#Which card to keep?
9 messages in this thread
I first had a Diamond stealth 64 VRAM in my P100 Micron. I pulled it because
I get only work in 3D studio at 256 colors with vibrant. This was only a minor
nuisance since I'm just learning the program and figuring Diamond or Vibrant
would fix the drivers by the time I could generate anything useful for my
visualization needs.After watching the posts on the Diamond card I dont believe
there has been a final or clear solution for this problem.Any recommendations?
I can still return the Diamond and I've actually already slipped in a ATI
Grapics Pro Turbo for trial and 3D Studio was great on it but I had some
other problems in other areas.By the way ,the ATI Tech message forum is
riddled with many unsatis.
customers and has me leaning towards dumping the ATI card also.Any preferences
or advice? (Brand new Micron P100 ,16 EDORAM,triton chipset)
Doug,
What chipset is in your 64 VRAM?
John
I have the stealth with the S3 968 chipset.2 meg VRAM.I believe this is a new
card .I heard this card worked with 3DS until they made some update.Vibrant and
Stealth tech were no help. I had to select VESA compatible to get it to work
at all under vibrant and could only get 256 colors.Thank you in advance.
Doug,
>> I believe this is a new card… <<
Sounds like it, I think my VRAM uses the 928 chip, not the 968. You might
double check the number but if its a new card then its quite possible that's
the problem.
ATI's run fairly well in Windows but not 3DS. I don't recommend them for that
reason. NT may be a different story, although I gotta tell you my DRAM's seem
to run just as fast in NT as my VRAM, so I kinda wonder what the point is…
What version of 3DS are you running and how current are you drivers? You might
try an older set.
Keep me posted, I am interested in this though it does look like you've run up
against a wall.
John
Thanks John for your replys. I believe I'm going to return the ATI GPTurbo. The
Diamond Stealth 64 video VRAM was great for all my needs except for my 3DS
future.256 colors is fine for now while I am just tutoring myself but I'm not
comfortable waiting for a fix.I'll probably get in older card as you suggest .
Any other ideas out there please let me know.
Changing the subject, I take it you are running 3ds4 with NT. What are the
advantages now of doing that? (Assuming you are not networking or Sym.
multiprocessing ). What other programs are you using under NT? Did you
partition or using seperate hard drives? I've been thinking about NT but
thought I would wait until there are more programs to take advantage of it and
of course waiting for 3ds NT.
Doug,
I think what you're saying about hanging on to the Diamond card makes sense.
The S3 chipset is pretty advanced and becoming a defacto standard…
>> I take it you are runnint 3ds4 with NT… <<
No actually, I'm not… these were two seperate issues which kinda got merged
together… one was the issue of drivers for 3DS and the other the issue of
newer driver availability for NT… the driver issue doesn't stop with 3DS but
continues on with NT… <g> The 864/964 chipsets do have drivers for NT, the
newer 868/968 I don't know as I just recently discovered that new ones had been
added. At issue was Beta Drivers for this cards for NT 3.51 and as I don't have
that chipset and its a recent release, it was really a seperate issue and
should have been but… <g>
Mostly I'm running all my windows apps under NT as everything runs better and
faster. The only program I'm using that takes full advantage of NT at present
is Ron Scott's QFX paint program which I'm slowly familiarizing myself with as
it is different interface than DOS. I like running NT because everything is
smoother and faster and doesn't have a tendency to lock up… its nice and the
screen redraws are great… NT brings new life to older CPU's like the DX2
which runs amazingly better, almost like a new machine and my P90's run like
workstations… albiet you need enough RAM for both of these scenearios but its
quite impressive… I'd get it soon but that's really a personal decision… I
really like having it and I'm learning about it at a steady pace, I didn't want
to get hit with it all of a sudden, there's alot there…
John
Doug, John is right about the chipset. The Vibrant drivers don't yet support
the 968 chip – that's the one on the stealth "video" card. If you can exchange
the card for a regular Stealth 64 VRAM with the 964 chip and it will work fine
at any color depth in 3DS.
DM
Doug,
>> the S3 968 chipset.2 meg… <<
Yes that makes sense now. The 928 is for the movie machine. I have the S3 964
which is the VRAM version not the 928 as I had mentioned earlier. I know when
the Vibrant drivers first came out I had a problem and I started using the S3
drivers, later I went back to the specific drivers which is what I'm running
now.
About the only thing I could suggest is call around and see if anyone has any
of the 964 cards left… there nice cards in 3DS and Windows. Haven't seen much
of a difference in NT but then I'm not running any real intensive graphic apps
that might benefit from the speed… nice thing about NT, everything seems
plugged in and tight like the display cards are directly wired to the CPU. <g>
That's about all I can suggest…
>> I have the stealth with the S3 968 chipset.2 meg VRAM.I believe this is a
new card .I heard this card worked with 3DS until they made some update.Vibrant
and Stealth tech were no help. I had to select VESA compatible to get it to
work
at all under vibrant and could only get 256 colors.Thank you in advance. <<
I just installed 2 Diamond Stealth 64 2MB VRAM cards that work great with 3DS
at 800x600x24-bit. I used the Stealth 64 setting in Vibrant. The cards use
the 968 chipset (86C968-P) and have ROM 1.01. I was a little worried from
things that I have seen here but for us it worked great.
Terry Gilbert
Forcade & Associates