stef80 wrote on 2022-04-10, 19:57:

I just read 3DNow! support in Q3 is broken?? Hm, then it's a bit unfair Athlons XP are excluded. PIII has SSE (which Q3 uses), Thunderbirds do not. There were some performance DLLs, but those targeted Athlons XP. So, requirements should have been: clock up to 850MHz and no SSE2 support. Maybe limit the size of L2 cache to exclude mobile Bartons.

Regular Athlons are faster clock for clock then the P3 cpus. Athlon Xp cpus are even faster then athlons. So it is not a problem. We decided that it was unfair to allow xp cpus. They are simply to fast. Not 1999 fast. Faster.

I have found performance dll:s for k6 cpus, athlons cpus, and athlon XP cpus. I even found dll:s that dont have a specific cpu in mind.
I also tried different dll:s on different cpus. The k6 dll did wonders on my P3 cpu.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-10, 18:37:

Quake III does bloody multi processing? Obvious question on the mind of any upstanding nerd, of course. But I would not have gue […]
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Doornkaat wrote on 2022-04-10, 05:34:

It says "This means the original Athlon cpu:s. Not Athlon XP, X64 and so on." in the OP, so no Palomino cores but in this post i […]
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Imperious wrote on 2022-04-10, 04:02:

Are Athlon Palomino cores allowed?

It says "This means the original Athlon cpu:s. Not Athlon XP, X64 and so on." in the OP, so no Palomino cores but in this post it says they're allowed anyway.
I've been wondering wether Thunderbird Athlons are allowed since they're not technically "original Athlon cpu:s" and didn't release in 1999. From the wording in the rest of the post I would guess they are?
Ok, after a bit of back and forth we now know Thunderbird: yes, Palomino and other Athlon XP: no.

I guess If You do not have a Geforce DDR then You have no chance of winning.
I do have a tnt2 pro and voodoo 3 3000 so would be some fun to see what they can manage.

This was a surprise to me too. I wonder if any tweaks to the game can break the obvious superiority of the Geforce 256 DDR.
Also made me wonder why the prize is a mid-tier 1999 graphics card when you most likely need the absolute high end of 1999 to compete.

Also since AFAIK Quake III supports SMP I wonder wether a dual CPU system will be the winner or if newer single CPU boards give enough of a performance boost @850MHz to surpass dual CPU systems.

Quake III does bloody multi processing?
Obvious question on the mind of any upstanding nerd, of course. But I would not have guessed it.
So, if it's about the CPU, this may already reduce the end run to a rather small, chosen pack of owners of late dual PIII boards with DDR memory? I assume there are club cards?

Like red-ray pointed out the contest is limited to Win9x that does not support SMP so my thinking was off. No SMP in this competition. I'll edit the post to avoid further confusion that will distract from the focus of this interesting competition.👌

This is awesome!!! Time to learn some stuff - to clarify, if I compile or use code from the ioQuake3 project - that’s all good, right, as long as I maintain server protocol compatibility with vanilla 1.32?

Doornkaat wrote on 2022-04-10, 20:43:

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-10, 18:37:

Quake III does bloody multi processing? Obvious question on the mind of any upstanding nerd, of course. But I would not have gue […]
Show full quote

Doornkaat wrote on 2022-04-10, 05:34:

It says "This means the original Athlon cpu:s. Not Athlon XP, X64 and so on." in the OP, so no Palomino cores but in this post i […]
Show full quote

It says "This means the original Athlon cpu:s. Not Athlon XP, X64 and so on." in the OP, so no Palomino cores but in this post it says they're allowed anyway.
I've been wondering wether Thunderbird Athlons are allowed since they're not technically "original Athlon cpu:s" and didn't release in 1999. From the wording in the rest of the post I would guess they are?
Ok, after a bit of back and forth we now know Thunderbird: yes, Palomino and other Athlon XP: no.

This was a surprise to me too. I wonder if any tweaks to the game can break the obvious superiority of the Geforce 256 DDR.
Also made me wonder why the prize is a mid-tier 1999 graphics card when you most likely need the absolute high end of 1999 to compete.

Also since AFAIK Quake III supports SMP I wonder wether a dual CPU system will be the winner or if newer single CPU boards give enough of a performance boost @850MHz to surpass dual CPU systems.

Quake III does bloody multi processing?
Obvious question on the mind of any upstanding nerd, of course. But I would not have guessed it.
So, if it's about the CPU, this may already reduce the end run to a rather small, chosen pack of owners of late dual PIII boards with DDR memory? I assume there are club cards?

Like red-ray pointed out the contest is limited to Win9x that does not support SMP so my thinking was off. No SMP in this competition. I'll edit the post to avoid further confusion that will distract from the focus of this interesting competition.👌

Crap.
There I was thinking I finally had an excuse to treat myself to a dual board.
FU very much for ruining my evening! 😜

doogie wrote on 2022-04-10, 20:43:

This is awesome!!! Time to learn some stuff - to clarify, if I compile or use code from the ioQuake3 project - that’s all good, right, as long as I maintain server protocol compatibility with vanilla 1.32?

Yeah! 😀 You can do anything you want as long as the game works in windows 9x, and that you can connect and play on our servers. Our servers are vanilla 1.32.
Sv_pure is "0". So our servers accept modifed pack files.

I might want to compete in this. Have some parts in mind but not sure if I have a S462 Thunderbird.

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-04-10, 21:00:

I might want to compete in this. Have some parts in mind but not sure if I have a S462 Thunderbird.

Awesome! You can also use Pentium III systems, and even slot 2 XEONS, and vanilla Athlons.

Necrodude wrote on 2022-04-10, 21:11:

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-04-10, 21:00:

I might want to compete in this. Have some parts in mind but not sure if I have a S462 Thunderbird.

Awesome! You can also use Pentium III systems, and even slot 2 XEONS, and vanilla Athlons.

"S462 Thunderbird" is a bit of a pleonasm - there were no slot TBs, IIRC. Probably slot converters, though...
Last time I checked, sub-GHz Thunderbirds aren't exactly rare.
I mean, I think I personally fried one or two of them, many years ago 😜

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-10, 21:36:

"S462 Thunderbird" is a bit of a pleonasm - there were no slot TBs, IIRC. Probably slot converters, though... Last time I checke […]
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Necrodude wrote on 2022-04-10, 21:11:

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-04-10, 21:00:

I might want to compete in this. Have some parts in mind but not sure if I have a S462 Thunderbird.

Awesome! You can also use Pentium III systems, and even slot 2 XEONS, and vanilla Athlons.

"S462 Thunderbird" is a bit of a pleonasm - there were no slot TBs, IIRC. Probably slot converters, though...
Last time I checked, sub-GHz Thunderbirds aren't exactly rare.
I mean, I think I personally fried one or two of them, many years ago 😜

Well actually. There are slot A thunderbirds. I have one myself.

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Athlon% … MPR24B%20A.html

It resides in that beautiful white case to the right.

Necrodude wrote on 2022-04-10, 21:41:

Well actually. There are slot A thunderbirds. I have one myself. […]
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Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-10, 21:36:

"S462 Thunderbird" is a bit of a pleonasm - there were no slot TBs, IIRC. Probably slot converters, though... Last time I checke […]
Show full quote

Necrodude wrote on 2022-04-10, 21:11:

Awesome! You can also use Pentium III systems, and even slot 2 XEONS, and vanilla Athlons.

"S462 Thunderbird" is a bit of a pleonasm - there were no slot TBs, IIRC. Probably slot converters, though...
Last time I checked, sub-GHz Thunderbirds aren't exactly rare.
I mean, I think I personally fried one or two of them, many years ago 😜

Well actually. There are slot A thunderbirds. I have one myself.

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Athlon% … MPR24B%20A.html

It resides in that beautiful white case to the right.

Oh, ok, thanks - yep, I remembered it wrong: It's the other way round: All TB came as socket models from the start, but not exclusively.
Think it was about the cache running at core speed, just as with the PIII.

Edit, now, how do I unsee that case?

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-10, 21:46:

Oh, ok, thanks - yep, I remembered it wrong: It's the other way round: All TB came as socket models from the start, but not excl […]
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Necrodude wrote on 2022-04-10, 21:41:

Well actually. There are slot A thunderbirds. I have one myself. […]
Show full quote

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-10, 21:36:

"S462 Thunderbird" is a bit of a pleonasm - there were no slot TBs, IIRC. Probably slot converters, though...
Last time I checked, sub-GHz Thunderbirds aren't exactly rare.
I mean, I think I personally fried one or two of them, many years ago 😜

Well actually. There are slot A thunderbirds. I have one myself.

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Athlon% … MPR24B%20A.html

It resides in that beautiful white case to the right.

Oh, ok, thanks - yep, I remembered it wrong: It's the other way round: All TB came as socket models from the start, but not exclusively.
Think it was about the cache running at core speed, just as with the PIII.

Edit, now, how do I unsee that case?

Ha ha ha! 😀

The rules of this competition doesn't make much sense to me.

Hardware side:

You are clearly advocanting for an authentic, late 90's gaming environment, but contradict yourselves by allowing the use of motherboards with DDR RAM capable MCHs(!). It's also not clear to me why GeForce 2 line of cards (or early Radeon series) are not allowed, knowing that QIII was designed having DX7 API in mind. Besides, QIII peaked in 2000-2001, when these cards reigned supreme.

Software side:

As far as I understand, the main purpose of this competition is to gather info regarding to QIII performance improvements under win9x, being it a direct game modification or through some other software tinkering means. Though I don't get why there are no limits regarding graphics quality, essentially you are allowing to strip graphics down to a bare wireframe in order to achieve higher FPS...

Suggestions:

In order to attract more contestants and make this competition worthwile, try to minimize variables in hardware, by limiting to certain, common parts from the era, e.g. - use only i440BX chipset based motherboards, PII350 CPU, V2/V3/TNT/TNT2 chips based graphics cards, etc.

And, of course, clearly define what's allowed and what is not regarding *.exe or game files modifications, to deter people from posting benchmarking results of blank screen 🤨

SSTV2 wrote on 2022-04-10, 21:56:

The rules of this competition doesn't make much sense to me. […]
Show full quote

The rules of this competition doesn't make much sense to me.

Hardware side:

You are clearly advocanting for an authentic, late 90's gaming environment, but contradict yourselves by allowing the use of motherboards with DDR RAM capable MCHs(!). It's also not clear to me why GeForce 2 line of cards (or early Radeon series) are not allowed, knowing that QIII was designed having DX7 API in mind. Besides, QIII peaked in 2000-2001, when these cards reigned supreme.

Software side:

As far as I understand, the main purpose of this competition is to gather info regarding to QIII performance improvements under win9x, being it a direct game modification or through some other software tinkering means. Though I don't get why there are no limits regarding graphics quality, essentially you are allowing to strip graphics down to a bare wireframe in order to achieve higher FPS...

Suggestions:

In order to attract more contestants and make this competition worthwile, try to minimize variables in hardware, by limiting to certain, common parts from the era, e.g. - use only i440BX chipset based motherboards, PII350 CPU, V2/V3/TNT/TNT2 chips based graphics cards, etc.

And, of course, clearly define what's allowed and what is not regarding *.exe or game files modifications, to deter people from posting benchmarking results of blank screen 🤨

You are hitting the nail on the head there, mate.

You should totally start you own competition with a more sensible set of hardware parameters and a teaser on youtube.
And black jack and hookers.

doogie wrote on 2022-04-10, 20:43:

This is awesome!!! Time to learn some stuff - to clarify, if I compile or use code from the ioQuake3 project - that’s all good, right, as long as I maintain server protocol compatibility with vanilla 1.32?

Last build I tested with ioQuake3 on 98 and ME was ioquake3-1.35_SVN1286-2.1.x86 (3-27-2008)
https://github.com/ioquake/ioq3/commit/f82ea6 … d7f8a21f3b9966a
Also here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190705202401/ht … rg/files/angst/

Haven't tried the newer ioquake3 versions with kernelex yet.
Spearmint 1.03 does work with kernelex

It may be a much better idea to use the Quake3e code to get it working on 9x since "quake3-1.32e-20200415" (possibly newer builds work but I haven't tested) works fine on Windows 2000.
https://github.com/ec-/Quake3e

doogie wrote on 2022-04-10, 20:43:

This is awesome!!! Time to learn some stuff - to clarify, if I compile or use code from the ioQuake3 project - that’s all good, right, as long as I maintain server protocol compatibility with vanilla 1.32?

Yes!
Just dont forget to submit the binary's and source code with your submission, it wont be shared with anyone during the contest.

SSTV2 wrote on 2022-04-10, 21:56:

[...] knowing that QIII was designed having DX7 API in mind [...]

Huh?🤨

Qauke3 is an OpenGL engine, but yes ... hardware T&L was supported from OpenGL 1.2. So, it is valid remark.

stef80 wrote on 2022-04-11, 07:37:

Qauke3 is an OpenGL engine, but yes ... hardware T&L was supported from OpenGL 1.2. So, it is valid remark.

Well, OpenGL does support Hardware T&L, however Quake games only support Hardware T, because they have their own lighting engine based on lightmaps.
Either way, it's a strange remark, since Quake has nothing to do with DirectX (in fact, John Carmack hated proprietary APIs at the time). 😀
Other than that, I do agree with most of what SSTV2 said.

DosFreak wrote on 2022-04-10, 22:12:

Last build I tested with ioQuake3 on 98 and ME was ioquake3-1.35_SVN1286-2.1.x86 (3-27-2008) https://github.com/ioquake/ioq3/com […]
Show full quote

doogie wrote on 2022-04-10, 20:43:

This is awesome!!! Time to learn some stuff - to clarify, if I compile or use code from the ioQuake3 project - that’s all good, right, as long as I maintain server protocol compatibility with vanilla 1.32?

Last build I tested with ioQuake3 on 98 and ME was ioquake3-1.35_SVN1286-2.1.x86 (3-27-2008)
https://github.com/ioquake/ioq3/commit/f82ea6 … d7f8a21f3b9966a
Also here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190705202401/ht … rg/files/angst/

Haven't tried the newer ioquake3 versions with kernelex yet.
Spearmint 1.03 does work with kernelex

It may be a much better idea to use the Quake3e code to get it working on 9x since "quake3-1.32e-20200415" (possibly newer builds work but I haven't tested) works fine on Windows 2000.
https://github.com/ec-/Quake3e

AFAIK, ioquake is an abandoned project. Not sure if codebase is "vanilla" enough to use it in this case (lots of improvements for modern hardware).
Also, what would you change exactly?

I have a rule clarification request - Can we use Quadro DDR cards since it is based on NV10?