At what point is the G400 fill limited?

[DarkSyd]

I'm picking up some parts for another machine (old faithful is getting promoted to being my 'NT Server Guinea Pig'), and was wondering if pairing a vanilla 32mb G400 with an 850+ Coppermine is a bad idea. I know there will be new Matrox cards sometime in the next 6 months, but I need something now.
I know the G400 is very CPU dependant, but at what is the point of diminishing returns?

Thanks
DS

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Windows2000 Pro, Cel 366@ on Asus P2b (1011), 128MB PC133, OEM G400/16 (PD5.10), 15gb Quantum Fireball+ LM, Fujitsu 5.25gb, Diamond Fireport 40 SCSI, Pioneer 32x SCSI CDROM, Yamaha 4416s burner, MX300, Sycom 300va UPS, Grey Cat, Orange Cat (still MIA)

...currently working on the world's first C64 based parallel computing project

[Maggi]

Don't know what you're exactly asking for, but you'd be pretty pleased by a G400 that is powered by a 850+ coppermine.

Have a look into my 'Fastest G400 ?' thread ...

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Cheers,
Maggi

Despite my nickname causing confusion, I am not female ...

Celeron 566 @ 952MHz
Asus P2B-S @ 112MHz FSB
2x 128MB olden PC100 SDRAM
G400 32MB DH Vanilla @ 150.8/201.0MHz core/mem

[RAB]

Save yourself some money for a G800 later. For your NT guinea pig machine just get a $30 PCI/AGP video card, or better yet, look through your "junk" drawer and find any old video card. Then run your G400 in your new machine. NT Server doesn't need more than that unless you will still be using it for some gaming/3D apps. I've got an old Cirrus 2D card in my NT guinea pig machine and it does everything I need.

RAB

[DarkSyd]

Thanks for the advice guys!
Maggi..that's exactly what I wanted to know...if increasing the CPU speed still lead to increased FPS...even at close to the 1ghz mark.
Rab...I think I will still dual boot with the server machine to something that I can play games on...probably Win98...so I think my 16megger will work OK there. I didn't want to spend extra money on a MAX right now because of the impending G800...the vanilla 32mb g400s are cheap enough right now that it's too big of an expense...and I can always sell it in a few months

DS

[Maggi]

You'll face the fillrate limit at higher resolutions, though ...

That is to say from 1280x1024x32bpp upwards you might no get higher scores from a higher clocked CPU, but I don't have the exact breaking point for that.

Point is that it scales pretty sweet when upping your 'power' ...

[edit] ... too fast fingers error again ... [/edit]

[This message has been edited by Maggi (edited 23 June 2000).]

[DosFreak]

On my K6-433 124mhz@3.5 with my G400 in Quake 3 at 1024X768 with all at MAX I got 20.3 in NT5. On my P3550@630 115X5.5 I got 20.3. This is using the latest drivers for NT5.

[Maggi]

Interesting scores, DosFreak ...

what kind of K6 is that and did you have VSync enabled ?

[DosFreak]

K63-400

Fresh Windows 2000 installs and G400 drivers.
That's it. Whatever the default is for the G400 drivers is what it was. I'm guessing Vsync is enabled by default? My monitor is a POS 15" so at 1024X768 I am limited to 60hz.

[Maggi]

thanx for input, I only knew the K6-3s would be stronger than the K6-2s, but never knew how much ...

and yes, VSync is on by default.

I have no clue about the Win2k registry, but if there's an entry like in WinNT4, it must be something like User3d.SwapVsyncEnable with values from either '0' or '1'

just do a quick search in regedit ...

Cheers,
Maggi