Driver testing

[SuperFurryFurryThing]

How does one get a new Voodoo 4/5 Driver tested around here.

Paul

[amp_man]

Normally, you would post a link to a download site, I guess. What do your drivers have to offer, and under what OS?

[SuperFurryFurryThing]

Well the driver is an attempt to produce a DX8.1 Driver for Win2k. I would like to see if it addresses the 32bit per pixel issues, and if it works under XP. I am going to try some testing with 3DMark to get some idea of the performance.

[Nightbird]

The best would be to try some games/demos supporting DirX8.1

[Glide]

SuperFurryFurryThing, welcome here.

Let me know, also via mail, how you mean with "attempting to produce a DX8.1 driver for Win2k". Of course, you could explain this here too.

Well, when your driver solution will be ready...it will be viewed by 3dfxzone team and, if it would be interesting, our mirrors are available for public download. Some people grabs it will be its  tester.

[SuperFurryFurryThing]

I have tried 3DMark2001 SE as a DX8.1 Test, and have tested with the DirectX 8.1 SDK samples. I have also tested with IL2 Forgotton Battles and Gunship. I have being comparing the driver against the last 3dfx official driver and Amigerlin 3.0. I am testing on a Voodoo 5500 AGP. I have found that my dirver seems to work aswell as the offical driver although like Amigerlin it has problems running multiple DirectX clients simoultaneously. I have noticed problems with Amigerlin with 32 bit per pixel modes, it doesn't run some of the DX8 samples in 32 bit per pixel modes, and doesn't run 3DMark in 32 bit per pixel mode either. I have tested all three drivers using 3Dmark, and the results are below.

1024 * 768 resolution

Official 32 bit per pixel     Score 346               0.8 Million Triangles per sec
                             Score 343               0.8 Million Triangles per sec

Amigerlin 3.0 16 bits per pixel Score 350             0.8 Million Triangles per sec
                               Score 349             0.8 Million Triangles per sec

SFFT  32 bits per pixel         Score 359             0.9 Million Triangles per sec
                               Score 359             0.9 Million Triangles per sec

In addition I have noticesd that the frame rate of one of the DX8.8 SDk samples increased to 100 fps asa against 80 for the official driver. I think that the triangle drawing rate has been improved somewhat. I was testing on a 300 Mhz Petium II based system.

[NitroX infinity]

300 Mhz Pentium II?
With a Voodoo5 5500? You definately need betatesters.
The V5 doesn't even come close to it's full potential with such a slow processor.

[SuperFurryFurryThing]

It just happens to be the machine that I am using for DX8.1 testing on W2k. I think that the driver is about ready for an alpha test, to see if it is of any use. I suspect that if it runs on XP it might be.

[Glide]

Very well SuperFurryFurryThing, analisys task is running: as soon as possible (for me) i will inform you about it via mail.

However, thanks in advance for work.

[SuperFurryFurryThing]

I have sent a second test driver for Voodoo5 to you. I have fixed a lot of DirectX problems with it. there is still a bit of a problem with single GPU cards, that I have fixed since this version. Most noticably, I have fixed the Big texture support so you don't get the while patches when running in high detail modes.

Paul