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**tish beta2** · 10 October 1999, 16:00

My experience is very much the same as yours. Better, but not as much as the reviewers got. This looks like the 5.21 "promised" OGL improvement. The performance increase was incredible, but only with a certain Beta build.

I don't think they'll release that beta as they did last time...

**Kx30** · 10 October 1999, 18:34

Same low scores here . At 1024 32bit (all on max settings) i cannot break the 30 fps barrier with my g400max and PIII540.
I don´t think that there is a special beta TGL built that ant was using rather than it was not able to enable all features like trilinear etc.
Of course i really hope that there is a special TGL beta that really boosts performance to mid 40´s fps in 32bit.

ANT , please bench with the public TGL driver !!!!!!!

**tish beta2** · 10 October 1999, 18:41

He will. I thought he also mentioned that he might have had trilinear filtering disabled, that would probably explain it...

**troop** · 10 October 1999, 19:14

Same here : turbogl way underperforms in q3demo1.

First off , the Turbogl driver makes 1.5 fps difference on this machine, P600 @ 10 x 7 with everything high/32bpp/trilinear/sound high but textures only at 3/4 . Luckily that's an increase. From 31.5 to 32.9 fps. I'm underwhelmed.
This result does not vary at all with no sound!
Unfortunately , with textures at 4/4 ,the demo is unplayable, ~12 fps.

Secondly , I have to disable 32 bit Z buffer or I lose 3 fps .

'Sup ?

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In Harm's Way

[This message has been edited by troop (edited 10-11-1999).]

**MidiSax** · 11 October 1999, 01:18

im surely not sure but i think some of the reviewers if not all tested with audio disabled.

**tish beta2** · 11 October 1999, 09:15

I tested with and without sound. The difference was 0.4 fps.

**noackjr** · 12 October 1999, 01:04

One thing to remember:

The only really significant increases I've seen anywhere with TurboGL have been at low resolutions. Even with the old drivers, the G400s were very competitive at high resolutions in OpenGL. What surprised everyone was that the G400s could kick everybody's butt at 1280x1024 and 1600x1200, but would fall back by 30-40 fps at 640x480. The old drivers were pretty good at high resolutions and horrible at low resolutions. Well, the TurboGL drivers have fixed the problem at low resolutions. They don't seem to have much of an effect at high resolutions because the drivers were already pretty good at high resolutions.

The biggest complaints I've seen have been people running at 1024x768 and wondering where their 30-40% speed increase went. Well, the 30-40% speed increase was back at 640x480. This is backed up even in this thread, where Sharkyz got a 32% increase with the TurboGL drivers at 640x480.

I guess my point is that the TurboGL drivers aren't the final version of Matrox's OpenGL drivers (Thank God!) and that speed will hopefully rise with each driver release.

Now, with that said, I get to rant. What about NT? Those of us who actually use these cards for business purposes (and/or want dual processors for other reasons, ahem, games) are suffering with horrible 32-bit performance in OpenGL(Dual P3-500, 256MB PC100 RAM, Millenium G200 8MB, Quake 3 640x480x32 - 6.4 fps) and image quality issues to boot. Maybe I just need have a little patience myself and wait for Win2000 (God help us!).

If you read all this, I apologize for the length and my ranting,

Jon

[This message has been edited by noackjr (edited 10-12-1999).]

**Ozymandis** · 12 October 1999, 02:21

Hey Troop, I remember talking to you before about Q3test scores. I am now get about 25 fps with max everything, including texures. Check your AGP using PCIList to see if everything is working right.

**Snake-Eyes** · 12 October 1999, 05:02

Good point Gurm. I've noticed the same thing here on my P3-450 (at 558). Q3Test1.08 is playable with everything on (including trilinear) at 1024 now- everywhere in all the maps. This includes the 2 areas that used to slow me to slideshow rates with heavy fire before in map 1 - in the portal room, and in the area where the Quad damage appears (when facing toward the exit to the railgun area). However, with trilinear on, my framerate appears to average 27 FPS on this map, only 3 FPS more than with the beta GL. With bilinear, I get as much as 37 FPS in 1024 on this map.

Major difference!

It strikes me as kind of strange that I never noticed much of a difference between trilinear and bilinear filtering, either in visual quality, or in performance, with previous drivers. With the latest drivers, I see a major difference in both (the images are much more vibrant seeming, for one).

All in all, this seems to be a major step in the right direction for Matrox.

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Ace

[This message has been edited by Ace (edited 12 October 1999).]

**troop** · 12 October 1999, 06:33

Ozy---The AGP is x2 by PCIlist and I checked 3DMark99MAX --the 32MB texture speed is 82 fps, better than no AGP. The test score here is ~5700 marks with 32 bit Z on. About average I think for the cpu.

I don't follow the idea of disabling features in this situation , eg trilinear filtering--we are following published test settings --I understand that all features for the Q3A published test results , including Ants' , are 32bit/trilinear/high including textures.Sound or not does not matter.

Why change those ? The logic of that is "turn off all features and get blinding speed !"

The troubling test result here is the textures. With them turned all the way to the right , demo q3demo1 is in a trance--~12 fps. With it at 3/4 , I score a very playable 32 fps , @ 10v7x32 on the desktop and in the demo. This is a 110Hz refresh . This score is similar to Sharkyz above but he has full textures and runs at 28 fps .

32bit Z B costs 3 fps here but is not really a test setting as no reviewer appears to have specified it ---its a video card setting.

From what I see , some machines can run the demo at full features--eg , lightmapping , and full textures, 10x7x32bit on an 19 " display and score over 35 fps. I'd really like to know how .I wanna buy some of that .

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In Harm's Way

[This message has been edited by troop (edited 12 October 1999).]

**Ozymandis** · 12 October 1999, 07:13

Like I said, with everything all the way up I score between 23-25fps, depending on the Zbuffer. Hq sound, trilinear, full textures, 32bit color and textures, etc. Now I see reviewers getting over 30fps with these same settings at 1024x768 and I wonder how, just like you. However, with the TurboGl in terms of playability as opposed to benchmarks I have seen a huge difference. Over 100fps in 1024x768 at times. The G400 is currently the performance leader in OpenGl, over both the GeForce and the TNT2Ultra, at least at 1280res and 32bit color depth.

**Gurm** · 12 October 1999, 09:42

Troop,

If you have a P3, and you're still getting scenes where it slows to a crawl with those settings, I'd be suspicious that TurboGL isn't installed. The new full ICD turns out numbers like you're reporting. Please verify for us that you're actually using the TurboGL...

As for disabling features - Ant's tests ran with an earlier version of the TurboGL. This SEEMS to be the first version that actually implements Trilinear filtering. Therefore, to get numbers like the others get you have to disable Trilinear. That's all.

- Gurm

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G. U. R. M. It's not hard to spell, is it? Then don't screw it up!
The word "Gurm" is in no way Copyright 1999 Jorden van der Elst.

**troop** · 12 October 1999, 10:10

Absolutely I use the Turbo. Using the full ICD reduces the fps by only a marginal amount anyway--1.5 fps.I use a PIII 600, 128 MB , etc.
If Ant and the others can confirm that the results were achieved using bilinear filtering I will rerun the test. It will be faster I'm sure to run the textures at the reduced level of filtering. But is that what the published results reflect ? I'd like that confirmed before I change the test conditions. Otherwise , or even still ,it appears that I have a problem *or* there's some good stuff around.

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In Harm's Way

**Gurm** · 12 October 1999, 16:42

Folks,

Read elsewhere on these forums. Manoj figured out where the speed decreases were coming from - Trilinear (30% speed hit) and 32-bit Z-Buffer.

Try it without those. Trilinear is pretty ugly in Q3, _ALL_ cards take a 30% hit except the TNT which doesn't really do Triliniear anyway, it dithers.

- Gurm

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G. U. R. M. It's not hard to spell, is it? Then don't screw it up!
The word "Gurm" is in no way Copyright 1999 Jorden van der Elst.

Announcement

VERY (I mean very) disappointing results with Q3 and TurboGL

VERY (I mean very) disappointing results with Q3 and TurboGL

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