AvocadoLongfall wrote on 2024-11-28, 01:52:

I have finally about a few weeks ago got to set up my Pentium MMX 233MHz PC with 3dFx voodoo graphics and so far it is overall a pretty playable and fun experience. However, a few things have come to my attention as far as frame rates such as some areas in Tomb Raider 1 and 2 where if I look at certain areas or things such as barred windows or even open areas with stuff, the FPS drops down to teen numbers. Like for example, when I am at the Midas Palace area with the garden and gate, when I look at the garden with the fence there, it drops down to as low as 20-18 fps.

This is normal. The Voodoo 1 doesn't have enough power to run these games at a locked 30 FPS in more demanding areas.

You can get slightly better performance in TR1 by turning off edge anti aliasing. I think the F3 key toggles that, but check the readme of the 3DFX patch to be sure.

I thought it was lagging and underperforming for sure. I do not remember experiencing this until now the last time I had a Voodoo 1 with 4 megabytes and a Pentium MMX 233MHz. I imagine a Voodoo 2 12 Megabyte video card may help with that a lot but no higher than 800x600 with decent performance?

You can try overclocking.
Or more extreme, someone on yt made a pluggable +4mb memory upgrade board

I’d honestly rather not overclock the voodoo to be safe. I did order a Voodoo 2 12 megabyte pci card.

with how it locks to 20 fps, it's clear it's using double buffered vsync. at least on V2, FX_GLIDE_ALLOC_COLOR=3 in autoexec.bat is said to force triple buffering. for V1, there is SST_TRIPLE_BUFFER=1, but it only works when no Z-buffer is used. otherwise, maybe it works when a game allows to drop to 512x384. and vsync can also be turned off altogether with SST_VSYNC=0.

it's also possible that a pentium ii system would allow it to hit 30 fps more often.

auron wrote on 2024-11-28, 11:31:

it's also possible that a pentium ii system would allow it to hit 30 fps more often.

Not with a Voodoo 1.

Even the original Tomb Raider is GPU limited on that card in Glide mode. Especially if the in-game anti aliasing option is turned on.

I've been trying to play TRII on my Pentium II 300Mhz with Voodoo 2 12Mb... It's quite laggy... Given that the system requirements of this game say it needs only a 90Mhz Pentium, I'm rather disappointed in this performance. There is also lag with the Riva 128 and software mode. Is a PII 300Mhz really not enough for this game?

what is the vsync situation? did you try triple buffering?

does performance improve when reducing the resolution?

auron wrote on 2025-01-30, 20:08:

what is the vsync situation? did you try triple buffering?

does performance improve when reducing the resolution?

Dropping resolution made no difference. Setting triple buffer seems to have improved it though. Thanks for the tip! Vsync must be off, as I see tearing. I have seen no options to turn it on.

The actual game seems fine now. But in the "Lara's Home" bit the game seems to stutter whenever she falls off the boxes and hits the ground. Not sure why. I see the same stutter there on my Pentium MMX Voodoo 1 machine also.

Minimum standards back then were a lot lower, and people's tolerances were a lot higher.

30fps with occasional stutters was acceptable performance.

You have to remember, PC's were "obsolete the day you got it home" back then. If it didn't run great, in 3-6 months hardware would catch up.

That said, there were almost always ways to tweak hardware performance, and reduce visual quality to compensate.

I had quake 3 running well on a p166mmx ocd to 250. It looked like doom, but I won the "prove a point" match against a guy who said "don't bring anything under 500mhz to the LAN"

AvocadoLongfall wrote on 2024-11-28, 01:52:

I have finally about a few weeks ago got to set up my Pentium MMX 233MHz PC with 3dFx voodoo graphics and so far it is overall a […]
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I have finally about a few weeks ago got to set up my Pentium MMX 233MHz PC with 3dFx voodoo graphics and so far it is overall a pretty playable and fun experience. However, a few things have come to my attention as far as frame rates such as some areas in Tomb Raider 1 and 2 where if I look at certain areas or things such as barred windows or even open areas with stuff, the FPS drops down to teen numbers. Like for example, when I am at the Midas Palace area with the garden and gate, when I look at the garden with the fence there, it drops down to as low as 20-18 fps. The motherboard I am using is a Soyo SY-5BT5 (VER. 1.1). I am using as for a isa sound card a YMF719E OPL3. The 2D video card is a PCI S3 Virge with 2 megabytes. The 3Dfx card is a Monster 3D card with 4 megabytes. I am also on an AT power supply with 210Watts.

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/soyo-sy-5bt5-ver.-1.1

For example
https://youtu.be/_G-qoOmYSlc

I'm finalizing a VCORE mod for my Soyo SY-5BT (5BT5), the idea is to put a K6-2+ 400 1.6V, which will work at more than 410 MHz, with FSB 68.5 instead of the usual 66.6.66.8, you can see it here:
Re: Test and troubleshoot PC@LIVE motherboards
With that CPU you can use a program, which changes the multi, disables the cache, and in the latest version, allows an interesting frame gain, and it is here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Po_oy7VjLu0&t=282s

myne wrote on 2025-01-31, 04:37:

Minimum standards back then were a lot lower, and people's tolerances were a lot higher.

30fps with occasional stutters was acceptable performance.

Yes, for sure, we have been spoilt with modern expectations. I am happy enough with the performance on the PII 300Mhz Voodoo 2 now. I guess it isn't really a game that needs high fps anyway.

Tomb Raider 1 and 2 are capped to 30 FPS. Even if the GPU can do more, the game engine won't allow it.

As for stuttering when Lara falls during the tutorial level, isn't that the moment when she says something to the player, like "Let's try that again." and such? I think those voice clips might be read from the CD, which could cause the system to hang for a bit.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-01-31, 08:12:

Tomb Raider 1 and 2 are capped to 30 FPS. Even if the GPU can do more, the game engine won't allow it.

As for stuttering when Lara falls during the tutorial level, isn't that the moment when she says something to the player, like "Let's try that again." and such? I think those voice clips might be read from the CD, which could cause the system to hang for a bit.

Interesting. The TR2 Lara's Home level even has stutters on my Core 2 Duo X6800 Geforce FX 5900 PC. Must be the level I guess rather than the hardware. I think you may be right that it is the speech from her causing it. The actual game levels seem fine.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-01-31, 08:12:

Tomb Raider 1 and 2 are capped to 30 FPS. Even if the GPU can do more, the game engine won't allow it.

This is actually the case all the way up to Tomb Raider 5 (Chronicles). 😅

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-01-31, 08:37:

Interesting. The TR2 Lara's Home level even has stutters on my Core 2 Duo X6800 Geforce FX 5900 PC. Must be the level I guess rather than the hardware. I think you may be right that it is the speech from her causing it. The actual game levels seem fine.

Try making a BIN/CUE image from your Tomb Raider 2 CD and then load it up in Daemon Tools and such. It might help with that particular stutter issue.

bloodem wrote on 2025-01-31, 08:52:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-01-31, 08:12:

Tomb Raider 1 and 2 are capped to 30 FPS. Even if the GPU can do more, the game engine won't allow it.

This is actually the case all the way up to Tomb Raider 5 (Chronicles). 😅

Figures! 😁 I haven't played 3-5 in a while (on the PC) so I wasn't sure.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-01-31, 09:04:

Try making a BIN/CUE image from your Tomb Raider 2 CD and then load it up in Daemon Tools and such. It might help with that particular stutter issue.

I confirm your hypothesis. I ripped the disk to bin/cue and put the image on the SD card of my Tattiebogle IDE CD simulator. That is attached to my Pentium MMX / Voodoo 1 system. There were no stutters in the training level when using the CD image.

I then tried the GOG release . No stutter in that level with this either. The GOG release uses MP3 rather than CD for audio. So, potentially, that may slow down some systems. But mine is 300Mhz Pentium MMX and seemed fine.

The Voodoo 1 seemed to cope fine at 640x480 to be honest. Very playable.