First post, by Socket3
- Rank
- Oldbie
This thread relates slightly to my "flash MAC rage 128 to PC" thread, as while dumping video BIOS from all my Rage cards to try on the MAC versions, I decided to benchmark all of them, since it's not clear witch of the rage cards is fast, witch is slow, and naming of ATi's Rage line is very very confusing. So I decided to make this thread in hopes of helping others.
Here are the cards I tested:
- Bottom right: ATi Rage Fury Pro 32Mb SGRAM VIVO AGP , 32MB, 128 bit, 118MHz core / 143MHz vram, AGP4x, Rage 128 PRO II 4x chipset: https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/ati- … -sgram-vivo-agp
- Bottom, 2nd from the right: Dell ATi Rage Fury Ultra AGP, 32MB 128bit, 133MHz core / 6ns SDRAM running at only 133MHz, AGP 4x, Rage 128 PRO II 4x chipset: https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/ati- … 28-pro-ultra-gl
- Bottom left and 3rd from the right (cards are identical) : Apple ATi Rage 128 PRO Mac AGP (ADC), SDRAM 16MB 128bit, 118MHz core / 143MHz ram, AGP 4X, PC BIOS, Rage 128 PRO II 4x chipset: https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/ati- … pro-mac-agp-adc
- Middle-right: Apple ATi Rage 128GL, SDRAM 16MB 128bit, 90MHz core / 90MHz ram, PCI, PC BIOS, Rage 128 GL 2x chipset: https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/ati-rage-128-gl-pci
- Middle: Xpert2000 / ATi Rage 128GL, SDRAM 16MB 64 bit, 80Mhz core, 118Mhz ram, AGP, Rage 128 GL 2x chipset: https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/ati-rage-xpert-2000
- Middle-left: Xpert 128 / ATi Rage 128GL, SDRAM 16MB 128 bit, 90Mhz core, 90Mhz ram, AGP, Rage 128 GL 2x chipset: https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/ati- … -128-pro-agp-2x
- Top right: Creative 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2 Ultra (Model CT6870), 32MB SGRAM 128bit, 150Mhz core / 183MHz vram, NV5 Ultra chipset: https://www.ixbt.com/video/itogi-video-jul2k/ … ideo-tnt2u.html
- Top left: ELSA Synergy II 32 AGP, 32MB SGRAM, 128bit, 125Mhz core / 150Mhz vram, NV5 chipset: https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/elsa-synergy-ii-32
Test system:
- Athlon XP 2600+ FSB 333, 2083Mhz
- MSI KT3 PRO, VIA KT333
- 256MB DDR333 CL2
- Windows 98 SE
- nvidia Forceware 41.09 + Coolbits (to disable v-sync)
- ATi 2002 rage drivers taken from AMD's website + Rage 128 tweaker (to disable v-sync) and Powerstrip for overclocking
- Creative SB128 PCI sound card
Game benchmarks were performed with sound enabled.
Bechmark results:
!!! 3DMark99 results are NOT indicative of real world game performance!!! This benchmark seems to heavily favor the flashed MAC cards. Please see the table below for in-game results as well as 3dm01 results.
Conclusions:
There are 2 versions of the Rage 128 chipset:
1. Rage 128GL 2x - early chipset, clocked at 80 or 90MHz, roughly equivalent to a Riva TNT1 or Vanta
2. Rage 128 PRO II 4x - later revision chipset, clocked from 118 to 166Mhz, equivalent to the NV5. The 166Mhz version seems to be a 2000-2001 MAC exclusive, although this clock speed is taken from google searches and forums, it might be wrong. My highest clocked card is the Dell Rage Pro Ultra that came at 133Mhz and will do 145 with active cooling, but no more.
There is one surefire way of telling the two apart - if it has a 2X agp slot, it's a rage 128 1st gen. If it has a 4x slot, it's a 2nd gen Rage Fury Pro / Ultra.
There are a lot of low end / dubious Rage cards. This chipset seems to have been treated as a budget offering. Cards like the Xpert2000 running at 80Mhz and using a 64bit bus are very slow, while some OEM cards like the 4 chip SDRAM Rage GL Ultra look low end, but use 6ns SDRAM chips over a 32bit / chip bus, totaling 128bits on cards with 4 chips. These are not low end cards, despite looking it.
ATi did not launch an official "ultra" version like nvidia did, but late MAC Rage Pro cards might be 166/166, and some OEM Rage "Ultra" cards have 6ns ram that is underclocked. They will easily do 166Mhz on the memory, nearing the TNT2 ultra in performance. I have only one late MAC Rage PRO card and it's in use in my Graphite G4. Since I only have the one card I don't want to mess with it by flashing a PC BIOS. I'm fairly confident the DELL Rage Fury Ultra BIOS would work on this card, and clock speeds could be restored using a BIOS edior or Powertrip. If I get a hold of a second card I'll flash it to PC and include it here, just to verify if they can really take 166Mhz on the core.
Compared to the NV5, the Rage 128 II 4x seems to offer better D3D Performance (see UT99, DKII and Homeworld numbers) but lackluster openGL. However, most games of the time ran on direct 3D, making the Rage series perhaps a bit more useful for period correct builds, if you happen to find a fast card. However, Rage 128 4x cards are comparable to the regular TNT2 (non pro non ultra), in some cases faster out of the box, at least in D3D, and are also much more common at least in my part of the world. TNT2's are not rare hare, but an overwhelming majority of NV5's sold here were the M64 variant witch is comparable to the lower end Rage 128GL 2x - so if you're from the eastern part of Europe and are hunting for a decent 3D card for a period correct P2/P3/Athlon build, you can't go wrong with a Rage 128 Pro II 4x.
3D Mark 99 results are odd. The MAC AGP card scores double what the other cards manage, with framerates as high as 150FPS in both the first and second 3dmark tests. The PCI MAC card follows closely by. These results are not mirrored by real world tests, as the UT99 and DKII numbers are pretty bad for the PCI card and mediocre for the AGP card, both being limited by the 16MB framebuffer at 1024x768. I can't explain this behavior.
In 3d mark01 the TNT cards lead the pack, but the OEM Rage Fury Ultra with ram set to 160MHz places in between the nvidia cards @ 1024x768 / 32bit (default setting). This Dell card comes with 32mb of 6ns SDRAM clocked at a very conservative 133MHz. It will reach 166Mhz on the memory and 143 on the core. I did not benchmark at those settings, instead choosing to keep the core clock stock and only raise the memory clock somewhat closer to the 6ns rating - 160MHz. This influences the card's performance greatly, as you'll see from in-game benchmarks below.
In Unreal Tournament 99 the overclocked Rage Fury Ultra offers the same performance as the TNT2 Ultra, witch I find quite impressive. Please note that I did not use a script or pre-recorded timedemo to measure UT99 performance, instead played 5 minutes on the clock of the Turbine map in the campaing with 4 bots - this is not an accurate method so I consider a +/- 10% difference to be an acceptable margin of error as unlike a timedemo, not all my play-troughs ran the same way - in some I may have spent more time in the lower sections, on others on the top of t he map, but I tried to take the same route at the start of the match and keep to the bridge area as much as possible.
The Rage Fury SGRAM and the Rage Fury Ultra SDRAM at stock clocks both edge out the regular TNT2, offering impressive performance in UT99. The MAC AGP Rage 128 also offers fantastic framerates, to be expected since it is also based on the Rage 128 PRO II 4x core like the Rage Fury cards - but unlike those other two, it's performance at 1024x768 is crippled by the 16MB framebuffer.
