VOGONS


First post, by RetroFyre

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Having trouble trying to sort this out because I'm really trying to put use to a Lacie Blue 22" I have that should be getting fed worthy frames. I'm trying to hit 100fps with all settings and AA enabled at 1600x1200 in some of the late 90s fps games that support A3D while using a Vortex 2. I've done quite a bit of searching but I can't exactly make heads or tails from the constraints here.

Some people mention that Windows XP IS okay for A3D as long as you don't upgrade to SP1. Others say it is an unstable driver. So this possibly further constrains the build to Win98SE, which I would honestly like to avoid if possible.

This also opens up the idea of VFIO. Since you can put a V5500 in a PCI-E slot now, could I pass it to a VM? Could I pass the Vortex 2?

I'm really trying to avoid building a separate fastest A3D machine and glide machine. After I run some real hardware and do some KVM testing against a dgVoodoo with a shader, I may abandon the V5500, but I sort of don't think that's going to happen. My experience with emulation in general has not been favorable. Over the years I've sort of found that real hardware always just seems to feel right, and emulation always seems to be off.

But it's been a long time and Intel ain't no slouch, so I'm open to ideas like using Vt-d and running either a WinXP or Win98SE guest with a hypervisor. But honestly, it seems like that's a pipedream.

Reply 1 of 3, by j^aws

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Rather than thinking you don't want another build, you should be assessing whether your other builds are redundant.

Presuming you have a PCI V5500, look for the fastest Win98 compatible boards, such as Socket 775 or AM2 boards. With something like a C2D X6800, you can downclock to 600MHz with certain boards, and make Tualatin builds or Pentium 4 builds redundant.

Reply 2 of 3, by RetroFyre

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
j^aws wrote:

Rather than thinking you don't want another build, you should be assessing whether your other builds are redundant.

Presuming you have a PCI V5500, look for the fastest Win98 compatible boards, such as Socket 775 or AM2 boards. With something like a C2D X6800, you can downclock to 600MHz with certain boards, and make Tualatin builds or Pentium 4 builds redundant.

I don't mind extra boxes honestly. I just don't want to needlessly iterate this if VFIO is the solution. I just don't know that I can pass an A3D card with vt-d. Suppose I should probably start there.

Reply 3 of 3, by RetroFyre

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Some more research seems to indicate pre-nt stuff with passthrough is bound against legacy 16 bit code and problematic, so I'll just steer clear of that.

I guess this question now can come down to, what is the limitation of A3D drivers in Windows XP? Information is sparse on this point to what exactly the issues are, preSP1.