3Dfx was once the undisputed heavyweight champion of the UT world. With the Voodoo 5 5500 AGP card, we had 64 megs of raw speed. Glide was rock-solid, sneaky-fast, and precache-free. Add in 4x FSAA and you had a killer card running a killer app.
Admit it, how many of us upgraded as a result of Unreal / UT? I know I had two (count ‘em) major upgrades because of this specific franchise. (My very *first* major upgrade was due to the original Carmageddon, but don’t get me started on *that*).
However, the King is dead. Long live the King.
But who *is* the new King for UT, specifically, UT in XP? Is it the GeForce 3? Can you do 4xFSAA with the GF3 in UT? Does it match the speed and smoothness of the Voodoo 5? And how about the Radeon, specifically the Radeon 2? (We find out more about that on Tuesday, I believe.) Will that mount any kind of serious threat for the die-hard UT player?
I’ve been messing around with the release candidate downloads of XP for a number of weeks and I admit it - I’m hooked. This OS is fun to play around with and is thoroughly stable. I've thrown everything I have at it and have never been able to get it to crash. I can slow it down for a little while if I really try, but it always blows the tasks out and comes roaring back.
By this time, I’m thoroughly peeved at Nvidia for not supplying the 3Dfx source code. I totally understand it from a business point of view, but I still think it's heavy-handed and arrogant, the same things I used to detest about 3Dfx. (Be careful, Nvidia, lest history repeat itself.) I tried UT with the stock 3Dfx XP drivers in D3D, 640 x 480, and it was awful. After being used to 60 fps, phenomenal color, and no jaggies (not to mention zero precaching load-times), I almost cried. Clearly, the Voodoo cards are no longer the weapon of choice if the gamer has upgraded to XP.
As I said, the King is dead. Long live the King.
Whoever that is.
Admit it, how many of us upgraded as a result of Unreal / UT? I know I had two (count ‘em) major upgrades because of this specific franchise. (My very *first* major upgrade was due to the original Carmageddon, but don’t get me started on *that*).
However, the King is dead. Long live the King.
But who *is* the new King for UT, specifically, UT in XP? Is it the GeForce 3? Can you do 4xFSAA with the GF3 in UT? Does it match the speed and smoothness of the Voodoo 5? And how about the Radeon, specifically the Radeon 2? (We find out more about that on Tuesday, I believe.) Will that mount any kind of serious threat for the die-hard UT player?
I’ve been messing around with the release candidate downloads of XP for a number of weeks and I admit it - I’m hooked. This OS is fun to play around with and is thoroughly stable. I've thrown everything I have at it and have never been able to get it to crash. I can slow it down for a little while if I really try, but it always blows the tasks out and comes roaring back.
By this time, I’m thoroughly peeved at Nvidia for not supplying the 3Dfx source code. I totally understand it from a business point of view, but I still think it's heavy-handed and arrogant, the same things I used to detest about 3Dfx. (Be careful, Nvidia, lest history repeat itself.) I tried UT with the stock 3Dfx XP drivers in D3D, 640 x 480, and it was awful. After being used to 60 fps, phenomenal color, and no jaggies (not to mention zero precaching load-times), I almost cried. Clearly, the Voodoo cards are no longer the weapon of choice if the gamer has upgraded to XP.
As I said, the King is dead. Long live the King.
Whoever that is.