Announcement

**deathwalker** · 13 October 1999, 11:40

What do the mean not a big following.
How many cards does it take to get support ?

No pun intended.

**The Rev** · 13 October 1999, 11:44

I don't even know why they have to support each card by itself. They say Matrox hasn't made a full ICD! As far as I know, Matrox's PD 5.30 (and past releases) included a full OpenGL ICD.

Sounds very strange. I'de like to be able to play Tribes2 with my G400.

A Sad Tribes Player.

**Kruzin** · 13 October 1999, 12:09

"So developing
special codes to optimize performence on G400 (like we did for TNT/TNT2) is
not very practical."

Right here they tell you TnT got special treatment with their OGL coding. For them to blame Matrox is a huge cop-out. The Gx00 ICD is complete enough to run any other OGL game out there...why not Tribes? Notice they did not mention the fact that TnT is the only card they really optimised for, and that all other cards (not just the G200 and G400) suck in their game if using OGL. If you where to write a similar letter, stating you had an ATI Rage 128, you would get the same responce, with ATI's name in all the spots where Matox's name is now...

**Kruzin** · 13 October 1999, 12:11

Not to mention, for a tech support proffesional, this Arnold person has the grammar and spelling of a fifth grader...how can anyone take that piss-poor reply seriously? You'd think he could at least spell check his writings

**bunnymud** · 13 October 1999, 12:25

They just bowed down to the hype of the TNT. I my self kept my Canopus for Tribes, but if they want me to believe the TNT or even the TNT2 is faster than a G400 with the new turbo drivers(I have seen the benchmarks
) they are nucking futs.

**The Rev** · 13 October 1999, 12:40

It's really starting to sound like they are way to involved with nVidia to let any other card supporting OpenGL to work well with Tribes, and maybe Tribes2 (as mentioned in the response). I can understand Tribes1 not supporting many video cards for OpenGL since it was implemented more as a afterthought in a patch. It was just D3D and Glide. Though I would expect Tribes2 to have robust OpenGL. The tone of the techie's response sounds depressing though.

"If the Matrox can improbe their ICD driver and have a good user base before
Tribes 2 is finalized, that is a very good change G400 special support will
be included in Tribes 2."

Seems like you'll have to choose OpenGL and under the Setup bar you'll see a defunct 'Way-Too-Generic' and a 'GeForce256-Needed-To-Run-OpenGL' selection. How could any game designer make a game run a standard API on one video card? They isolated a lot of gamers and don't seem to care. Sigh.

What to do? It's my fav game.

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

**Kruzin** · 13 October 1999, 12:58

D3D?
Tribes has no D3D. If it did, we could use that.
It only has Software, Glide, and butchered OGL...

**The Rev** · 13 October 1999, 13:05

Oops. Corrected. Whenever I see 'software mode' I always think D3D. Tribes1 software mode lacks a lot of flash and is a bit blocky even at the highest resolution. Plus the terrain can differ a bit when zooming in and out in software mode. Sometimes I see a person on a hill far away, and go to snipe 'em. When I zoom in that person is shown as out of view, since the terrain changes slightly as you get closer/zoom in. I saw alot less of that in OpenGL mode. It really can kill the moment.

**LAMFDTK** · 13 October 1999, 13:37

Rev you have spent alot of time on this and I'm not surprised with the sophmoric response that you recieved from the worst game manufacturing company of all time. The place to go is the message boards on starsiege web sites thats where the programers are. I hope that I dont have to use my V2 much longer......

------------------
PIII-450@504, 128 HDSRAM, Asus P3BF, G400/32, SBLive!, Nokia 447Xi 17", oh yea, a nice floppy drive

**SPSUguy** · 13 October 1999, 14:11

Hey,

This is just utter BS! After putting in my G400 and trying out all my games... Tribes is the only one that bites. Even Unreal plays great. If tribes 2 comes out and it is still glide/tnt/or nothing... well that's just one less copy they're going to sell. At least as far as i'm concerned.

I'm about ready to yank my V2 sli combo not just because i don't ever use them anymore... but because I want to stand up to these stupid publishers and old crappy 3dfx technology.

Ok... i'm done.

------------------
Abit BH6, Celeron 450, Matrox G400 32mb "MAX", 256mb ram, IBM 10GB, DVD 5x, MX300

**[PCXL] Mabelrode** · 13 October 1999, 14:43

Fellow Tribes Players,

Er, while I am NOT showing support for Sierra & co in terms of their not optimizing code for OGL better, I ~would~ like to point out how the current Matrox mini is optimized ONLY for Pentium III. "Notice they did not mention the fact that TnT is the only card they really optimised for, and that all other cards (not just the G200 and G400) suck in their game if using OGL"... these comments about picking favorites sounds chillingly familiar, ne? While, yes, the gaming company should allow for some divergence from card to card {and I PRAY I can play T-2 in full OGL on my G400 out of the damn box}, an uppity driver set {or an incomplete one} is just as much to blame.

Frankly, why should I have to upgrade my entire damn system to accomodate one card? That's not how it works. {Alas that I've surrendered to the idea that I'll be checking into it, anyway, and yes, merely for Tribes enjoyment. A new PIII AND a Voodoo2 will be installed this weekend, sending me to the poorhouse. }

**absalom** · 13 October 1999, 14:56

Sierra used to be a reputable company. They've had a long history, one as long as origin or EA in the computer gaming industry. In the past few years it's gone down the tube, imo. I'm not at all surprised in the response The_Rev got. I've owned every one of the "X" Quest series, and now I fear it's all too commercial nowadays to expect something stellar from them. Sierra was started out by a couple who loved to design games for people who would love them the same back. The commercialism never got in the way and sequels sold on reputation. But I won't go into this, you can read a great interview done by gamersdepot with one of them, it explains what has happened to sierra since then:

http://www.gamersdepot.com/interview_roberta_a.htm

You also have to remember that Dynamix (another old school developer with reputation) is the one who originally designed Tribes and basically handed it over to Sierra when it was done, like most design teams do nowadays. You got a response from a Sierra peon, not something anyone would take seriously as a technological expert. I personally don't see why they didn't patch Tribes for direct3d anyway. Opengl is a picky as hell API that started out running half assed on 3dfx cards well enough that id software thought why not piss MS off and make all our games opengl only. Even now, years later, opengl is slowly gaining any ground as a feasable tool for game developers. Who really knows why tribes was patched for opengl over direct3d... it was developed with 3dfx in mind from the beginning anyway. The code change from glide to direct3d wouldn't be any more extra effort than it was for opengl, imo. A larger support database would be gained from adding direct3d obviously, which is probably why it was patched for opengl in the first place. The less cards an added feature runs on, the less tech support and headaches. And now, looking at how well Tim Sweeny has done with the unreal engine and direct3d, tribes would probably smoke in direct3d if done right. But, alas, tribes is showing it's age and we probably won't see direct3d and tribes meet each other untill the source code is ever released (if it ever does). We can always hope for tribes2, I guess.

**Zwisch** · 13 October 1999, 16:15

[PCXL] Mabelrode, the G400 offers already an ICD with rather good performance. I get better performance with my new G400 MAX on my PII than with my older Viper770 Ultra... The TurboGL is a plus for those with faster system, this does not mean that the card is not functionnal or fast on PII's or celeron... don't get upset for this.. the performance are still great.

**tish beta2** · 13 October 1999, 16:29

And overall this card is not as powerful as TNT2 on the RAW polygon pushing and pixel filling speed.

This is why the G400 needs such a bad-ass CPU. Damn even if I crank the res down to 800x16 and with low detail settings, at some large areas in Descent 3 it's still very laggy. I have a P3-500 and the Max.

Even till now, G400 doesn't have a big enough userbase.

That's right. Have you guys any idea how many TNT/TNT2/Voodoo2/V3 users there's out there? And how many G400 users?

This guy is only telling the thruth.

Opengl is a picky as hell API that started out running half assed on 3dfx cards well enough that id software thought why not piss MS off and make all our games opengl only.

OGL is not supported by MS, and not being a directX API, where you get 90% of the programming done by M$. You gotto do all the hard work youself for the OGL. OGL is an supreme 3D API developed by sun over many years. In games, you get benefits like smoother FPS, less control lag and crisper image. Of course this is "more or less" depending on how it's embedded/programmed into a game, but OGL is usually always superior to D3D.

for a tech support proffesional, this Arnold person has the grammar and spelling of a fifth grader...

This guy is answering mails all day long, and as most other techsupporters, he thought people rather would have a fast reply than a perfect spelled one. I've gotten several mails from Matrox dev rel team/tech support that's also less readible

What you want to happen, is Matrox to go over there and get their programmers drilled a little. Hey, they do it everyday for the EMBM, why not visit sierra in the same turn?

It is actually a MiniGL driver and really can not use the full potential of the
card.

True too. The only thing Matrox is doing is to program the "ICD" to support lightwave, 3d studio, quake, unreal and HL. Try to use an OGL screensaver...

Thanks + Best Regards
Fish

Announcement

The response I got from Sierra about the G400 performance with Tribes

The response I got from Sierra about the G400 performance with Tribes

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