The NDAs on the NV30 (GeForce FX) are off...

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-01-28 12:35pm

BabelHuber wrote:If I would buy a graphics card these days, I would buy a RADEON9500 128MB and turn it into a 9700PRO. These would bring me ~70-90% of the performance of the GF FX (depends on the luck) for a third of the money.
Now that kicks ass!

This, of course, assumes that you get one of the 9500s that work with the hack

Many of the newer ones do not as they are not merely crippled 9700 cards.

The situation reminds me of 3dfx and the Voodoo 5, actually. That card was (1) hot, (2) drew a lot of power, (3) expensive, (4) did not a clear performance advantage, (5) was late and (6) badly overhyped.

Hopefully nVidia pulls a driver miracle when it comes time for release, else they'll be left in the dust. They'd better hope that ATI doesn't do some optimization either.

Crazy_Vasey · Post by **Crazy_Vasey** » 2003-01-28 01:03pm

My 9500 can be hacked but the results are uhh less than satisfactory. In Splinter Cell lots of pixels go missing and when I tried a demo that made heavy use of fragment programs (OpenGLese for pixel shaders) the pixels were random colours. Bah. It looked like shit, but it was FAST shit...

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2003-01-28 04:36pm

I think the saddest thing about the Voodoo5 was that had they been able to fight the heat issue (with resulting gains in performace) the 6000 would have been awesome as the first 128MB card.

Crazy_Vasey · Post by **Crazy_Vasey** » 2003-01-28 05:07pm

Wasn't the Voodoo 5 6000 the one that was gonna need an external power supply to run?

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2003-01-28 05:16pm

Yes it was, Most people saw that and said

"DAMN THATS TIM ALLEN POWER!"

Home Improvment still being on the air at that point

Utsanomiko · Post by **Utsanomiko** » 2003-01-28 05:38pm

Well, I don't feel so bad about my Radeon 9700 now, that's all I'll say.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-01-28 06:11pm

Crazy_Vasey wrote:My 9500 can be hacked but the results are uhh less than satisfactory. In Splinter Cell lots of pixels go missing and when I tried a demo that made heavy use of fragment programs (OpenGLese for pixel shaders) the pixels were random colours. Bah. It looked like shit, but it was FAST shit...

You probably don't have one of the early 9500s then. Newer ones won't work with the hack.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-01-28 06:12pm

Crazy_Vasey wrote:Wasn't the Voodoo 5 6000 the one that was gonna need an external power supply to run?

Yes. It was only used in the professional market (Quantum3D), the consumer edition was cancelled.

Crazy_Vasey · Post by **Crazy_Vasey** » 2003-01-29 10:30am

phongn wrote:
Crazy_Vasey wrote:My 9500 can be hacked but the results are uhh less than satisfactory. In Splinter Cell lots of pixels go missing and when I tried a demo that made heavy use of fragment programs (OpenGLese for pixel shaders) the pixels were random colours. Bah. It looked like shit, but it was FAST shit...
You probably don't have one of the early 9500s then. Newer ones won't work with the hack.

I think the conclusion on the rivatuner forums was that cards that went like mine are defective 9700s that have had their broken pixel pipes locked and sold as 9500s. Man it was depressing, it looked like it was working at first and then it slowly degraded into uselessness

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-01-29 02:43pm

Crazy_Vasey wrote:
phongn wrote:
Crazy_Vasey wrote:My 9500 can be hacked but the results are uhh less than satisfactory. In Splinter Cell lots of pixels go missing and when I tried a demo that made heavy use of fragment programs (OpenGLese for pixel shaders) the pixels were random colours. Bah. It looked like shit, but it was FAST shit...
You probably don't have one of the early 9500s then. Newer ones won't work with the hack.
I think the conclusion on the rivatuner forums was that cards that went like mine are defective 9700s that have had their broken pixel pipes locked and sold as 9500s. Man it was depressing, it looked like it was working at first and then it slowly degraded into uselessness

Either that or you have a newer R9500 that has purpose-built cards (missing the physical hardware needed).

Hell, be happy, you still have a fast video card!

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2003-01-29 08:51pm

Mr Bean wrote:Yes it was, Most people saw that and said

"DAMN THATS TIM ALLEN POWER!"

Home Improvment still being on the air at that point

Still at the time I know I was thinking: lots of power equals happy performance. Had they been able to build it on a smaller die and have it generating less heatthey might have really had a damn good card as it would have beat almost every single other card out there with a stick. IIRC it was also one of the first cards that was suppossed to support 4x AA.