Here at school we have a machine equipped with the original Geforce 256 that I’ve been using for working in various 3D apps, all OpenGL-based. There’s a student tech in the lab who is a big gamer, and he wants to replace it with a Voodoo 5 5500. Considering that card’s price I think he’d be better off with a Geforce 2, but he’s also quite the 3dfx partisan. I am worried. Do the newer Voodoos support OpenGL? He’s convinced that they do, but he only plays games. I know the Voodoo 3 sure didn’t. Also, even if it does work, will it slow down? I know it can pump out fillrate, but I work with scenes that are very geometry-heavy, with few interactively displayed textures. The fillrate might be nice for games but I’m afraid the lack of T&L acceleration will be a kick in the crotch when it comes to high poly-count scenes. Please provide me with reassurance that it’ll work or some sort of information that I can send to higher-ups to dissuade them from purchasing this new Voodoo.
I have no knowledge of the Voodoo 5500 specifically. However, I will state what I know about previous cards.
Maya and Softimage require full support of OpenGL and a strong dedication to driver development.
Most “game” cards market that they use OpenGL, but it is only a portion of the library. Therefore, even though they may run games like Quake very well, they will not support all the features in OpenGL that high-end 3D products require.
Some game cards that do support OpenGL must translate instructions on-the-fly into their own. This sort of immulation is very slow, but sufficient for some games, not for high-end 3D.
Even if the hardware fully supports OpenGL, it is useless unless the manufacturer has very good driver support for you specific product. If there marketing material (atleast on-line) doesn’t state they support Maya or Soft, then chances are they never even tried it.
My guess is nothing has changed with the newer versions of Voodoo. However, there is an exception in some OpenGL product like Lightwave and Max. These products do most of their acceleration in hardware, so the card probably won’t effect their performation. If you are using high-end CAD, Maya or Softimage, then it will hurt performance.
Tell the student tech, to play games at home and leave the system alone. If he won’t back down, then be sure you have a copy of your current driver. Let him install his card. Try you 3D apps THOUROUGHLY to be sure they work. Even if he performance is okay, you don’t want to have display problems or perhaps unable to select elements etc.
there’s a toy computer at my work running maya. it originally had a voodoo3. It now has a voodoo5, and boy let me tell you…it smokes! Just kidding, it’s a piece of crap. Just get a vx1 if you’re looking for cheap cards.
Last time I checked, the Voodoo opengl drivers were only hw-accelerated for full-screen games. If that’s still the case, they are absolutely useless in softimage/maya/3dsmax.
Christian
OpenGL Driver engineer, workstation products
ATI Research Inc.
Yep, Yep it sux. It’s open Gl support is still suspect, and even from the viewpoint of a gamer, it’s glide support is now irelevant (glide has officially been scrapped). 3DFX are about to be put under the hammer and nvidia seem very keen to buy them out. Tell your gaming friend that the geforce2 is a much better card and will have new drivers for the latest games in a year or two, while the voodoo5 will be gathering dust in a garage sale. if he doesn’t believe you, tell him to look at the benchmarks at www.tomshardware.com
might do the trick!