Why am i the getting better peformance w/ TGL?

[Evil_Donnyboy]

I seem to be the only G400 owner getting better Q2/3 performance with TurboGL. I'm currently using the 6.21 drivers, but i get the same results with every 6.xx drivers released and many 5.xx drivers i've tried.

I get about 10-20% better framerates witht he 1.30 TGL mini-ICD in both Quake 2 and 3 than with the full-ICD.

I'm getting pretty much normal FPS:
~60FPS in Q3 @ 800x600 HQ except 16bpp.
~60FPS in Q2 @ 1027x768 highest settings.

In Q3, all the graphics are fine, bug free with the TGL drivers, although none of the movies work, which is characteristic of TGL drivers.

But in Q2, i get weird Lightmap corruption, resulting in black/rainbow colored textures. Because of this, i don't use TGL in Q2, which isn't a problem since i achieve high enough frame rates already.

Can anybody explain the increase with TGL, or is somebody else experiencing increases with TGL as well?

[This message has been edited by Evil_Donnyboy (edited 31 January 2001).]

[Evil_Donnyboy]

system specs are:

P3 650@897
Matrox G400 32mb SH @ 160/215
128MB PC133
Asus P3V4X motherboard with 4.25 4in1 drivers.
SB Live
winME.

It shoulda been in my profile, but didn't show up.

[This message has been edited by Evil_Donnyboy (edited 31 January 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Evil_Donnyboy (edited 31 January 2001).]

[xortam]

I'll get up to a 10% increase in Q3A frame rates, depending on version, resolution, and color-depth. I'm running a PIII/450. You get an increase with TGL because its Turbo charged.

[Evil_Donnyboy]

Good. I'm not the only one. Everyone i've asked has said the latest drivers offer better Quake performance than the TGL for them.

I get varying increases at every colour depth and resolutions.

I dunno if i'm getting better performance than others with TGL or if i'm just getting $hittier peformance than others with the Full-ICD.

[gobrob]

Where can I download TGL 1.3?I can only find 1.0
gobrob

[Kruzin]

TGL 1.3 is available at the "previous drivers" section at Matrox's site...

http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/dr...vious/home.cfm

[diuby]

I do not why but
with TurboGL I have the same effects but with a very different system!!

Duron700
VIA-KT133 133MHZ 2-2-2 SDRAM
G400Max AGP4x
Win98 pd.6.23 (ICD form pd 6.23 but DirectX driver from pd6.01)

I see in QuakeIII that TurboGl use 24bitZbuffer+stencil buffer instead simple 16/32bit Z-Buffer. Probably the former is better for the rendering engine.
But even with the same 16bitZbuffer TurboGl is slightly faster.

Finally i usa openglICD because i want to see Cinematics in QuakeIII and I hate texture corruption in QuakeII!!

[Gurm]

The TurboGL takes shortcuts. It skips steps. There are modes it doesn't even support (of course).

In taking shortcuts, it is faster. But the output is not always correct (as you have noted).

Now... is it correct enough to play? Certainly. For some people it is faster. For some people it isn't. It depends a lot on what mode you play in.

Me personally, I haven't used a 9x-based OS in over a year so I couldn't tell you if it's faster on my machine or not.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[impact]

Okay you got me curious so I went and installed TurboGL again and found out that it is a bit faster, but it also forces Q3A to swap more and there are many visual glitches (mirrors and portals not being drawn properly and various z buffer problems).

[Gurm]

Bingo.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[impact]

Cinematics: for me, with turbogl the movies doesn't play, I just see the 1st frame and hear the sound.

Image corruptions: numerous z-buffer errors, visible for example when shooting the plasma gun, the plasma marks on walls seem to flicker or are randomly cut off. Same with some lightning.

[Gurm]

Basically, it boils down (as always with Matrox cards) to the eternal question:

ARE YOU WILLING to sacrifice visual quality for a few FPS?

If yes, then by all means use the TurboGL in the resolutions where it is faster (which are become few and far between).

If not, use the ICD and be happy that you have the nicest looking Quake3 display bar none.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Gurm]

cking:

Make sure you're really using the TurboGL if the movies are working. You may be one of the lucky few, for there are a few, for whom the visual glitches are minimal.

Or, it might not really be using TurboGL. *shrug*

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[xortam]

The cinematics don't work if you're using the PD 6 versions ... works fine on PD 5 versions (at least for me). I was using 5.41 and now have settled on 5.52 (both w/ TGL). The newer versions slowed TGL down a bit but 6.20 ICD was fairly close to 5.52 w/TGL (no cinematics though). Some versions fixed, then broke teleport views and mirror reflections: 5.52 TGL is good!

P.S. Oops ... sorry for the confusion. When I said "6.20 ICD was fairly close to 5.52 w/TGL (no cinematics though)", I meant that 6.20 w/ TGL had no cinematics. Another reason why I stick with 5.52 is because its more stable than 6.20 on my system.

[This message has been edited by xortam (edited 08 February 2001).]

[Gurm]

IIRC TurboGL had some issues with Alice, since it uses more OpenGL functions than most games.

But which ICD are you comparing the TurboGL to? The 5.xx ones for Win9x? Under Win2k I experience precious few graphical glitches at this point...

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.