i need to know the difference in speed and performance between these 4 cards:
i) Oxygen GVX-210
ii) Oxygen GVX-420
iii) Wildcat 4210
iv) SonicBlue Fire GL 2
i know the highend3d card tests will be coming out soon, but i need to know this tonight.
compare them with each other, or cards that aren't on the list if that is what you have experience with.
your responses would be greatly appreciated.
10 PRINT "kemijo is the best"
20 GOTO 10
RUN
Can;'t say about the other cards , but from just reading other posts and having the luck to work on a WildCat 4210 card . I'd say its the best with Maya. The price is generaly higher than the others but I'm very happy with the card . i don't think you'd go wrong with it if you got it over the others . I have tested the GVX 210 card in compareson tot he Wildcat cards ,a nd found them to be a litle slower or at lest it take mroe geometry to bog down the WILDcat card. Hope this helps at all, seeing as you;e pressed for an answer I'd at lest give you my 2 cents. IF you are running winNT though and have a 4210 card , make sure your have at least service pack 5 to avoid some issues that I ran into.
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the only thing ill add is that i and i know lots of others have had problems with driver support with Diamond/S3 (now sonicblue) in the past (very recent past) it seems if a card of theirs doesnt sell like hot cakes right out of the gates they drop driver support for it
based on that i say if you have the money stick with the oxygen of wildcat cards you do get what you pay for with them from what i hear the wildcats are just insanely fast and great with heavy texture work they have what 128 or 256 megs of ram on them
johnpv!
what is your problem with s3?
You're always referring to drivers support problems but i suppose that it's a gaming card you're talking about so things will be a little different with a 1200$ card!!!
Both of these cards are highend ones so no problems with performances, support or stability.
The FireGL2 is a good choice, it is faster than the oxygen and costs only 1200$, the wildcat are sold only with workstations, there are no retail versions.
For dual screening you could also look for the FireGL3, it will be avaible at the end of the month.
s3 has been out of the workstation scene for a bit. their last efforeds were the firegl 1000->4000 which were pretty much orphaned [try to get win2000 drivers for these cards.. then again.. don't =)].
3D Labs already has proven driver support and a long track record. Wildcats are NOT only sold with workstations.... ever since intense was sold out to 3dlabs they were sold retail [one of the myths on ebay].
my problem with s3 is that they drop driver support left and right look their last work station card which oblagon has pointed out they dropped support for
do you ant to spend 1200 on a card from them now to 1 year from now be useing whistler and not have any driver support with it
well dont be surprised if it happens
i checked their site and even their past highend cards didnt get driver fixes that often
Thanks for your help everyone...you've all been very informative. I might even pick up more than one card, as we could certainly use them...
I understand what Johnpv is saying...my company bought a Fire GL 3000 for me a few years ago, and it didn't seem to work properly, and drivers were buggy...we sent it back. I have faith in the Fire GL 2 and 3 though...
I don't believe that the Wildcat cards can officially be bought separately...considering the only ones that are listed on the 3Dlabs site are the 4110 and the 4210, I believe all others are discontinued, so they might be available used. Also, Oxygen cards can be bought direct through 3Dlabs, but the site says that Wildcat cards must be bought through resellers...which are all OEMs like Dell or IBM. I've spoken to them on many occasions (we were considering a machine for lease) and all of them said that the Wildcat cards are not available separately.
10 PRINT "kemijo is the best"
20 GOTO 10
RUN
s3 has been out of the workstation scene for a bit. their last efforeds were the firegl 1000->4000 which were pretty much orphaned [try to get win2000 drivers for these cards.. then again.. don't =)].
First off, this has been a mistake over and over again by users. PROFESSIONAL FireGL cards and CONSUMER FireGL cards are different. S3 don't have a consumer graphics card division anymore (which is what the firegl 1000...4000) belongs to. The Pro division is entirely different, the location is entirely different, the people that support and handle these are entirely different. The pro line is headquartered in Germany. Since FireGL1, their pro graphics divison had been seperated from the consumer graphics card. The firegl 1000-4000 days were like 5 or 6 years ago and their support did suck! But the current pro division is quite good.
Another thing I want to correct is their last product is the FireGL 1, not firegl 1000 or 4000, those were AGES ago!!!!! There are still many people who uses the GL1 and the performance is very compatitive to most 1000 dollar range cards today. The last time I used this card (GL1), I compared it with a GVX1 and the performance was about the same, GVX1 faster at some things and GL1 is faster at other things. One of the big reason for the GL1 to be able to keep up with other cards (even without geometry acceleration) is they have great drivers. Much more stable than GVX1 in my experience.
Currently, I am using the GL2 and I have been very happy with it, finally can use paint effects in a fast speed. Their drivers had been solid since I first got the card and they have had 6 new drivers since I got the card in december and this is not due to the fact the card is not stable. So if this is not good support then I don't know what is. You don't see 3Dlabs have that kind of support anymore. I do admit that they are very unimformative about their products and updating their websites, but from my communication with them, they are more focusing on making the card very stable and fast in opengl apps right now and getting Really good drivers out then to just sell the card. Basically, I think they are more into doing, than talking, which many other companies do nowadays. And I can see a lot of users buying into different companies' marketing, especially from reading people's comments from different forums.
Anyway, just to reiterate, the FireGL pro line from 'sonicblue' (no more S3), is very much alive and kicking. They are the only card that carries the IBM gfx chipsets and they are doing great in the workstation oem business. Hopefully, people can be a bit more clear on this now.
I can try to answer anyone who has questions about the FireGL2.