[Dan]

Has anybody had any success with SMP under Q3Test2 and Win2k? When I enabled SMP (r_smp 1) it told me to restart the program, and when I did it would just crash with a big white screen every time I tried. My system information is listed below:

3dfx Voodoo3 2000
Dual Celeron 300A
Tekram P6B40D-A5 mainboard
256MB HSDRAM
2GB free HDD

[loeke]

sorry,

same here, apparently the V2 drivers are bugged, preventing smp operation....

[Philipp]

[loeke]

I tried both NT4 and w2k, they provide me with the same result, nothing.
On sCary people posted smp results for both NT4 and w2k, albeit none with V2's....
Seems that TNT and V3 work fine under both os's.... (speculation from me :-)

[JD]

Use a card made for SMP.

The cards from 3DLabs (Oxygen VX1 etc) are "Optimized for multiple processors".

[Philipp]

Quote:

Seems that TNT and V3 work fine under both os's.... (speculation from me :-)

Check the first post. Dan used a Voodoo 3 (3dfx Voodoo3 2000) and not a Voodoo 2.

[SHS]

Yes it ture Voodoo3 ICD OpenGl drivers don't support SMP mode.
The SMP code or not build in to Windows9x ICD Drivers.
So let's hope 3dfx will put out real NT4 drivers that do.
Keep eye out for the new drivers today.
Look Like for now TnT or 3Dlabs Permedia 2,3 or VX1 or GVX1 a few other card's support this.

[JonRico]

Whoops, made a new post by accident. Sorry!

Here it is again in the right place!

I have a Diamond TNT2 (not Ultra) and the ABIT Dual Celeron Socket 370 Board. Using the Build 2072 D3D and OpenGl 2.08 I have no joy. Yet to try other configurations. More info soon. I am using Win2K build 2072 by the way!
Anyone got TNT2 SMP going in Win2K?

[Dan]

Somebody emailed me saying that 3dfx has new Voodoo3 beta drivers available which could potentially resolve the SMP problem (the sender didn't have SMP to test). I searched the 3dfx site, but was unable to find anything of the sort. Does anybody have any more information in regards to this?

[SHS]

JonRico is that Abit BP6 over clock ?.
try runing stock clock

[Asylum]

Has anyone had a TNT (not TNT2) working with SMP?

[JonRico]

Yes my celerons are overclocked (366 to 450) but the same happens at 366.

The situation is though, that it runs once in Win2k in SMP mode. If you start it up with r_smp 0 and set r_smp 1 at the console, you can play one demo or map in smp mode then it crashes. So the best I can do is start it up, switch on SMP, play a game, quit then run a batch file to restore the config to r_smp 0 and restart the game!

Still, the performance logs show that from having one processor used to 95+% we now have two doing 60 odd. So it works - real performace boost in 640 before I become 3d card limited in 800.

About to overclock the TNT2 now to see what happens....

Can anyone do better? It would be nice to fix it since it clearly aint badly broken.

[Philipp]

I received an email that the crash after playing a map is only in Windows 2000. Quake 3 SMP/TNT2 work fine in NT 4.0 on the same configuration.

Which TNT2 drivers do you use?

[JonRico]

Yeh thats right. Nt4 works fine on my system.

I use OpenGL 2.08 (Nt4 driver from Nvidia) mixed with the TNT 2.0 D3D from win2k rc1.

I have the following benchmarks also....

Q3TestDemo1
640SMP: 58.8
640: 53.3
800SMP: 52.6
800: 50.1
1024SMP: 36.4
1024: 36.7

Q3TestDemo2
640SMP: 65.9
640: 61.9
800SMP: 64.6
800: 60.5
1024SMP: 56.8
1024: 55.3

I use the standard graphic settings (only change res), execpt that texture detail is on max.

I conclude that I am card limited at 1024, so the overhead for SMP makes it slower in demo1 (a bit), but that I get an SMP performance increase in 640 and 800. Also interesting to note that demo2 SMP shows more of an improvement than demo1 - shows that demo2 requires less graphics work than demo1 - not so card limited in demo2.

Overall - pretty pleasing, but could be better...

[rickj]

i'm having some of the same problems, however i am not running win2k but nt 4 (since i cannot convice promise to give me thier beta drivers for my fasttrack controllers....dont believe the HCL folks)heres my system specs......

epox kp6-bs mainboard
2 celery 300a ppga's oced to 463
2 msi 6905 rev 1.1 slockets (at 2.0 volts)
3com 100mbit pci network card
vortex2 soundcard by aureal
single voodoo 2 (diamond)
intel i740 agp video card by jaton corp
promise fastrack ide raid controller (raid 1)
(2) western digital ac34400 ata33 drives
ide internal zip drive
ide acer 36x cdrom drive

after i start quake 3 (1.06) and enter r_smp 1 at the console it tells me to restart for smp to take effect, i do so, and the screen slowly flashes like it's switching video modes in an idefinate loop. the only way i have found to break out is to hard reboot my computer....ahhhhh
everything works just fine (except sound, see my other posts) with one processor.

guess i'll be gamming under 98 for a while longer.......

any input would be greatly appreciated.

[Dracken]

I have a duel Pentium Pro system with an Elsa
Erazor II PCI TNT and Turtle Beach Montego II
PCI sound card. I haven't had a video problem
with either the Nvidia 208, 203 or original
NT drivers.

The bottom framerate goes from ~25 to ~35 at
800*600 with SMP.

Note: I've had all the Elsa drivers give me
an occasional lockup in 2D, but I think
they're overclocking it.


I have had chronic sound problems, though,
with SB16, Vortex I and II sound cards.
I think it has to do with errata in the FX
chip set running two PPros. (Not OCed)

Locking down the IRQ with the Interrupt
Affinity TSR fixed it enough for Quake I & II
and Halflife, but everything else makes sound
cut out after a few min., requiring a reboot
to get it back.

At this point I have excellent video for all
GL games, but for Quake III and Descent III
I have to play deaf.
I'm using the latest Aureal drivers,
any ideas?

[Dracken]

Probably should mention I'm running NT4 SP5.
:-)

[smurfie]

Actually, does anyone know what's the problem running Q3 in SMP mode under w2k ? is it Q3 or the video card drivers that crashe w2k ?
peronally, i got a TNT1, abit BP6 with 2 celerons 366@550 under w2k RC1 PRO, and r_smp1 + q3 reboot make a blank screen, i have to reset the computer ...

[Dan]

I emailed ID Software to find out what they had to say, and I got this response from Eric Webb:

"There is a problem with SMP at this point. We are working to resolveit."

[smurfie]

so that's a Q3 bug, not any gfx card's drivers problem ?