Spark wrote on 2024-03-02, 15:02:

I would have hoped the rage xl would look more like the voodoo.

It does.

Putas wrote on 2024-03-03, 04:38:

Spark wrote on 2024-03-02, 15:02:

I would have hoped the rage xl would look more like the voodoo.

It does.

I can confirm that the Rage XL is excellent in Quake 1 and 2. It can also overclock with PowerStrip for smooth FPS in Quake 2 at 800x600 with the AGP variant and a fast processor.

Quake 3 will run, but it's very slow. It's definitely a Direct3D 5 and early OpenGL 1.1-class card. If you want DirectX 6 or higher, choose the Rage 128 instead.

I teased Return to Castle Wolfenstein, but it does not have a playable frame rate. Especially in outdoor areas. It was interesting to see that it would, though.

Unreal is barely playable as well. Again, Quake 3 and Unreal would be better suited for the next generation's Rage 128 and TNT2.

Quake3 should perform on the XL at least with textures down a couple notches. Quake3 was targeting Rage Pro with fallbacks so surely it'd be better than that baseline. RTCW's a bit of a CPU/memory hog though and a decent video card (i.e. Geforce2) can suffer there.

I have had American McGee's Alice running on an XL with the last minigl driver it was a minimum res low detail thing, but it ran 15-20fps.

The Rage Pro AGP was already "good enough" for most late 90 games and later ones, I can only imagine the XL to be better in most cases. But it was all about expectations and time correct low end configs. Nowdays I even consider the Rage IIC with late drivers to be good enough as long as resolution remains 400x300 and an higher end cpu was used.

386SX wrote on 2024-03-03, 06:42:

The Rage Pro AGP was already "good enough" for most late 90 games and later ones, I can only imagine the XL to be better in most cases. But it was all about expectations and time correct low end configs. Nowdays I even consider the Rage IIC with late drivers to be good enough as long as resolution remains 400x300.

This is my opinion as well. I'm trying to find a sweet spot for my own comfort. I like the strong OpenGL support and the ability to run Quake 1 and 2 at good frame rates. Everything else, including the XL enhancements, is a bonus.

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-03-03, 06:45:

386SX wrote on 2024-03-03, 06:42:

The Rage Pro AGP was already "good enough" for most late 90 games and later ones, I can only imagine the XL to be better in most cases. But it was all about expectations and time correct low end configs. Nowdays I even consider the Rage IIC with late drivers to be good enough as long as resolution remains 400x300.

This is my opinion as well. I'm trying to find a sweet spot for my own comfort. I like the strong OpenGL support and the ability to run Quake 1 and 2 at good frame rates. Everything else, including the XL enhancements is a bonus.

Also having the multimedia engine basically equal to the Rage128 makes it even more interesting (while sw compatibility with ATi chips and drivers may not be that easy). While I still don't have the XL it feel like I good option.

I wonder how the game Thief II, first level in the main hall of the house with the XL where shadows can be seen, render on it, because the Rage Pro while it can run that heavy game, has problems with the shadows basically fully dark, a problem that's not seen in the lower resolution rendering on the Rage IIC with same period late drivers.

Can you send me a save game and a screenshot of what to look for? I'm not familiar with the Thief games.

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-03-03, 07:12:

Can you send me a save game and a screenshot of what to look for? I'm not familiar with the Thief games.

I don't have the machine running right now but in the first level even demo, there's very soon a big main hall with a big fire. It's the biggest house room and looking at the main house door from the inside you can see the pillars shadows which are really bad on the Rage Pro.

Is it this room?

https://thief.fandom.com/wiki/OM_T1_A_Keeper%27s_Training

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-03-03, 07:32:

Is it this room?

https://thief.fandom.com/wiki/OM_T1_A_Keeper%27s_Training

Keep2.png

That's Thief 1 which I don't remember if had the same problem I think did not. The problem can be clearly seen in Thief 2 instead even at 640x480 it should be more visible, I imagine the enhanced game engine required more. I didn't find a tweak option to solve it. Even the Riva128 has an interesting result rendering it. The interesting thing is that the Rage IIC seems not suffering that, I wonder if that's because it may have render some DX6/7 features in sw instead of the Rage Pro maybe missing in hardware the features listed in the Rage Pro <> XL differences.
Anyway looking at the specifications on the improved Rage XL compared to the Rage Pro 3D engine, I imagine the game render good.

Just as a side note, I came across a video explaining that there are actually "new" Rage XL made with old salvaged chips. But they need to be modded to run on old mainboards (5V vs 3.3V PCI).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbyv4wI0v0s

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2024-03-03, 16:17:

Just as a side note, I came across a video explaining that there are actually "new" Rage XL made with old salvaged chips. But they need to be modded to run on old mainboards (5V vs 3.3V PCI).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbyv4wI0v0s

I bought one of those cards but didn't work not even on the 3,3v PCI boards. I've read of various random results in getting one perfectly working or with problems, I suppose the quality control may not exist as supposed to or chips installed (both ram and video chips) may be already used too much. Also the PCB layout is not as complex as the same cards using that chip for desktop mainboards and seems oriented to save most possible costs.