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However there were still some problems with the image churned out by the Spectra 2500 when running games. First of all playing games wasn't exactly a thrill due to the fact that it was more often than not too dark. So dark you'd need a torch and not a rocket launcher! Yes I know that you can usually adjust your gamma settings etc… but still the default was just ridiculously dark. I also noticed the same mip-mapping errors with Incoming that I did last week.
(1) Sin - (2) Incoming - (3) Quake 2 demo1 - (4) Quake 2 demo2
I tested the usual Quake 2 and Incoming in order to get some benchmarks but also decided to add some more spice by testing the superb SiN demo. As you'll see from the following graphs, the Voodoo2 is definitely the more sensible option for Socket 7 users. The Voodoo2 outperforms the TNT on almost all counts. In Quake2 a single Voodoo2 was quicker in all resolutions. Funnily enough, the only time it got close was when using two Voodoo2's in SLI for the higher 1024x768 resolution. Here the TNT did really well and got quite close by only being a single frame slower. What was even more striking, was that the single TMU based Voodoo Banshee outperformed the TNT based Spectra 2500 in most cases under Quake 2. In addition 3Dfx recently announced that they would be optimizing the Voodoo Banshee for 3DNow! and you'll quickly realize that the any of 3Dfx's solutions makes more sense than the TNT. The scores for the TNT might well increase a little bit should AMD optimize 3DNow! for the TNT but then again they've not done any more than hint at that. I spoke to them a week or so ago and only got this quote as some of you may remember from the news,
"AMD's current 3DNow! update is designed to provide optimal performance on top of the VooDoo II chip set, if the patch detects another video card can't (of course) use the optimized Glide, defaults to using some of the 3DNow! optimizations in OpenGL or in worse case dumps into software rendering. What is needed is for best performance is an optimized Banshee driver along with our already completed OpenGL and Quake II 3DNow! optimized files. AMD is working with 3Dfx to bring the best performance as quickly as possible to our customers.
AMD's current 3DNow! update is designed to provide optimal performance on top of the VooDoo II chip set. As Banshee is an unreleased product there isn't yet a 3DNow! optimized driver. What is needed is for best performance is an optimized Banshee driver along with our already completed OpenGL and Quake II 3DNow! optimized files. AMD is working with id Software and 3Dfx to continue to bring the best performance as quickly as possible to our customers."
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