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CREATIVE LABS
3D blaster Voodoo2 12MG 03.15.98
INSTALLATION:
Intstallation was a breeze. Screwed it in, hooked up the pass through and booted up. Windows detected the card
and asked for the driver location. Rebooted and I was ready to go. The drivers are the 3Dfx reference drivers by
3Dfx not Creative Labs.
Control Panal Tab:
TESTING:
For all the test and benchmarks I choose not to overclock or tweak any of the hardware or software
System used
PII 266 (not overclocked)
ASUS PL972
64megs SDRAM
IBM UltraWide SCSI HD (5200rpm)
Adaptech 2940UW controller
GLQuake (Open GL):
timedemo demo2
glquake.exe -width 640 -height 480 -bpps 16
After running timedemo2 four times
- GLQuake averaged 80fps at 640x480 vsync disabled
- GLQuake averaged 63fps at 640x480
glquake.exe -width 800 -height 600 -bpps 16
After running timedemo2 four times
- GLQuake averaged 60fps at 800x600 vsync disabled
- GLQuake averaged 44fps at 800x600 vsync enabled
Quake2 (Open GL):
timedemo 1
demomap demo1.dm2
After running timedemo1 four times
- Quake2 averaged 59fps at 640x480 vsync disabled
- Quake2 averaged 53fps at 640x480 vsync enabled
glquake.exe -width 800 -height 600 -bpps 16
After running timedemo1 four times
- Quake2 averaged 54fps at 800x600 vsync disabled
- Quake2 averaged 43fps at 800x600 vsync enabled
timedemo 1
map massive1.dm2
- Quake2 averaged 49fps at 640x480 vsync disabled
- Quake2 averaged 47fps at 800x600 vsync disabled
Conclusion: Amazingly fast!!! Its not 100fps but it rips. But I must add that the game seemed very smooth and the graphics were noticably sharper and clearer than with the Monster 3D (voodoo 1) at 640x480 and theHercules Stingray (Rush) at 800x600 (which ran at 25fps). Finally GLQuake at 800x600 with a great frame rate.
Forsaken (D3D):
- 115fps 640x480 (vsync off @ 60hz)
- 92fps 800x600 (vsync off @ 60hz)
WizMark (Glide):
Motoracer (D3D):
640x480 Filtered
62fps
640x480 Filtered vsync turned off: 70-120fps
Conclusion: Good consistant frame rate, but no real performance difference than the Monster 3D. With vsync turned off I got 100+fps. But anything over 60fps is really not that noticable. Better average framerate than the Velocity 128 AGP (averaging 40fps).
Final Reality (D3D):
Purple Line represents Diamond's Monster 3D
Green Line represents CL's voodoo 2
note: when I reran the test with vsync turned off the fill rate increased to 50.39
Conclusion: A a slight increase in performance, but notice the low fill rate. 3Dfx said D3D will be improved improved with optimized drivers which they are working on.
Initial Overall Conclusion:
So far the best 3D card I have tested. D3D is not much of an improvement. I did not get the spectacular 100fps I
Had expected, but got high enough frame rates to play all of today's game smoothly without pauses. 800x600 at a
good frame rate and clarity is the main advantage of this card. I was unable to run any of the games higher than
800x600.
Second day of testing:
I finally saw this card go over 100fps in Forsaken. Oddly enough I was able to run Forsaken at 800x600 using the
D3D executable oposed to the voodoo2 executable. I still have not run into any heat problems or lockups. In
most all the games I've tested the Graphics look sharper and clearer than with other 3D cards I have tested.
One Week Later:
I started to run into games that are not compatible. I have read at 3Dfx.com that most these games will be fixed
with the new drivers, which are due soon. I still have not run into heat problems. I'll restate for those who do not
know yet that the Voodoo 2's will get maximum performance when ran in a Pentium 2 system and that you will
probably not see much of a difference than with the first generation voodoo graphics chips when running in slower
systems.