The poor quality of the VGA output is due to third-party manufacturers cutting corners, not from nVidia which they only sell the chip. It is a quite unfair comparison considering that 3dfx cards at this point had more consistent quality thanks to the acquisition of STB.

BTW, 32-bit textures look better even in 16-bit color with dithering, notably with gradient and alpha blending effects. 😉

havli wrote on 2023-05-16, 08:49:

Well, I am not sure what is the point of 32 bit textures with 16 bit framebuffer. Still, you will see blurry mess either way because m64 will not run these games at resolution better than 640x480 at decent fps. Not to mention generally poor quality of the VGA output unless you are very lucky.... and then there is the dithering which is just pain to watch.

I have a TNT2 M64 on my desk right now (125 MHz core / 143 MHz memory) and I get 28 FPS in Quake 3 demo four (800 x 600 x 32, with 32 bit max quality textures). This might not seem like a lot today, but this was considered PERFECTLY playable by a lot of people 24 years ago, when most of us were upgrading from all kinds of '3D decelerators'.

But, again, we do have to remember that Quake 3 and other AAA titles of the time weren't actually the only games back then - not even close (even though it appeared so, since reviewers like Anand and Tom seemed to only care about two or three games in total).
There were countless others that were capable of running at 800 x 600 x 32 (some even at 1024 x 768 x 32, like Tomb Raider 2), without sacrificing performance at all.
Nocturne (1999), for example, runs great and looks gorgeous at 800 x 600 x 32 on a TNT2 M64, while looking VERY bad on a Voodoo 3 in 16 bit color (not to mention that you actually need a patch to make the Voodoo 3 work with this game and quite a few others in the first place - something that is rarely mentioned, but is actually a bit TOO frequent and quite annoying... you even need a patch for NFS3 to make it work with the Voodoo 3, and this is one of THE freakin' Glide titles!).

Lastly, I remember very well what the general mindset was at the time. I never once looked at a game magazine and thought: "damn, I hope this game will run at 60 FPS on my PC!!!". In fact, me and my friends didn't even think about performance back then, we only cared about graphics quality and what graphical improvements the next big title would bring. When pixel shaders became a thing, we were all pissed that our (mostly) GeForce 2 MX class cards were not capable of rendering the 'ultra realistic' water effects. 🤣

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-05-16, 15:22:

BTW, 32-bit textures look better even in 16-bit color with dithering, notably with gradient and alpha blending effects. 😉

Afaik TNT/TNT2 in 16bit mode did all internal operations (blending) with 16 bit precision. TNT and to some extend TNT2 look bad in 16bit mode.

bloodem wrote on 2023-05-16, 17:44:

I have a TNT2 M64 on my desk right now (125 MHz core / 143 MHz memory) and I get 28 FPS in Quake 3 demo four (800 x 600 x 32, with 32 bit max quality textures). This might not seem like a lot today, but this was considered PERFECTLY playable by a lot of people 24 years ago, when most of us were upgrading from all kinds of '3D decelerators'.

While I agree with you that 25+ FPS was considered playable back in the day, the Quake 3 time demo is not always indicative of actual in-game performance.

Case in point, start Q3DM0 (the very first tutorial map). Then, approach a mirror or a portal and watch how your frame rate tanks. BTW, this is true for any graphics card, not something that's specific to the TNT2 M64.

bloodem wrote on 2023-05-16, 17:44:

you even need a patch for NFS3 to make it work with the Voodoo 3, and this is one of THE freakin' Glide titles!).

3dfx-darling Unreal's like that too. Voodoo3s shipped with a OEM bundle of Unreal v222 to bury the regression (prior versions are broken on V3)

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-05-16, 19:18:

While I agree with you that 25+ FPS was considered playable back in the day, the Quake 3 time demo is not always indicative of actual in-game performance.

Case in point, start Q3DM0 (the very first tutorial map). Then, approach a mirror or a portal and watch how your frame rate tanks. BTW, this is true for any graphics card, not something that's specific to the TNT2 M64.

Well, yeah. Average FPS never tells the whole story; frametime consistency is arguably more important. But back then, this was all expected and tolerated. 😁
I did play a few deathmatches on Q3DM7 and Q3DM17 (my favorite maps), and while it's far from perfect, especially during explosions, it still would've been a playable experience in 1999/2000. Also, let's face it, in a competitive environment everyone would've played this game with competitive low settings, anyway.
My point is that playing games in 32 bit color was definitely possible, even on a puny card like the TNT2 M64.

The 32 bit vs 16 bit debate is very similar to the ray tracing debate we have nowadays. Yes, enabling ray tracing does tank performance most of the time, but it can look absolutely gorgeous in certain games (and performance is still acceptable, especially on nVIDIA cards). Now, also true is that gimping things like screen space reflections (in order to make ray tracing look better than it is) has become a common practice among game developers, which is just sad to see.

leileilol wrote on 2023-05-17, 04:20:

3dfx-darling Unreal's like that too. Voodoo3s shipped with a OEM bundle of Unreal v222 to bury the regression (prior versions are broken on V3)

True! Totally forgot about that, since I'm always testing Unreal Gold with the latest patch.

bloodem wrote on 2023-05-16, 17:44:

I have a TNT2 M64 on my desk right now (125 MHz core / 143 MHz memory) and I get 28 FPS in Quake 3 demo four (800 x 600 x 32, wi […]
Show full quote

havli wrote on 2023-05-16, 08:49:

Well, I am not sure what is the point of 32 bit textures with 16 bit framebuffer. Still, you will see blurry mess either way because m64 will not run these games at resolution better than 640x480 at decent fps. Not to mention generally poor quality of the VGA output unless you are very lucky.... and then there is the dithering which is just pain to watch.

I have a TNT2 M64 on my desk right now (125 MHz core / 143 MHz memory) and I get 28 FPS in Quake 3 demo four (800 x 600 x 32, with 32 bit max quality textures). This might not seem like a lot today, but this was considered PERFECTLY playable by a lot of people 24 years ago, when most of us were upgrading from all kinds of '3D decelerators'.

But, again, we do have to remember that Quake 3 and other AAA titles of the time weren't actually the only games back then - not even close (even though it appeared so, since reviewers like Anand and Tom seemed to only care about two or three games in total).
There were countless others that were capable of running at 800 x 600 x 32 (some even at 1024 x 768 x 32, like Tomb Raider 2), without sacrificing performance at all.
Nocturne (1999), for example, runs great and looks gorgeous at 800 x 600 x 32 on a TNT2 M64, while looking VERY bad on a Voodoo 3 in 16 bit color (not to mention that you actually need a patch to make the Voodoo 3 work with this game and quite a few others in the first place - something that is rarely mentioned, but is actually a bit TOO frequent and quite annoying... you even need a patch for NFS3 to make it work with the Voodoo 3, and this is one of THE freakin' Glide titles!).

Lastly, I remember very well what the general mindset was at the time. I never once looked at a game magazine and thought: "damn, I hope this game will run at 60 FPS on my PC!!!". In fact, me and my friends didn't even think about performance back then, we only cared about graphics quality and what graphical improvements the next big title would bring. When pixel shaders became a thing, we were all pissed that our (mostly) GeForce 2 MX class cards were not capable of rendering the 'ultra realistic' water effects. 🤣

With the same Q3 settings Velocity 100 at 800x600x16 will score around 60 fps and the image quality won't be much worse.

I am not sure about other games but NFS3 will run in D3D mode perfectly fine on V3, no need for patches and Unreal too.

havli wrote on 2023-05-17, 07:29:

With the same Q3 settings Velocity 100 at 800x600x16 will score around 60 fps and the image quality won't be much worse.

Period correct reviews don't support that claim, unless the second TMU is enabled. Which is fair, as that was pretty simple to do.

Basically, having the second TMU enabled turned the Velocity into an 8 MB version of the Voodoo 3, which is a much better card. But without that tweak, it was indeed comparable to the M64.

bloodem wrote on 2023-05-16, 17:44:

I have a TNT2 M64 on my desk right now (125 MHz core / 143 MHz memory) and I get 28 FPS in Quake 3 demo four (800 x 600 x 32, wi […]
Show full quote

havli wrote on 2023-05-16, 08:49:

Well, I am not sure what is the point of 32 bit textures with 16 bit framebuffer. Still, you will see blurry mess either way because m64 will not run these games at resolution better than 640x480 at decent fps. Not to mention generally poor quality of the VGA output unless you are very lucky.... and then there is the dithering which is just pain to watch.

I have a TNT2 M64 on my desk right now (125 MHz core / 143 MHz memory) and I get 28 FPS in Quake 3 demo four (800 x 600 x 32, with 32 bit max quality textures). This might not seem like a lot today, but this was considered PERFECTLY playable by a lot of people 24 years ago, when most of us were upgrading from all kinds of '3D decelerators'.

...

Lastly, I remember very well what the general mindset was at the time. I never once looked at a game magazine and thought: "damn, I hope this game will run at 60 FPS on my PC!!!". In fact, me and my friends didn't even think about performance back then, we only cared about graphics quality and what graphical improvements the next big title would bring. When pixel shaders became a thing, we were all pissed that our (mostly) GeForce 2 MX class cards were not capable of rendering the 'ultra realistic' water effects. 🤣

This is all so true, looking at reviews and video nowadays 60 fps seems to be the minimum expected in every game. At the time 20-25 was ok and I have the exact same experience as you, we were looking at quality and higher resolutions before pure performance. That's what made me move from a Voodoo 3 to a Radeon quite quickly...

havli wrote on 2023-05-17, 07:29:

With the same Q3 settings Velocity 100 at 800x600x16 will score around 60 fps and the image quality won't be much worse.

Uhm... but those really aren't quite the same settings, are they? 😀
Granted, I do understand your point. Even with its 16 bit color limitation, the Voodoo 3's image quality is very good in Quake 3, while the TNT2 does look worse in 16 bit color. However, this is not the case in other games - which is why it's not OK to just look at a few AAA titles, because the bigger picture is more nuanced than that.

havli wrote on 2023-05-17, 07:29:

I am not sure about other games but NFS3 will run in D3D mode perfectly fine on V3, no need for patches and Unreal too.

True, just tried it now. With a fresh NFS3 installation, the Voodoo 3 does work fine if choosing Direct3D, but fails if forcing Glide.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the Velocity is/was a bad card, I'm just saying that the TNT2 M64 wasn't a bad card either and there's a reason why it was so popular back then, just like there's a reason why nVIDIA is the company we know today (love it or hate it).

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-05-17, 08:02:

This is all so true, looking at reviews and video nowadays 60 fps seems to be the minimum expected in every game. At the time 20-25 was ok and I have the exact same experience as you, we were looking at quality and higher resolutions before pure performance. That's what made me move from a Voodoo 3 to a Radeon quite quickly...

Indeed! Truthfully, even today I find that anything above 40 FPS is acceptable for me, as long as the frametime consistency is good (which can usually be achieved by locking the FPS just below the GPU's or CPU's capability, depending on the bottleneck). Having said that, I just did an upgrade recently, so most games are running at 100 - 200 FPS 😅, which means that I will probably not do another upgrade for at least 5 years.

bloodem wrote on 2023-05-17, 09:10:

havli wrote on 2023-05-17, 07:29:

With the same Q3 settings Velocity 100 at 800x600x16 will score around 60 fps and the image quality won't be much worse.

Uhm... but those really aren't quite the same settings, are they? 😀
Granted, I do understand your point. Even with its 16 bit color limitation, the Voodoo 3's image quality is very good in Quake 3, while the TNT2 does look worse in 16 bit color. However, this is not the case in other games - which is why it's not OK to just look at a few AAA titles, because the bigger picture is more nuanced than that.

Afaik TNT/TNT2 uses 16bit internal precision (blending etc) in 16bit modes. Voodoo3 is 32bit all the way to 16bit hardware dithered framebuffer where at least in theory you get ~20-22bit to the eyes.

bloodem wrote on 2023-05-17, 09:10:

I'm just saying that the TNT2 M64 wasn't a bad card either and there's a reason why it was so popular back then

Imo main reason was availability, huge Nvidia selection vs limited 3dfx manufacturing capacity

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-05-17, 14:11:

Imo main reason was availability, huge Nvidia selection vs limited 3dfx manufacturing capacity

Quite possibly, yes. In my country, more expensive cards like the Voodoo 3 2000/3000 were readily available, but I don't remember ever seeing a Velocity for sale. I think the main reason for this is that the Velocity was mostly targeted at the OEM market.
On the other hand, TNT2 M64 cards were everywhere (and most of them were noname brands), even though these too were probably mostly targeted at the OEM market.

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-05-17, 14:11:

Voodoo3 is 32bit all the way to 16bit hardware dithered framebuffer where at least in theory you get ~20-22bit to the eyes.

No, that's what PowerVR does (internal 24/32bit dithered down to 16).

If this were what you claim, then you wouldn't get all this ugly overdrawn dithering that 3dfx had to put in dither subtraction to mitigate for (aka 'smooth alpha blend') with smear filters on top (aka the '22-bit' bullshit, or 'high quality video'), and that kills a lot of detail and edges.

The velocity also can't use the same texture settings as the M64 in comparison because it doesn't support anything better than 16-bit texture formats, and those look rather ugly with RGBA textures which Q3 has plenty of (i.e. the shiny tin surfaces on the proving grounds)

and finally Quake3 uses overbrights which will make a 16-bit picture even less precise and smooth. You're fooling yourself if you can't see a difference between that and 32-bit.

Maybe I can get some images via capture card, so we can get some hard evidence how Voodoo3 16 bit and TNT 16/32 bit image looks like.

Here we go again...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/325695421272

Have to admit, bid a symbolic amount to be part of the story, was all mine for 5 mins 🤣

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-06-15, 20:05:

Have to admit, bid a symbolic amount to be part of the story, was all mine for 5 mins 🤣

I thought about doing that, but I didn't want to accidentally type in 50,000 😁

Meatball wrote on 2023-06-15, 20:27:

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-06-15, 20:05:

Have to admit, bid a symbolic amount to be part of the story, was all mine for 5 mins 🤣

I thought about doing that, but I didn't want to accidentally type in 50,000 😁

I think that any offer under $15k would be safe.

Ross (seller ?) Seems to have higher expectations.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-06-15, 20:05:

Have to admit, bid a symbolic amount to be part of the story, was all mine for 5 mins 🤣

I did that too, but in my case it's not really a symbolic amount. 😅
"oH, nOeEs, I hOpE I wOn'T bE tHe wInNeR!" 😁

Wait, wasn't the card sold for something like 15K? How did it travel the world for a promotion campaign and then is for sale again by the same person?