Announcement

**Statik** · 30 September 1999, 14:00

oops.. I forgot to mention, I'm using NT4 w/SP5.

**DJ Watts** · 30 September 1999, 18:42

Hi, well i would give it a try if you could explain what SMP means? Is it something simple that i just can't work out? Then again it is late here and i am half asleep.

I have a TNT 2 M64 and a G200 8 meg SGRAM.

By the way what is the difference between a TNT2 M64 and say TNT Ultra or a normal TNT 2.

Cheers all!
DJ Watts

Pentium III 450@504 FSB@112MHz@4.5
128 meg SDRAM PC100@112MHz BUS
QDI motherboard P6I440BX/B1S BIOS V1.6SLR
TNT 2 M64 o/c @120Mhz MEM 113 CORE(detonator drivers)
Voodoo 2 12 meg @95MHz
Belinea 10/80/15 21inch monitor
Soundblaster Live Value!
100 mbit network card
Motorolla V.90 modem
8.4 gig HD IBM
Plextor 4/2/20 RW CD drive SCSI
Creative 48x CD Drive IDE
HP 720C deskjet printer
Trust scanner
A pair of monitor speakers with a nice BIG SUB!
Zip drive
Windows98
Direct X 6.1
Oh and a floppy!

and also.....

AMD K6 2 450@100x4.5
1st mainboard 100mhz BUS
128 meg SDRAM PC100@100MHz
Matrox G200 8 meg SGRAM AGP (Retail)on 5.25 PD drivers
4.3 gig HD
Soundlaster Live Value!
100mbit network card
IBM 8512 shitty 14inch monitor
Creative 32x CDROM
set of shitty speakers running on the SB live, (duh!)
Windows98
Direct x 6.1
and a floppy drive

**tish beta2** · 30 September 1999, 19:52

SMP is multithreading. That is, the same task executes on multiple CPU's, hence exploiting your dual CPU rig.

Quake 3 is one of the very very few games actually able to use more than one prosessor, and when it actually do, then there should be no such thing as a "cpu bottleneck" in the picture...

On the other hand, I don't thing the G400 is capable of SMP. Mabe it never will, Matrox driver dev is way off target compared to Nvidias!

----------------------
When you first start wearing a turban, probably the most common mistake is wrapping it too tight. You have to allow the head to breathe.

**Statik** · 1 October 1999, 11:42

Yeah, Matrox please do sort it out. I wonder if this affects professional multi-threaded apps, like 3D Studio Max, and CAD programs? Professional users may not even realize their dual rig isn't being fully utilized because of their graphics drivers. Then again, this may be a Q3-specific problem.

Ultimately, I would love if turbo-gl supported SMP and non-SSE/K7 processors, but I know I'm probably gonna have to wait a long time to see that, if ever.

Dj Watts, the difference between the TNT2 M64 and the true TNT2 is the memory interface.. the chip is internally 128-bit but only has a 64-bit interface to the memory. At low resolutions this doesn't make much of a difference, but as you get to higher resolutions and more complex textures the performace drops. It's no comparison to a G400, especially in 2D, but it's really cheap, about $130 CDN for a 32MB card.

**Statik** · 1 October 1999, 11:59

I forgot to mention, the great thing about TNT2 M64's is they're overclockability. Their based on the TNT2 chip, which normally runs at about 140Mhz core, 166Mhz memory, but cause it's targetted at the value sector, they only clock it at 110/100. I got mine up to 150/160 without problem, but I have a big-ass fan blowing on it.

If you want to try it out get Performance Tuner from www.entechtaiwan.com/files/perftune.exe and move the slider up slowly, about 3-5mhz at a time, testing stability by running a few timedemos in Q3 after each increase.

DO NOT choose the "restore clock at bootup" option untill you've chosen a safe setting. If you do choose it, and you get a lock up, you have to wait for it to reboot to windows while at the increased clock, which can cause damage.

This is all at your own risk of course, but it can increase performance markably on an M64.

**Wombat** · 1 October 1999, 14:27

Is SMP implemented in Q3 yet? I know it will be a feature of the final product, but I thought it was still not feature-complete, and that this particular feature was still under development.

-Wombat

**Rattledagger** · 1 October 1999, 14:58

Well, a couple of comments.
At first, is NT using both cpu's? If for one or another reason you aren't, it probably will go slower if you in a program tries using two cpu's. Use Task manager to check.
ctrl+shift+escape , Performance-tab. You should see two cpu-graphs. If not, check View-Cpu history-One graph per cpu. If you now don't see two graphs, you probably must install smp-support first.

Quake3 is not finished, and have therefore some bugs/things not fully implemented. Smp is partially implemented, but isn't always running correctly. (mostly due to crappy video drivers)
A speed increase is probably only seen in low resolutions there the cpu can be the limiting factor. If you're only tried on high resolutions, the graphic cards is probably the limiting factor.

If the G400-drivers is as the G200, they are complete crap under NT. If you're sitting on win9x, and a timedemo here is noticeable faster in quake, the drivers is crap for G400 too. Then the only solution probably is to get another graphics card. Looking at Matrox G200-record, waiting for them to make useable opengl-drivers isn't worth the wait.

------------------
Asus P2B-DS, dual P2-333, 256 MB, G200, SB 128. OS: NT 4/5.

**DJ Watts** · 1 October 1999, 16:17

Thanks for that Tish beta2, well i supose Matrox will have to come up with something quick as when Windows 2000 comes out, i can see Multiple CPU's will be much more common place. C'mon Matrox sort it out eh!
DJ Watts :}

**DJ Watts** · 2 October 1999, 10:47

Thanks for that link statik, PowerStrip is mech better. I was using Fast Card to overclock my TNT 2 M64, thing is it only went up to 130/120, havn't a clue why though. Now with PowerStrip i have it at 155 memory 150 clock .
Thanks again! DJ Watts

**DJ Watts** · 2 October 1999, 10:49

Oh another thing i forgot to mention, how do you do the timedemo on Quake 3 test?
DJ Watts!

**Rattledagger** · 2 October 1999, 14:18

Console down, remove the | on the start:

timedemo 1
demo q3demo1

console down to see the result at the end.

**Rogier** · 3 October 1999, 10:25

Statik,
I don't know if there SMP issues in the G400 drivers but I do know that you will NOT see Q3 improvements unless you run low-res and low-detail settings (more CPU-dependant).
Try FASTEST setting in Q3, if there is really no performance gain, Matrox is to blaim.

Some interesting stuff on http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/dualceleron550/ about this.

Rogier

**tish beta2** · 4 October 1999, 07:42

Dual CPU's for quake 3 should improve performance in intense 25+ player deathmatches, and the like. Also, the 3D card will get a hole CPU just for itself. The dialup network connection will, if using any CPU power, lean itself on the other prosessor. many people (and I) see how well those benchmarks are, but when we get into real online playing, they fall down down down...

The beauty of multiple CPU's is that if you are using multiple programs, those programs will excecute on whatever prosessor is available or what you let it excecute on. You could, say, use Soft DVDMax with one prosessor and watching a movie and at the same time let 3dstudio max or lightwave 3d render it's animation with the other prosessor.

Or lastly, play games whith one cpu and play MP3 files with the other. custom music in games? yes sir.

The possibilities are endless!

I tried to ask Haigh why Matrox are so slow on the windows 2000/windows NT OGL driver development and why they couldn't get a really skilled OGL developer. Nvidia do, and they have 100% ICD support in win9x, NT and 2K!

3dfx' voodoo2 also work nicely in windows 2000.

The only thing I got for an answer was sarcasm. "no wonder why they suck with drivers" I thought...

**Statik** · 4 October 1999, 13:11

Yes, both CPUs are working under NT. I have both cpu-usage graphs, and have verified that both will work at the same time by running the distributed.net client. I guess nVidia is the only company to release drivers that take advantage of SMP (in Q3 at least). Maybe the turbo-gl drivers will fix that for some people, but only those running P3's for now.

Please Matrox, add TurboGl and SMP support for Celerons and P2s ASAP.

Announcement

Q3+G400= No SMP?!!

Q3+G400= No SMP?!!

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