Asylum

I would say your right your cpu is just as busy at low resolutions as it is at high resolutions. Triangle calulation should use the same amount of cpu at all resolutions, since the resolution doesn't effect how many triangles are on the screen. I don't know the direct effect, but higher resolutions require a higher fill rate and there is a link between fill rate and the processor. This is one of the topics I have been discussing with JimmyK. Hopefully he can help shead some light on the subject. I believe that in smp mode, the second processor helps with triangle calulations, or takes other calulations off of the main cpu. Therefore the main cpu has more resources for triangle calulations, better known as float point calulations.

Okay, I must have been mistaken, but I could have sworn that I had read an artcle or two the clearly stated that the sdr card ran at 240Mps. But today when I went to look for them I found this which proves your point. Just recently, the topic of using Double Data Rate SDRAM or SGRAM on a GeForce 256 board was brought up with the announcement of DDR GeForce 256 boards from Creative Labs, Guillemot, and Leadtek. Double Data Rate (DDR) SDRAM/SGRAM has been around for quite some time and is theoretically a very intelligent solution that offers a low latency and a greater memory bandwidth. The way DDR SDRAM/SGRAM works is that it transfers data on both the rising and falling edges of the clock like the AGP bus, therefore doubling the amount of available memory bandwidth. This way, NVIDIA can boast that their 128-bit memory bus offers just as much bandwidth as Matrox's Dual 128-bit bus or as a 256-bit memory bus. At the current memory clock speed, using DDR SDRAM on a GeForce 256 would result in an amazing 5.2GB/s of memory bandwidth, and at 200MHz (5ns chips) it would offer 6.4GB/s. This would come in handy particularly in 32-bit color rendering modes and at high resolutions when a considerable amount of memory is required. Unfortunately, there is a downside to all of this. Currently, DDR SDRAM/SGRAM is very rare and it will continue to be rare for quite some time. The chances of picking up a GeForce 256 this year with DDR memory on it is next to nothing and the first signs of publicly available DDR models will probably be sometime next year. Samsung recently announced their DDR SDRAM chips but for now they are out of the reach of the mass market, making our conventional SDRAM/SGRAM (also referred to as Single Data Rate - SDR) the choice for most GeForce 256 boards. Now I have a question for you. Why wouldn't more memory bandwidth give you higher fillrate. What memory are we talking about. Probably not frame buffer, and probably not system memory. Later.

I would just like to add, this is the longest topic on this message board by a long shot. I am glad to see so many people interested. Okay, enough of that or I am going to gag. Later.. @sylum.. Thanks to JimmyK for making this topic interesting again.

Thanks for the apology. I think our communication is a little off here. I don't know where you got the idea a sdr card could run 480Mps, probably from your links, which I admit, I am ignoring and shouldn't be. In reference to the sdr card this little line here screams for some correction. "Peak fill rate of 480 million bilinear filtered, multi-textured pixels per second " taken from www.nvidia.com "Four independent pixel-rendering pipelines deliver up to 480 million 8-sample fully filtered pixels per second. Guarantees highest color quality and texturing special effects at maximum frame rate" The SDR card is the one that hits 240Mps, the DDR card runs twice as fast, up to 480Mps. I think the real question we need to ask is how much processor power does the geforce free up off the processor. Because the freed power can then be used to push a higher fill rate. and therefore a higher resolution. Correct? The other question should be how much processor does it take to increase fill rate. For the most part I agree with everything you said, but I don't think your right in saying I am wrong. Even if the gpu is not being used to its full, your still freeing up processor for use with fill rate. This conversation is getting interesting. I don't claim to know it all, but I know enough to be dangerous.. Hehehe.

Note to The Man, JimmyK Thanks for insulting all of us on your first comment. I have been playing and tweaking quake since the first quake1 test was released. I have also owned every generation graphics card other then the gforce which I plan on buying as soon as my wife says its okay. Hehehe. So lets knock off a few comments with some answers. Fill rate and limits. vertical res * horizontal res / fillrate gives us the rough amount of fps that can be achived per second. The geforce I agree is not fillrate limited or is less fillrate limited then other cards, due to the fact that everything is handled by the gforces cpu. As for the ultra tnt2, it hits the main cpu pretty hard and is therefore limited by the cpu. Which could mean fillrate, or could mean triangle calculation, this is highly dependent on what cpu you are useing. So, dependent upon what res you are running a utnt2 at will make the difference of being fillrate limited or not. Your bench marks or bench guesses, don't make much sence with out adding in a cpu speed. A utnt2 at 1024x768 can get around 50 fps on a ???, my guess is a p3 500. The geforce can probably pull the 80 on any machine, I would agree with that. As for saying that you have to have a hi end system to meet a graphics cards fillrate limit. This is true for the last generation of graphics cards, but the gforce doesn't have this problem. Due to the fact that the card is handling all the graphics. The fillrate of gforces available now is 240Mps, unless someone has released the ddr version of the geforce and I happened not to notice. I don't think anyone that has posted here has said anything about two processors doubling the amount of total processing power. But as for everything else you said about smp, I would have to agree. I hope you keep posting JimmyK.

Yes it would have been better to do a but load of benchs with and with out smp. But time did not allow, the dual machine we built was more or less three computers slapped into one. We built it on our bar hoping night so we didn't leave it together for long, can't miss out on penny picthers. As for the relevance of the other machines. They both out preformed the dual machine with earlier generation hardware. I have talked to a few people about running duals and have come to the conclusion the something must have been a miss in oour setup. Others have had better marks with the same setup. My guess is alot of our problems or slowdown came from a bad cab14 for win2k, we had to modify a few things to get it to work, as well as force the driver install. Later.. Asy.

Alright boys and girls. I did a little testing this last Friday. Dual p2 400's 450 MB RAM, and a tnt2 card(3.53). Useing quake3 1.09, and rc3 I thought we had a winner. SMP mode worked with no problem, I was suprised that everything other then the install of the drivers went smooth. Now to the benchs, which will cover all 3 of my machines. I will post just the best results for each machine. Machine 1 P2 400 with sli voodoo2's 128 MB RAM Win98se 640x480 Normal settings, 3dicons 0 simpleitems 1 drawattacker 0 54.6 fps Machine 2 P2 400 with tnt1(3.53) 128 MB RAM Win98se 640x480 Fastest settings, 3dicons 0 simpleitems 1 drawattacker 0 79.8 fps Machine 3 dual p2 400 tnt2(3.53) 450 MB RAM Win2k rc3 640x480 Fastest settings, 3dicons 0 simpleitems 1 drawattacker 0 58.4 640x480 Normal settings, 3dicons 0 simpleitems 1 drawattacker 0 49.3 Conclusion I have found that the voodoo cards run with more options on with less of a hit to fps. Where the TNT cards tend to run extremely fast with all options off. I was disappointed in the Dual machine, both of my other machines pounded it in every way except load time, must be the ****load of ram. There is article on thresh's firing squad that confirms what I found with SMP, and that is that you don't gain much. If anything, dual processor machines would mack great servers, but your better off buying a processor twice as fast rather then two at half the speed. If you disagree, tell me about, and post some benchs. Later..

Hey fellow win2k junkies.. This is a bad question, but I am getting tired of waiting.. Does anyone have a copy of win2k 2151 or higher that I can get off of them.. I am part of a software company that receives the rc's from Microsoft, but then tend to arrive really late.. Hit me up on Icq or email if you can lend a hand. Later.

Is the p1mp!

JonRico

This is too sweet as they say in WCW. Someone needs to slap up some bench's with and without smp, so we can see what the preformance difference is! I think I am going to have to pull my extra processor out of the wifes machine to get smp up again. Thanks to all of you that have been submiting info at my request. Later.

Randomer- I take it your useing quake3 demotest 1.09, Nvidia 3.53, Win2k(rc2), and smp 1. Is this correct?

Hey guys.. We have a new version of quake3 to test with smp. Since my system is not running smp right now. Does someone want to try smp with the new demo and post the results for the rest of us lazy bastards.. Later..

The problem you are having is not because of smp. Quake3 doesn't go into smp mode until set in the console. Quake3 will run on an smp machine just fine, it just won't run in smp mode. You do get some what of an increase in preformance while useing smp in or os(and not in quake3), this is due to the fact the the other system tasks are taken by one processor, leaving the other processor for just quake3. This isn't exact the truth but is close enough. The problems that you are having is with the driver you are useing. Instead of trying older drivers, try the newest. Also check the win2k hardware section of this bbs. I am sure you will find more answers there. Later, and good luck.

tahoecomp Juses, everyone is running around with these bad ass machines. Your making me feel like my dual 400 is just not going to cut it anymore. Anyway, about the extra L2 cache, my guess is that it will have no influence on quake3 preformance. L2 comes into play when accessing databases, info flies in and out of L2 so fast in quake3 and games in general that there probably won't be any benefit from the size increase. But then again I have never even played around with a xeon, so I might be wrong. I hope you post some benchmarks soon. Later.