flupke11 wrote on 2022-04-10, 09:26:

I am zero at tweaking quake, but I can put in some hardware. I don't need bragging rights 😀

Please do.
You can find other peoples tweaked config files if you search for a while. Google is your friend. Way back machine is also great for old broken links.

Necrodude wrote on 2022-04-10, 09:18:

LEADERBOARD Current rankings […]
Show full quote

LEADERBOARD
Current rankings

First place: JizzMasta with 46 frames per second.
JIzzMastas first submission:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRsaXEaYkb0

Cpu: K6-3+ @616mhz
128mb PC133 SDRAM
Nvidia Geforce 256 SDR 32mb
ASUS P5B rev 1.04 motherboard
Creative Soundblaster Audigy
Intel® PRO/1000 GT Network Card

46 fps, is that, like, a lot?
Am I missing something, or should he be pretty much without a chance with a K6-III+?
As much as I love the SS7 platform, but against an Athlon TB 850?

This is where nerd fests like this get weird: Sooner or later, you'll compete with a smart, friendly Swedish dude who calls himself "JizzMasta" 😜

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-10, 11:35:

Necrodude wrote on 2022-04-10, 09:18:

LEADERBOARD Current rankings […]
Show full quote

LEADERBOARD
Current rankings

First place: JizzMasta with 46 frames per second.
JIzzMastas first submission:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRsaXEaYkb0

Cpu: K6-3+ @616mhz
128mb PC133 SDRAM
Nvidia Geforce 256 SDR 32mb
ASUS P5B rev 1.04 motherboard
Creative Soundblaster Audigy
Intel® PRO/1000 GT Network Card

46 fps, is that, like, a lot?
Am I missing something, or should he be pretty much without a chance with a K6-III+?

Actually. Thats pretty bad. It is good for a socket 7 system. I dont think his system will stand up against Pentiym III:s or Athlonss at 850 mhz.

But hey! He is in the lead right know.

Necrodude wrote on 2022-04-10, 11:49:

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-10, 11:35:

Necrodude wrote on 2022-04-10, 09:18:

LEADERBOARD Current rankings […]
Show full quote

LEADERBOARD
Current rankings

First place: JizzMasta with 46 frames per second.
JIzzMastas first submission:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRsaXEaYkb0

Cpu: K6-3+ @616mhz
128mb PC133 SDRAM
Nvidia Geforce 256 SDR 32mb
ASUS P5B rev 1.04 motherboard
Creative Soundblaster Audigy
Intel® PRO/1000 GT Network Card

46 fps, is that, like, a lot?
Am I missing something, or should he be pretty much without a chance with a K6-III+?

Actually. Thats pretty bad. It is good for a socket 7 system.

OK, thought so, he was being a good sport.
Apart from driver and game tweaks, this probably boils down to the fastest Socket A board, huh? Should I bother testing my nfoce2 Asus A7N - being a good sport myself?

Well, both the Athlon 850 and Pentium 3 850 were launched in 2000, so they're not really 1999 CPUs.
You could argue that 850 MHz was doable in 1999 through overclocking, though.

As others have pointed out, whoever has a GeForce 256 DDR will have a real advantage in this competition (yes, even if you tweak the shit out of the game, it will be a lot harder for other 1999 cards - like a TNT2 Pro - to beat a GeForce 256 DDR + a semi-tweaked game).
My recommendation would be to also allow at least something like a GeForce 2 MX/MX400 (especially since the CPUs, again, are not really 1999 material). Those cards are readily available, so a lot more people could participate (which will make things more interesting).

Anyway, even though I have all the parts, I only benchmark untweaked games, so won't take part in this competition (+ I have way too many Voodoo 3 cards already).
But, I will keep an eye on it to see who wins (hopefully you will allow the MX/MX400 cards, which will mean that even non-collectors will have a chance of winning the Voodoo). Good luck to all! 😀

bloodem wrote on 2022-04-10, 12:03:

Well, both the Athlon 850 and Pentium 3 850 were launched in 2000, so they're not really 1999 CPUs.
You could argue that 850 MHz was doable in 1999 through overclocking, though.

Yes, the Athlon TB was released in 2000.
Apparently, the 2nd gen Athlon K75 made it to 750 MHz in 1999:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_A ... 2,_180_nm)
While I don't know about the slotties, I can safely attest that the TB700 clocked at 900 with only a half-decent 50mm cooler and copper plate heatsink, on an Abit KT7 with Win98.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-10, 11:55:

Necrodude wrote on 2022-04-10, 11:49:

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-10, 11:35:

46 fps, is that, like, a lot?
Am I missing something, or should he be pretty much without a chance with a K6-III+?

Actually. Thats pretty bad. It is good for a socket 7 system.

OK, thought so, he was being a good sport.
Apart from driver and game tweaks, this probably boils down to the fastest Socket A board, huh?

A fast Athlon on a good board would probably give an advantage.
However. Tweaking, drivers, hacks has a really big part in the final results.
I would argue that a Pentium III with a fast bus speed, a highly clocked TNT2 and the best tweaks would beat a semi tweaked Athlon with a Geforce 256 DDR.
Everything sums down to the submitted scores of the participiants.

I got about 100fps with my Athlon 750 (Pluto) and Geforce DDR in 640x480 Demo1, no tweaking but no sound.

Sound makes a big difference in Q3 so may need to see which sound card is fastest.

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

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.

You dont need a GeForce 256 to win the competition. Quake 3 is less demanding on the GPU then Quake 2, and I wont spoil what Quake 3 demands the most of from a hardware point of view.
But some people have already figured that out and are testing such parts now and its not the GPU.

a GeForce 256 alone wont cut it especially if you dont pick all the right parts for the rest of the system and even that wont cut it if you cant tweak the game, compile the source with optimizations and stuff like that.

But in the end who the winner will be depends on what skills the people that want to take part brings to the table.

A GeForce 256 of any type will only net you a small portion of the possible frame rate that is doable with in the rule set.

pa1983 wrote on 2022-04-10, 13:08:

You dont need a GeForce 256 to win the competition. Quake 3 is less demanding on the GPU then Quake 2, and I wont spoil what Qua […]
Show full quote

You dont need a GeForce 256 to win the competition. Quake 3 is less demanding on the GPU then Quake 2, and I wont spoil what Quake 3 demands the most of from a hardware point of view.
But some people have already figured that out and are testing such parts now and its not the GPU.

a GeForce 256 alone wont cut it especially if you dont pick all the right parts for the rest of the system and even that wont cut it if you cant tweak the game, compile the source with optimizations and stuff like that.

But in the end who the winner will be depends on what skills the people that want to take part brings to the table.

A GeForce 256 of any type will only net you a small portion of the possible frame rate that is doable with in the rule set.

I don't want to spoil anything either, but, out of curiosity, I justed tested a GeForce 2 MX and a Riva TNT2 Pro (190 MHz / 190 MHz) with a tweaked Quake 3 config (on a certain CPU/motherboard 😜), and... let's just say that it did not go very well for the TNT2.

bloodem wrote on 2022-04-10, 13:21:

pa1983 wrote on 2022-04-10, 13:08:

You dont need a GeForce 256 to win the competition. Quake 3 is less demanding on the GPU then Quake 2, and I wont spoil what Qua […]
Show full quote

You dont need a GeForce 256 to win the competition. Quake 3 is less demanding on the GPU then Quake 2, and I wont spoil what Quake 3 demands the most of from a hardware point of view.
But some people have already figured that out and are testing such parts now and its not the GPU.

a GeForce 256 alone wont cut it especially if you dont pick all the right parts for the rest of the system and even that wont cut it if you cant tweak the game, compile the source with optimizations and stuff like that.

But in the end who the winner will be depends on what skills the people that want to take part brings to the table.

A GeForce 256 of any type will only net you a small portion of the possible frame rate that is doable with in the rule set.

I don't want to spoil anything either, but, out of curiosity, I justed tested a GeForce 2 MX and a Riva TNT2 Pro (190 MHz / 190 MHz) with a tweaked Quake 3 config (on a certain CPU/motherboard 😜), and... let's just say that it did not go very well for the TNT2.

There are better cards then a TNT2 and GF2MX dont qualify.
People sometimes overlook very potent GPU's from other makers then Nvidia.

pa1983 wrote on 2022-04-10, 13:24:

There are better cards then a TNT2 and GF2MX dont qualify.
People sometimes overlook very potent GPU's from other makers then Nvidia.

The GeForce 2 MX has identical performance to a GeForce 256 SDR, which is why I tested it (I have many of them, while I only have 1 x GeForce 256 DDR and 1 x GeForce 256 SDR).
And, no, once you remove the CPU and memory bandwidth bottleneck, there is no card older than the GeForce 256 that can beat it in Quake 3 (I should know, I've tested most of them).

pa1983 wrote on 2022-04-10, 13:08:

You dont need a GeForce 256 to win the competition. Quake 3 is less demanding on the GPU then Quake 2, and I wont spoil what Qua […]
Show full quote

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

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.

You dont need a GeForce 256 to win the competition. Quake 3 is less demanding on the GPU then Quake 2, and I wont spoil what Quake 3 demands the most of from a hardware point of view.
But some people have already figured that out and are testing such parts now and its not the GPU.

a GeForce 256 alone wont cut it especially if you dont pick all the right parts for the rest of the system and even that wont cut it if you cant tweak the game, compile the source with optimizations and stuff like that.

But in the end who the winner will be depends on what skills the people that want to take part brings to the table.

A GeForce 256 of any type will only net you a small portion of the possible frame rate that is doable with in the rule set.

Yeah. You got a good point.
It reminds me of a computer I once had. It was a socket 432 Pentium 4 1.7 ghz with a TNT2 m64 vanta card. That gpu pretty much sucks ass. The thing that surprised me was that I got 167 fps in Quake3. Sure I had a early performance cfg. And the gpu wasvoverclocked to 145 mhz. But 167 frames per second! It made it quite clear what quake3 likes.

Quake2 however. On the same machine I got 88 fps in timedemo 1. Map demo1.dm2.
Quake2 clearly prefers a fast GPU

bloodem wrote on 2022-04-10, 13:28:

pa1983 wrote on 2022-04-10, 13:24:

There are better cards then a TNT2 and GF2MX dont qualify.
People sometimes overlook very potent GPU's from other makers then Nvidia.

The GeForce 2 MX has identical performance to a GeForce 256 SDR, which is why I tested it (I have many of them, while I only have 1 x GeForce 256 DDR and 1 x GeForce 256 SDR).
And, no, once you remove the CPU and memory bandwidth bottleneck, there is no card older than the GeForce 256 that can beat it in Quake 3 (I should know, I've tested most of them).

I think there might be a card from a manufacturer that has a name that could start with an M. I might have heard something that some of those cards might overclock like crasy, and might scale very good with high buses.

But hey it could just be a rumor. 😀

Necrodude wrote on 2022-04-10, 13:42:

It reminds me of a computer I once had. It was a socket 432 Pentium 4 1.7 ghz with a TNT2 m64 vanta card. That gpu pretty much sucks ass. The thing that surprised me was that I got 167 fps in Quake3. Sure I had a early performance cfg. And the gpu wasvoverclocked to 145 mhz. But 167 frames per second! It made it quite clear what quake3 likes.

That sounds impressive, until you realize that the same Pentium 4 CPU with a GeForce 256 SDR (not even a DDR), can hit more than 200 FPS in Quake 3 without any game tweak whatsoever. 😀

bloodem wrote on 2022-04-10, 13:51:

Necrodude wrote on 2022-04-10, 13:42:

It reminds me of a computer I once had. It was a socket 432 Pentium 4 1.7 ghz with a TNT2 m64 vanta card. That gpu pretty much sucks ass. The thing that surprised me was that I got 167 fps in Quake3. Sure I had a early performance cfg. And the gpu wasvoverclocked to 145 mhz. But 167 frames per second! It made it quite clear what quake3 likes.

That sounds impressive, until you realize that the same Pentium 4 CPU with a GeForce 256 SDR (not even a DDR), can hit more than 200 FPS in Quake 3 without any game tweak whatsoever. 😀

Yeah absolutely. It sure will. I just wanted to illustrate how cpu/memory dependant Quake3 is.

Necrodude wrote on 2022-04-10, 13:49:

I think there might be a card from a manufacturer that has a name that could start with an M. I might have heard something that some of those cards might overclock like crasy, and might scale very good with high buses.

But hey it could just be a rumor. 😀

I'm guessing what card you're talking about, but... no, I don't see how it could ever surpass a GeForce 256 DDR in Quake 3, even with the best possible tweaks (since you can always apply the same tweaks with a GeForce 256 😁 ). I have that card as well and it's definitely a very cool and overlooked card for the year 1999, but a GeForce 256 (especially the DDR version) still beats the hell out of it.

Furthermore, that card also goes against your fourth question from the initial post: "Ain't got no money?", because it's pretty rare and expensive as well (almost like the GeForce 256 SDR/DDR), which is why I suggested that it would be better to also allow the GeForce 2 MX. Anyway, your competition, your rules. 😀

mwdmeyer wrote on 2022-04-10, 12:50:

I got about 100fps with my Athlon 750 (Pluto) and Geforce DDR in 640x480 Demo1, no tweaking but no sound.

Sound makes a big difference in Q3 so may need to see which sound card is fastest.

You are absolutely right. Sound cards/sound card drivers, and even networks card makes a big difference.

bloodem wrote on 2022-04-10, 14:18:

Necrodude wrote on 2022-04-10, 13:49:

I think there might be a card from a manufacturer that has a name that could start with an M. I might have heard something that some of those cards might overclock like crasy, and might scale very good with high buses.

But hey it could just be a rumor. 😀

Furthermore, that card also goes against your fourth question from the initial post: "Ain't got no money?", because it's pretty rare and expensive as well (almost like the GeForce 256 SDR/DDR), which is why I suggested that it would be better to also allow the GeForce 2 MX. Anyway, your competition, your rules. 😀

We cant take the commercial to seriously. Both Geforce DDR and 3DFX cards costs a hefty sum these days.
Anyway. I do understand your opinion about the Geforce 2 MX cards. It is in a way sound. We went with the rules that we have because it is the same Retro Lan rules that we have been using since 2017.

bloodem wrote on 2022-04-10, 14:18:

I'm guessing what card you're talking about, but... no, I don't see how it could ever surpass a GeForce 256 DDR in Quake 3, even with the best possible tweaks (since you can always apply the same tweaks with a GeForce 256 😁 ).

Likewise, I doubt that any card can surpass a GeForce SDR (not to mention DDR) if the rest of the system remains the same during both test attempts.

That said, I did find it interesting how much performance the "TurboGL" feature can draw out of said "M" cards in Quake games. Assuming the proper driver version is used alongside a supported CPU.