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**Rags** · 21 February 2000, 19:22

first of all, the HL benchmarks are not very reliable in comparing different graphics cards to one another.

Secondly, your Q3 benchmarks are lower than your TNT2 because I am sure that you have trilinear filtering enabled. The TNT/TNT2 do not do true trilinear filtering, so you are not getting a good comparison, to do a proper comparison, you should use BiLinear.

Rags

**Spekkio** · 21 February 2000, 20:10

The benchmark in halflife is not a timedemo its the avg fps in agame that im getting, while playing the game. So what I see is what I get so yes it is a valid 'benchmark'.
As for Quake 3, I dont know what you are talking about, I said the TNT2 was faster than my G400 so why should it matter if i had Trilinear filtering on or not? Im not benching the TNT2 any more its the G400max.
By the way, I cant run Trilinear on my G400 anyway, it crashes.

-----------
Spekkio

**Rags** · 21 February 2000, 22:44

Trilinear should not crash your computer with a G400. It should work just fine. IF it is crashing, then you have other problems.
TurboGL should work just fine on both games, too, so I think you have some setup problem. Can you post an IRQ list? Have you thought that you may have an overheating problem, or you may have your cpu run a little past it's limit?

What did you use to calculate your framerate in HL?

Rags

Edit:
I forgot to respond to this:

As for Quake 3, I dont know what you are talking about, I said the TNT2 was faster than my G400 so why should it matter if i had Trilinear filtering on or not? Im not benching the TNT2 any more its the G400max.

At the resolutions and color depths you posted, selecting trilinear filtering would incur a performance hit. Since the G400 does trilinear filtering properly, it would be affected more than the TNT2, which does not do trilinear filtering. You would see very little performance hit with the TNT2. So, that's why I posted that. Usually when people are making comparisons to TNT2/G400 they forget about this, and it can look wrong. But with a little thought, one can understand.

[This message has been edited by Rags (edited 22 February 2000).]

**Dyre** · 21 February 2000, 23:23

Rags is totally correct. Using Trilinear filtering on a G400 incurs about a 30% performace hit, while a TnT2 only takes about 2% because the TnT2 fakes trilinear filtering. My G400 Max get about 40fps in Q3
HL runs at 60 fps in 1280 becuase i put v-sync on, it was tearing before.

i think youve got a major problem, so lets fix it. Post some irq's and PD version and other software versions.

------------------
PIII 450 @ 504
generic BX motherboard
G400 MAX : )
Maxtor 13 gig UDMA 33
Maxtor 13 gig UDMA 66
Creative 36x CD-ROM
HP 2x2x6x CD-RW
64 megs PC100 RAM
128 megs PC133 ECC RAM
NetGear 10/100
Soundblaster 32 AWE
Diamond SupraExpress 56k
Logitech Wireless Desktop (best $50 ive ever spent)
1 92mm Sunon Fan
4 80mm Sunon Fan's

**Spekkio** · 22 February 2000, 00:35

alright guys heres the scoop.
versions of all the software involved:
PD 5.50.010
HL 1.0.1.6
Q3 Point Release Feb 22
TurboGL 1.0 (which is not working btw)

my IRQ list: (everything is working, just the g400max is ABNORMALLY SLOW)
IRQ 0 System Timer
IRQ 1 Keyboard
IRQ 2 interrupt controller
IRQ 3 COM port 2
IRQ 4 COM port 1
IRQ 5 Matrox Millennium G400 DualHead Max - English
IRQ 5 IRQ Holder for PCI steering
IRQ 6 Floppy disk controller
IRQ 7 LPT 1, Printer port
IRQ 8 System CMOS/real time clock
IRQ 9 Creative SB16 Emulation
IRQ 10 Creative SB LIVE!
IRQ 10 Intel 82371AB/EB PCI to USB Universal Host Controller
IRQ 10 IRQ holder for PCI steering
IRQ 11 SMC EZ Card 10/100 (SMC1211TX)
IRQ 11 IRQ holder for PCI steering
IRQ 12 PS/2 mouse port
IRQ 13 Numeric data processor
IRQ 14 Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus master IDE controller
IRQ 14 Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
IRQ 15 Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus master IDE controller
IRQ 15 Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)

Everything is cooled very well and nothing is overheating, G400 max is at the default 150 core 200 mem mhz.

To get the scores for HL i typed r_netgraph 3 in the console and played the game normally and just watched the fps every few seconds. (they average out in little time.)

Trilinear filtering is off, because setting it one causes texture coruption and then the game crashes.

TurboGL is not installed because the games would crash to the desktop without error message.

to Dyre:
GOOD GOD MAN! 60fps at 1280?!!!
HELP ME!!!!!!!!!

to Rags:
Sorry if I came at you a little mad. This is making me bitter, you know....

-----------
Spekkio

**Rags** · 22 February 2000, 00:57

Hi Spekkio,

No problem, I don't get offended easily

First thing I would try is to force IRQ 9 to your AGP slot, that should put your Max at IRQ 9, and the SB16 emulation would grab IRQ 5. Next thing I would do is install TurboGL. In your autoexec.cfg file in your halflife folder, put the following lines (create one if there is not one, you will need to put one in your HL folder, TFC folder, and any other mod folder if installed):
gl_texsort "1"
gl_polyoffset 2
r_shadows "0"

Make sure you have OpenGL mode selected, HL runs best in OpenGL (I am sure you already know this).

If separating the IRQ's doesn't help in enabling you to run TGL, then make sure your AGP aperature is set to 256, and you have all video caching, shadowing turned off, your AGP ratio is set to 2:3 (assuming that your celery is running at 5x100). Still have lockups?? Try setting your CPU back down to default. Post back and let me know if this helped. Your Q3 speed should also increase a bit too with TGL.

Rags

**Nitromind** · 22 February 2000, 07:54

Do NOT set gl_texsort to 1 if you use the turbogl or the newest beta driver!!
it will slow your game down by about 15%...at least it does for me and all my friends...
and gl_polyoffset 2 does not perform better or worse than gl_polyoffset 4 (default)...

you just have do change these values if you use the default openGLdriver version 5.41 or older....
but do NOT change them with TGL driver or openGL driver version 5.5 beta

**Dyre** · 22 February 2000, 10:44

Ok, like Rags says, try to get the MAX to 9 or higher. Mine wanted to be at 5 in my VIA system and it was SLOWER than my CL Banshee! After i got it to 10 is was much happier. Try to disable USB, if you dont need it. Also diable any COM ports you dont need in bios. In bios, make sure you have 'Plug and Play bios' turned off. Set Irq 5 to lecacy/ISA. I think this should help. HL is insanely fast(well counterstrike at least, dotn really play regular HL), as is Q2.

if this doesnt help i have a couple other things i can think of to help trouble shoot the problem, but right now i feel its related to the IRQ 5 thing.

**Rags** · 22 February 2000, 12:35

Those settings I posted give me the best performance, and image quality at the settings he posted, I still stand by them. HL works fine with them.

Rags

**Spekkio** · 22 February 2000, 13:58

OOOWE!!

Still gets me how the IRQ address would have something to do with it, but....
Its at IRQ 9 now and TurboGL is working, Q3 got an insane increase! Demo1 now clocks at 38.9fps at 1024x32! Beautiful I say.

But now i have another problem....... (sigh...)
TurboGl was only installed to Q3, Q2, and HL. But what about all my other OpenGL games? Like the Soldier of Fortune demo? Its running at least 10 frames slower than my TNT2 was. I tried getting the OpenGL32.dll from the TurboGL and put it in the directory, but that only led to the game crashing at the stage loading screen.

Also, I bought Opposing Force last night and it has crashed or returned to the game with corrupt textures when i press 'esc' in game. This was last night before the fix, I havent tried it today.... so who knows?.....

I did try CounterStrike this morning before I left for class and the avg frame rate was around 20-22.... That is REALLY SLOW.... I wonder if the server had a fps cap or something, dont know but im gonna try some other servers right now just to see whats up.

Thanks guys, we are almost at the bottom of this.
------------
Spekkio

EDIT:
BTW I run ALL my games @ 1024x768x32.
I think Direct3D performance is bit slower also, hard to tell. I only tried Freespace 2 for about 5 minutes last night and it seemed A bit jittery....

[This message has been edited by Spekkio (edited 22 February 2000).]

**Rags** · 22 February 2000, 18:00

Hi Spekkio,

The only thing I can say about poor performance in games that don't support TGL, is to wait for better optimized ICD's or a TGL that has more support. About your fps in the online HL, some servers do limit the fps to help thoroughput. You should do the same. I play HL/TFC online quite frequently and I have my cap set at 25 fps, and my framerate hardly varies this way, and game play is smoother.

Rags

Glad you got it working

**Spekkio** · 22 February 2000, 23:33

well i tried a bunch of servers and the poor performance is local, i dont know wat it is but i dont have my fps capped and i dont need to on a high speed access. Wierd thing is that in single player the frame rate is high and nice. I wonder if the 1.0.1.6. patch screwed my modemfps or lanfps settings.
Can someone give me the command for the frame rate caps in the console? i dont remember them.

Thanks for all the help.
-----------
Spekkio

**Rags** · 23 February 2000, 01:12

If you are using a modem it is:

fps_modem "60" if you want 60 fps

With a cable modem or on a lan:
fps_lan "60" if you want 60 fps

Rags

**hella356** · 24 February 2000, 11:43

On my K6-3 400 MVP3 system the MAX is a lot slower than a STANDARD TNT! I got it to use with a RR-G, but I didn't think it would be such a dog in this system. It was fast in a K7-700 rig, but nothing plays very well on the K6 with the MAX. I mostly play driving games like NFS 3 & 4, Nascar 3, etc., and these aren't as tough to run as Q3, UT and such. If anyone has any tips on the subject I'd be stoked.

G400 MAX/RR-G - 5.50.010 BETA drivers, IRQ 11
AMD K6-3 400
Epox EP-MVP3G-M
256 Mb RAM
Adaptec U2W SCSI
IBM 9.1 GB 10K RPM U2W
Xitel Storm Platinum A3D
3Com NIC
Plextor 8/20 CDR, 32X CDROM

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G400 MAX = Shoddy Performance???? Slower than my TNT2?

G400 MAX = Shoddy Performance???? Slower than my TNT2?

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