3DNOW! support with Voodoo Banshee \ VOGONS

3DNOW! support with Voodoo Banshee

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First post, by xpladv570

Posted on 2022-04-20, 19:43

xpladv570 Offline

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I noticed something odd while testing my bundle of 3dfx cards. I have a Ensoniq 3D Blaster AGP, which seems to work for the most part with reference 3dfx drivers (only after i force them via device manager, i can't find any drivers that install out of the box)

However there is something that puzzles me. On my super socket 7 system, i like to run the Quake 2 timedemo because of its especially good 3DNOW implementation. With a Voodoo 3 3500, I get a really nice boost that lands me in the fps range of 70s. Without 3dnow i get like 56 fps.

I can't for the life of me get any boost at all with the Banshee. The timedemo sits around 40 fps, no matter whether i use vanilla 3.20 or the 3dnow patched game. its definitely not the configuration of the game itself, i can swap back to V3 or V2 instantly and get some gains.

So what is the deal with the Banshee, does it just lack support for 3DNOW instructions in the drivers or what is happening here? It would be weird to see it stick out like that, when cards prior and after actually get affected by the patch.

Reply 1 of 3, by bloodem

Posted on 2022-04-20, 19:56

bloodem Offline

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The problem with the Banshee is that you are GPU bottlenecked, instead of being CPU bottlenecked (like you are with the Voodoo 3).

Basically, your CPU can handle that framerate (40 FPS, the max that the Banshee can handle) with or without 3DNow! optimizations. And it makes sense, since you already saw that your particular platform can handle 56 FPS with the Voodoo 3 without 3DNow! (and at 40 FPS, the Banshee is well below that).

What resolution are you testing at? Try lowering it until you again hit the CPU bottleneck.
As far as I remember, in Quake 2 @ 640 x 480, the Banshee should be able to hit 60+ FPS (on a sufficiently powerful CPU, of course).

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Reply 2 of 3, by mwdmeyer

Posted on 2022-04-20, 22:14

mwdmeyer Offline

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There was this previous thread about 3dnow and banshee that may interest you.
Voodoo Banshee and 3DNow!

It's possible 3dnow support is only included in V3+

Vogons Wiki - http://vogonswiki.com

Reply 3 of 3, by Gmlb256

Posted on 2022-04-20, 22:54

Gmlb256 Offline

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mwdmeyer wrote on 2022-04-20, 22:14:

It's possible 3dnow support is only included in V3+

Voodoo2 has support for it too in later drivers and the 3Dfx MiniGL that was included with the 3DNow! version of Quake 2 (3dfxglam.dll) was optimized for Voodoo2 cards and K6-2 CPUs.

The only ones that doesn't have them that I'm aware of are the Voodoo Graphics and Voodoo Rush cards.

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