Diamond Viper
26 messages in this thread
Benchmarks in a recent comparative review show that the Hercules Graphite 1MB
ISA board — ISA, mind you!!! Not EISA or VLB!! — is actually FASTER than any
other company's fixed-function VESA VL-Bus board, including the Diamond Viper
VLB, Metheus 928 VLB, #9 GXE VLB, or ATI Ultra Pro VLB!! You heard it right:
their ISA card beats all competitors' VL-Bus cards!!
Think how incredibly fast their 2MB Hercules Graphite Pro VLB must be!!
Of course, true co-processer cards such as the Matrox MGA are probably even
faster.
>> Benchmarks in a recent comparative review show that the Hercules
>> Graphite 1MB ISA board — ISA, mind you!!! Not EISA or VLB!! — is
>> actually FASTER than any other company's fixed-function VESA VL-Bus board,
>> including the Diamond Viper VLB, Metheus 928 VLB, #9 GXE VLB, or ATI Ultra
>> Pro VLB!! You heard it rig their ISA card beats all competitors' VL-Bus
>> cards!!
Did you read the follow-up articles discussing how several video card and
chipset manufacturers "enhance" their windows drivers by writing them for
specific benchmarks?! Bunch of cheatin' crooks. I for one generally disregard
the benchmarks on video cards… just make my best educated guess. Diamond and
Hercules appear to be two of the most respected vendors these days (depending
on who you talk to of course). I own a Speedstar 24x and am looking to replace
it with either the Viper or Hercules Graphite VLB Pro 2MB card (it's got a
135MHz RISC processor on board! zoowee, Jan!).
All the reviews have given the new MGA cards 3 thumbs up. Most say it is the
fastest group of cards they have ever tested.
not cheap, though (for the one I would want… VLB, 3MB, Z-buffer, 3ds drivers)
Dan
I know about cheating Windows drivers. One common method of cheating is to
incorporate the text "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" pre-cached
into the driver code at the sizes WinBench uses, so that it won't have to call
TrueType to build those fonts from scratch. I prefer the WinTach benchmark,
which runs a driver through four simulations of real-world applications:
spreadsheet (tests scrolling [which is itself mostly bitblts], chart drawing,
etc.), word processor (tests character generation at various sizes and styles
and fonts — its text is NOT "The quick brown fox…" but is instead a full
page letter-like document!), paint (tests primitives and fills and pens), and
CAD (tests line drawing and redrawing) rather than a set of techie benchmark
tests. Hercules includes the Speedy benchmark, which is like WinBench except
it runs nine different tests at the same time in multiple windows, so that the
driver can't easily cheat since it won't be doing the same thing repeatedly.
But Speedy DOES use "The quick brown fox…" as its test text. :/
Yes, the Matrox MGA will blow just about anything else away, because it is a
64-bit full coprocessor (several, in fact). It also costs about as much as a
Hercules Graphite would, along with a full 486 DX2/50 system to plug it in to.
🙂
Keep in mind, folks, that unless you plan on doing a LOT of Windows work on
the same machine you do your 3DS work on, you're probably better off with a
cheap VL-Bus Tseng ET4000 high color/true color card, or some other card that
is not a Windows accellerator per se but has fast DOS throughput. 3DS is not
Windows, and will not benefit from a Windows accellerator chip. Most such
chips (including all of the S3 family, and the Weitek P9000) are MUCH slower at
DOS VGA stuff than a Tseng ET4000 is. The Tseng ET4000/W32 chip provides quite
good Windows accelleration along with the same DOS VGA speed the ET4000 has
always had.
>> The Tseng ET4000/W32 chip provides quite good Windows accelleration
>> along with the same DOS VGA speed the ET4000 has always had.
Good chipset. Supposed to be completely backwards compatable with the
ET4000, so, all other things failing, you could always use a generic ET4000
driver. Not the best situation, of course, but at least you could always
count on an existing driver.
And Hercules makes a card based on it… the Dynamite. Worth a second look.
Dan
Marion,
>>> Keep in mind, folks, that unless you plan on doing a LOT of Windows
work on the same machine you do your 3DS work on, you're probably better
off with a cheap VL-Bus Tseng ET4000 high color/true color card, or some
other card that is not a Windows accellerator per se but has fast DOS
throughput <<<
While this is certainly true Marion….Many of us DO use 24bit Paint
packages for manipulating images..PhotoShop, Blackbelt's Winimages:Morph,
PhotoStyler, CoredDRAW….actually there is a rather large list.
Plus the MGA Graphics card is a Perfect companion to the Illuminator Pro
Card. The list of Software Drivers _IS_ Growing for both of these cards so
I wouldn't be so quick to discount its purchase based upon price. The
value is increasing expotentially.
>>> better off with a cheap <<<
As far as this statement goes. One is usually NEVER better off with a
cheap ANYTHING! Especially in this business! Of course if its a hobby
then that's another story. <G>
As I think about this more…Go ahead buy the ET-4000 Stuff I happen to be
a Very Happy Vibrant Graphic Dealer ready willing an able to ship the
Pro/Res/3DS and Animator ProRes Drivers at the drop of a credit card.
Don't forget about the "Liquid SPEED" Product that will be shipping about
the time of the Release 3. 3D Studio Ship Date. An absolutly Killer Speed
Driver.
Just a note: Four years ago I swore I'd never use windows. When 3.1 came
out I bought it for the AMI PRO Bundle as I liked their Lotus product.
Today I own a Turtle Beach Multisound Card as well as all their wonderful
Turtle Tools Sound Programs, I Use Asymetrix COMPEL and MediaBlitz! for
quick Multimedia Presentations I've even been known to Hack away at the
Asymetrix Toolbook building a few Multimedia Applications. I'm also an
Asymetrix Educational Dealer and Run products like CorelDraw, PhotoStyler,
Blackbelt's Winimages:Morph, and of course Not to mention the Matrox
Illuminator Pro Windows interface….Uh.. You may have heard of Matrox
PERSONAL PRODUCER.
The list now goes on..and..on.
What I'm saying is I was never going to use windows a few years ago…NOW I
can't live without it!!
If you Don't use windows or some of the products written to work in the
windows envirenment I don't know what your gonna do in the future because
like it or not that is where most of the interesting 3rd party software is
being ported for our kind of work.
What have Ya got against Windows besides it's 16bit, blows up on a regular
basis ( actually mine hasn't blown up for a year now, "knock on
plastic"!<g> ), is written by a bunch of industry pundints in Washington
that feel "close" is good enough for code shipped en'masse' to the general
public…etc! <g>
I guess it's the old argument..Sure we deserve better…What have you got
to Replace it With???
Keep Animate N'
James M. Murphy
What have you got to Replace it With???
UNIX!!!!!!!
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
John!
>> What have you got to Replace it With???
UNIX!!!!!!!
John Tissavary (La Luna cie) <<
Youuuuve _GOT_ to be Kidding! <g>
James M. Murphy
James:
>> What have you got to Replace it With???
>> UNIX!!!!!!!
>> John Tissavary (La Luna cie) <<
>> Youuuuve _GOT_ to be Kidding! <g>
>> James M. Murphy
No, he's not kidding! Once you've worked on a Sun or SGI for a few days,
you'll never want to back to 640k, patched, kludged, single-tasking MS-DOS!
The _only_ reason we have PC's is for 3DS, we run everything else on UNIX,
from AutoCAD to Lotus to dBase, Corel Draw and WordPerfect! It is a much
easier operating system to network and add peripherals to than DOS – I
recall a few threads of yours among others complaining about DOS
installations, memory mapping, memory managers, base addresses, IRQ's, etc.
None of these problems exist in UNIX!
Greg Pyros
>> None of these problems exist in UNIX!
You _do_ mean "None of these problems exist in UNIX on a Sun or SGI box,"
don't you, Greg. Those problems are as much a problem with the PC's
architecture as they are with that kludge we all know and love, DOS.
Dan
Dan:
>> "None of these problems exist in UNIX on a Sun or SGI box"
I agree – I've never used UNIX on a PC, so I can't complain about it, but
I'll take your word for it!
I've been thinking about trying out Sun's PC-UNIX solution, Solaris/x86
which is supposed to be totally compatable. Have you tried it yet?
Greg Pyros
My point is that the problems that you were addressing (IRQ and address
conflicts, etc) are as much the fault of the ancient ISA bus as they are of
DOS. Of course, we have only the infinite wisdom of Microsoft to blame for
the DOS memory problems, but that's another thread/forum.
Solaris _looks_ good, but the reviews that I have read on it are less than
stellar. Kinda like the reviews that Desqview-X got… "Wow! This is really
cool! If it only worked well." BYTE gave it a pretty good look, and
complained mainly about its speed. If I remember correctly, they were using
a 66 with 16 megs and it was still on the pokey side.
A couple of the UNIX geeks at work are looking into Unix boxes for home, I
think one of them might have ordered it. I'll let you know.
Dan
>>I've been thinking about trying out Sun's PC-UNIX solution, Solaris/x86
which is supposed to be totally compatable.<<
Oh, goody! Please let me know all the juicy details if you end up trying
Sun Solaris on the PC. I will toss DOS in a New York minute if Solaris
works. Will it be necessary to keep a DOS parition to run 3D Studio
(probably)?
Regards,
John (can't wait to drop all Microsoft products into the toilet and have a
good flush!) Tissavary (La Luna cie)
I would try Novell's Unix (Univell). It's promissing and have a better DOS
box than DOS itself. Multithread, multiuser, true Unix, the works. It still
needs a bit more hardware compatibility, but if you plug it in a "normal"
Intel box, it delivers…
Gus:
>> I would try Novell's Unix (Univell). It's promissing and have a better
>> DOS box than DOS itself. Multithread, multiuser, true Unix, the works.
Thanks for the info! Have you tried running 3DS in the DOS box? Possible?
Greg Pyros
>>Youuuuve _GOT_ to be Kidding! <g><<
No way! I haven't used it much, but it's so much more powerful than
DOS/Windows/O/S2 that it's not even funny. There's so many cool Unix
versions out there, too.
If I could run 3DS under Unix, I'd take the time and learn its ins and
outs. I've hung around some workstation-a-holics and watched them do some
really incredible stuff that you just can't do anywhere else.
Regards,
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
PS: If you want simple, buy a MAC <g>.
James:
Most of the programs you mention are bound by the time it takes to send
large blocks of pixels to the graphics card. A local bus ET4000 will be as
fast or faster at this than most high priced accelerators.
Basically, if a card will run FLC files fast, it'll run 24 bit Windows
programs fast. The more expensive cards add improved window and font
manipulation, as well as vector drawing.
Evan
Evan,
>>> Most of the programs you mention are bound by the time it takes to send
large blocks of pixels to the graphics card. A local bus ET4000 will be as
fast or faster at this than most high priced accelerators.
Basically, if a card will run FLC files fast, it'll run 24 bit Windows
programs fast. The more expensive cards add improved window and font
manipulation, as well as vector drawing. <<<
Thanks Evan…Actually I didn't realize this. I guess I'm gonna have to
have a long talk with the MGA side of the business so that I better
understand the advantages of the MGA card. Actually I did all my research
on the Illuminator Pro side of the equation and just assumed that the
companion card would be the best fit. I never really researched it further
than that. Verrry Interesting.
So what your saying is…a local Bus ET-40000 is just as fast as the MGA
Power Graphics Card and it is capable of delivering true color, real-time
3D 64-bit wide graphics?
Accourding to the MGA Liturature the MGA utilizes a 64-bit wide graphics
memory bus and takes advantage of what they refer to as "advanced VRAM
"block-write" features. This allows MGA to process graphics data up to 12
times the speed of even the best graphics chips from ATI, S3 and Weitek! (
I'm quoting the Lit. here. )
It's even mentioned that the MGA supports 24-bit DOS applications like 3D
Studio.
However if I understand this correctly you're saying there is no
difference between the MGA 64-bit card and any Local bus ET4000?
I'm Confused!
Since I happen to have received a new 486DX2-66MHz with a Local Bus
Video-ET 4000 and I will be receiveing the MGA local bus card in about a
week what would you suggest as a good test to check out the real
differences?
As a dealer it wouldn't make sense for me to be promoting a card that's
almost $1,000.00 more than necessary for the client to get the maximum out
of his workstation.
I find it hard to beleive that Matrox would put a card out on the market
that's $1,000.00 more than what is currently doing the "same job".
What other cards have features like DynaView and real-time 3D rendering,
Gouraud shading and even Phong lighting for AutoCAD?
I thought 60k Gouraud shaded z-buffered triangles per second was a hell of
a specification! Of course now were getting in to vector drawing though.
Hmmmm I think I'm begining to sort some of this out.
Anyone care to clarify this in a more consise manner for me before I ramble
on much more?
Thanks Evan…this is helping to clarify my thinking about some of the
features on the MGA series.
James M. Murphy
Now now, James. The Matrox MGA is not even in the same ballpark as the
S3, Weitek, etc. The MGA is a full-fledged graphics CO-PROCESSOR. In
effect, it's a whole 'nother computer plugged into your PC that is JUST FOR
graphics. The S3, Weitek, etc. are "fixed-function" Windows accellerators.
All they do is accellerate "bitblt" functions, and some of them also can
accellerate font and line functions, but they're not even in the MGA's
class. They also cost only a fraction of the MGA.
We weren't including the MGA in the comparison for this reason. The
point is, rather than get a Diamond Viper (see the name of this Topic?
See? SEE!? <grin>) or #9 GXE or Metheus 928 or some such, my point is
that if your main work is 3DS and not Windows, you would be better off with
an ET4000 on the local bus, since 3DS is not Windows, and those boards are
Windows accellerators. They SLOW DOWN most non-Windows applications!
The MGA, on the other hand, is faster at ALL graphics. If you can
afford it, obviously it is the way to go, period! (At least until the new
Truevision DVR boards come out…)
I'm gonna have to jump in here, Marion, and let you know that the statement
concerning the Viper VLB's reputation for being "DOS challenged" is just
not true, now that the final tests are in. The Game company I am working
for has a couple of *very* good tech-types and one of their jobs is testing
hardware for performance/ability. In *every* DOS test they threw at it, the
Viper came through most admirably, equaling the DOS speed of the ET4000
chip set. Add to this _many_ hours of my own experience with the board,
after *years* of experience in DOS with a ET4000 board, and I can tell you
that I am running just as fast, or faster, in DOS than ever. I realize that
it has been published that the P9000 was not a DOS screamer, but I can tell
you that it is just not true, at least on my system, and everyone else's
system I know using the VVLB. Sometimes, as you know, these published
benchmarks can be a little off at times, I think this is one of those
times. Not to take anything away from the Matrox board, as it is really
something, albiet quite expensive. Just wanted to let people know my recent
experiences regarding this issue. I wouldn't want anyone to turn their
backs on the VVLB just because they feel it would render their system a DOS
slug, because it won't.
Regards,
-Alan Iglesias
That's nice to know, Alan. The Viper is as fast in DOS as an ET4000.
Now, I can get an ET4000 card for about thirty bucks. How much is the
Viper VLB, hmmmmmMMMMMMM!?!?!?!?!? ;>
My point is that if you DON'T NEED WINDOWS, or don't plan on using it a
lot on the SAME MACHINE for running 3DS, then you're better off getting an
ET4000 (local bus if your computer has one) because it is by far the best
PRICE/PERFORMANCE RATIO under DOS. Now, if you can tell me that the Viper
is umpteen dozen times FASTER than the ET4000 under DOS, then I'll sit up
and take notice. The Viper will do NOTHING for you in 3DS in the speed
department. It's not worth the MONEY. If you're going to spend money to
get speed in 3DS2, get the Matrox MGA, WHEN it has drivers available to use
that real-time Gouraud shading under 3DSr3.
Marion,
1) The fact that one doesn't spend extra money for a Windows-accelerated
video card if one dosen't plan on using Windows *certainly* goes without
saying. I merely wanted people that DO use Windows to know that their
machine will not turn into a DOS slug if they use the VVLB. Your statements
clearly implied that using the VVLB for DOS applications would cause a
severe speed penalty. This is simply not true.
2) You'll have to qualify what you mean by the term "speed in 3DS". Are you
talking about redraw speed, or rendering Gouraud-shaded polygons? The VVLB
is NOT a hardware Z-buffer. Since "real time" (the MGA is not, I saw the
board do it's thing with ACAD last week) Gouraud shading is of absolutely
no use to me, I'll wait for the new Vibrant "liquid" drivers before I see
if there is a P9000 redraw bonus in my 3DS future. This would not be
necessary, as the DOS speed is already excellent, but would be a great
bonus.
3) After doing a quick survey of friends and associates using 3DS, I find
that 85-90% use Windows quite often for manipulating maps, vector drawing,
etc., so this certainly helps to make the VVLB a great choice for many 3DS
users.
-Alan Iglesias
>> just as fast, or faster, in DOS than ever. I realize that it has been
>> published that the P9000 was not a DOS screamer, but I can tell you that
>> it is just not true, at least on my system, and everyone else's system I
>> know using the VVLB.
FYI, the P9000 chip is not the determining factor while in DOS text modes. That
would be the Weitek 5×86 chip that is the VGA chip on the board. It, too, was
designed as a Windows accelerator, albeit not as good as the P9000.
-Chris
Panacea
Exactly what I understood, Chris. Also, I heard that the P9000 may be used
during some VESA modes, could this be possible?
-Alan
James:
Sigh. I should have kept my mouth shut.
OK – let me start with this. Since you are a dealer, you have an obligation to
understand the technology which you are selling. I don't want to lecture you,
but you'd better do your homework if you want to play with the big boys. And
that means understanding technology – not just learning buzzwords. You can
certainly get some of the information here, but not all of it. If you come
here unprepared, it is doubtful that any of the dealers who have invested
significant effort in their knowledge will be willing to help you. End of
ranting and raving.
Now, on to explaining about graphics performance. Programs such as AmiPro must
transfer large numbers of random pixels from system memory to the graphics
card. They take no advantage of any processing power on the graphics board. The
only thing that counts with AniPro is how fast the computer can get pixels onto
the graphics board. This is limited by both memory bandwidth, and I/O
bandwidth (for the board registers.)
If you're editing large 24 bit images under Windows, one of the choke points
will be how fast the image can be moved from system memory to the graphics
card. A fast local bus graphics will do fine on that count. But, once the
image is on the graphics board, an ET-4000 doesn't have any brains to do much
manipulation. The process of repositioning menus and clipping windows will be
greatly speeded up by a board which can do bit block transfers (BITBLTs) by
itself.
The moral of the story? The MGA is a great card, which easily justifies its
price. You even get to make a reasonable profit selling it. But for programs
such as AniPro, it may be no better than a fast local bus VGA card. (And even
this has a caveat. You have to look at the wait states of the memory interface
and registers to be sure of the board's performance. The MGA has an optional (I
believe) linear frame buffer address space. If an optimized AniPro driver were
written for the MGA, it would not have any bank switching latency.
Unfortunately, I don't know if such a driver has been written for the MGA)
Evan
P.S. – let me add that there is a question about the MGA being a 64-bit card.
You have to ask what parts of the MGA architecture are actually 64-bit. And
this is a looooonnnngggg discussion.
Most folks doing serious 3D and ANI Pro work also do a lot of serious Image
Processing work. This is where we like the MGA. For programs like Altamira
Composer, the performance is awesome. For playing ANI flics, you are right, it
isn't any faster than a VGA. Most 'normal' VGAs won't do 1024x764x24bit either.
Again, not important for 3D work, but certainly for Image Processing.
Anyway, that's how I steer customers. Herc Graphite Pro for normal stuff, MGA
for high-end Image Processing.
One other thing. MGA is relatively cheap for its power, but I wouldn't be
surprized if similar power was available soon from other 'lo-end' boards.
I never said I have anything against Windows. What I said was that
unless you run BOTH Windows AND 3DS2, often, on the SAME MACHINE, you're
better off using a Tseng ET4000 on a local bus on the 3DS2 machine, and
leave the Windows accellerator chips for the Windows machine. I'm assuming
a LANtastic or similar peer network here, so that you can be in 3DS2 on one
machine, and be using Photoshop or Fractal Designs Painter or Morph Plus
(WinImages: Morph has lots of nifty features that Gryphon Morph Plus lacks,
but Morph Plus has one very important one that WinImages: Morph lacks —
Morph Plus WORKS. We've had serious problems with WinImages: Morph that
their tech. support has yet to resolve after months.) on the other machine.
You need to make a quickie change in a bump map? Just roll your chair over
to the Windows machine, call up the map, touch it up, save it, then roll
back over to the 3DS2 machine and click "Render" again. MUCH faster than
trying to do it on the same machine, especially since you can't run 3DSr2
under Windows (though you can run Windows in Standard mode under 3DSr2 by
putting it in your Programs menu, though that takes up a valuable .PXP
slot).
IN THAT SITUATION, it's better to have an ET4000 on the 3DSr2 machine.
It'll be faster than just about any Windows accellerator. Nearly all such
chips SLOW DOWN non-Windows SVGA operations, and 3DSr2 is most definitely
non-Windows SVGA!