, Win98 SE

Tertiary System: PII-266, Asus P2B BIOS 1008, 1x128MB PC100 ECC SDRAM CAS2, Millennium II, 3Com 3C905, 3Com 3C509, ADSL Modem 640kbit down/90kbit up, Mylex BT-930 SCSI card, Seagate 2GB Hawk, Seagate 1GB Hawk, Quantum DLT 4000 tape drive, NEC 6x CD-ROM, Linux distro S.u.S.E. 6.1 (IP Masquerade works!)

Quaternary System: Ocean Rhino 9 motherboard w/Intel 430HX chipset, P200MMX, 4x64MB EDO Parity RAM, Millennium II, 3Com 3C590, SoundBlaster 16 MCD, Fujitsu 3.5GB HD, WD 1.2GB HD, Haven't chosen an OS yet.

And a JetDirect EX print server that bootp's its address from the Tertiary System.

All specs subject to change.

-The pessimist says: "The glass is half empty."
The optimist says: "The glass is half full."
The engineer says: "I put half of my water
in a redundant glass."

[Wombat]

Okay, so only three new instructions. However, what about the implementation of the old ones? Have they redone it so that the 3DNow calls are much better? This could nullify most of the speed boost of the K6x's have a slower design.

[Buuri]

3DNow! instruction set are SIMD instructions. The classic (K6-x) and the enchanced (K7) version.

_
B

[Buuri]

IMHO that is. Set me straight please..

_
B

[Himself]

SIMD : single instruction multiple data.

MMX is SIMD for integer, 3D-Now!/KNI(whatever) is SIMD for floating point.

The Athlon doesn't have a context switch between 3D-Now! and x87 fpu mode, the K6-2/3 does. That's the largest difference software support wise, and I suspect the hardest one for video card manufacturers to overcome when writing drivers that support 3D-Now! for the K6-2/3.

You can do everything SIMD wise with an Athlon that you can do with a PIII or K6-2/3, the equivalent functionality is there, there are just different opcodes used between brands.

[Himself]

Why didn't you bother to take this into account when buying the card?

There was no TurboGL in the box for it to be an issue when it first came out. What?

If you don't like the G400 without the TurboGL, go get another card.

Why is this so hard for people to understand?


I'm sure Matrox would love everybody to jump ship.

You always have the idea that future drivers will improve matters, with devopment cycles being so short you can never expect solid drivers out of the gate, there is always a risk to be taken. Frankly, based on the history of Matrox and OGL, if you bought a G400 for Quake gaming you were nuts.



[This message has been edited by Himself (edited 09 December 1999).]

[JWilliams]

Or..Keep the Card and get a Athlon, which was the decision I made. The way I see it, the Athlon gives a sizeable performance boost over the K6-III 450 it replaced, while
I doubt that a G Force would give a similar boost over the G400Max.