Questions for Verite owners

"Everybody says" that the Verite boards are slow DOS and Win95 cards. Can anyone tell me how much slower? For instance, could you say that a P-133 with a Verite runs like a P-120 with a Lightspeed 128 or some other subjective impression? What about new drivers? "Everybody says" new Win95 drivers are coming for the Verite cards. Rumor or fact? Has anybody actually used these new drivers? "Everybody says" that the Verite cards are the "same" hardware. If I get a Reactor for $150, will it run _all_ the software that will run on the Sierra? What about non-3D games? If you've run any flight or racing sims on a Verite card, was it much slower than, say, a Lightspeed 128 or Mystique? Thanks (feel free to reply via email or via the newsgroup). --

In Win95, the Verite cards perform about the same as a Diamond Stealth or ATI Mach64 card. They aren't blazingly fast, but they aren't noticeably slow either. Fact. I'm beta testing them for Rendition as we speak. Yes. The only different card is the 3D Blaster. It uses Creative's BIOS which allows you to run games made with their CGL API. Mystique? At SVGA VESA 2.0 resolutions, the Verite cards are very similar to those cards (perhaps 1 fps or so slower then the 128). At regular old VGA the card is quite slow (probably about 1/4 the speed of those cards). -- Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

> "Everybody says" that the Verite boards are slow DOS and Win95 cards. > Can anyone tell me how much slower? For instance, could you say that > a P-133 with a Verite runs like a P-120 with a Lightspeed 128 or some > other subjective impression? 'Timedemo' in unaccelerated Quake reports my Reactor as being slightly less than .5 frames/sec slower than my Lightspeed 128. I don't have any benchmark for Windows, but I did not notice any difference in speed, picture, or color quality. I don't use plain VGA for anything, so I can't help you there. I have heard that these are coming, I have also heard that they are mostly compatibility fixes, not performace improvements. According to Sierra, ICR2's 'indyfast' runs just fine on the Sierra board in any system, while the same software will not run on the Reactor in some Cyrix systems. Intergraph says they are working on a fix. I tried out GP2 and NFS on the Reactor and they are, if anything, a little faster now (compared to the Lightspeed). Hoping for a ICR1 fix... Jason

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> "Everybody says" that the Verite boards are slow DOS and Win95 cards. > Can anyone tell me how much slower? For instance, could you say that > a P-133 with a Verite runs like a P-120 with a Lightspeed 128 or some > other subjective impression? > What about new drivers? "Everybody says" new Win95 drivers are coming > for the Verite cards. Rumor or fact? Has anybody actually used these > new drivers? > "Everybody says" that the Verite cards are the "same" hardware. If > I get a Reactor for $150, will it run _all_ the software that will > run on the Sierra? > What about non-3D games? If you've run any flight or racing sims on > a Verite card, was it much slower than, say, a Lightspeed 128 or Mystique? > Thanks (feel free to reply via email or via the newsgroup). > --

I have a Matrox 4MB Millenium and a Reactor Verite. The Reactor is very slow in VGA. After some tweaking that was necessary on my Pentium Pro I find the Reactor to be slightly faster in SVGA. As for Win95 it is considerably slower, but still on very usuable. The Win95 speed may not be a problem for me since I'm using a o/c Pentium Pro 233Mhz.

Bob, Regarding 2D DOS and Win95 speed, although I don't have a Verite card, I have heard from several reliable sources that the Verite chip is very fast in DOS in SVGA (almost as fast as the ET6000 cards), very slow in DOS in VGA, and relatively slow in Win95 (about 30 million Winbench96 Graphics Winmarks on a P5-166 in 16 bit color). Best regards, Jean Salvati

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> > "Everybody says" that the Verite boards are slow DOS and Win95 cards. > > Can anyone tell me how much slower? For instance, could you say that > > a P-133 with a Verite runs like a P-120 with a Lightspeed 128 or some > > other subjective impression? > > What about new drivers? "Everybody says" new Win95 drivers are coming > > for the Verite cards. Rumor or fact? Has anybody actually used these > > new drivers? > > "Everybody says" that the Verite cards are the "same" hardware. If > > I get a Reactor for $150, will it run _all_ the software that will > > run on the Sierra? > > What about non-3D games? If you've run any flight or racing sims on > > a Verite card, was it much slower than, say, a Lightspeed 128 or Mystique? > > Thanks (feel free to reply via email or via the newsgroup). > > --

Bob, I had a Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM, 2MB, using the latest Diamond GT Win95 drivers. The Reactor, using its initial Win95 drivers, is about 20% faster than the Stealth. I used Wubench to test this: Stealth: 164 Video, Reactor: 198, at 640x480, 256 colors. The difference is slightly noticable. In VESA SVGA, it is about the same as the Stealth. I did a comparison between the 2 cards in GP2 with exactly the same graphic settings, same framerate, in SVGA, at the same track, same straight, in Practice any Circuit, and I got identical processor occupancy rates. I haven't done any empirical standard 320x200 VGA tests, but the Reactor is much slower than my Stealth. The GP2 log video score went from 428 to 24. I doubt if it is really 17 times slower, as this suggests, but before I could run full detail in VGA with 25+fps, <100% occupancy, except Monaco, and now in VGA, I get 18.2fps for <100% occupancy. This is on a P166. Using the 3dbench VGA test, I think the Stealth was about 60-70fps, and now the Reactor tests at 30.3fps. If you have a fast Pentium, the VGA speed might not be a problem. They do have a 14 day money back guarantee if it doesn't do the job for you. Intergraph has stated they have new Win95 drivers coming out within a week, and that all 3 Rendition boards are the same, hardware-wise. -- "Feel Lucky, Scubaboy?" - Discovery Channel, Shark Week, 1995

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> > "Everybody says" that the Verite boards are slow DOS and Win95 cards. > > Can anyone tell me how much slower? For instance, could you say that > > a P-133 with a Verite runs like a P-120 with a Lightspeed 128 or some > > other subjective impression? > > "Everybody says" that the Verite cards are the "same" hardware. If > > I get a Reactor for $150, will it run _all_ the software that will > > run on the Sierra? > > What about non-3D games? If you've run any flight or racing sims on > > a Verite card, was it much slower than, say, a Lightspeed 128 or Mystique? > > Thanks (feel free to reply via email or via the newsgroup). > > --

I just up graded from a #9 Reality 332 to a Creative Labs 3d Blaster. At first, I was very dissapointed, as I had been quite pleased with my #9 card (although not very popular on this NG). SVGA modes are quite fast on the Verite. I noticed about a 10 fps jump in duke3d, but a smaller (about 2 to 5, depending on vid modes) jump in frame rate in quake. Any game that runs in SVGA should work real well. One odd note: 320x200 is kind of messed up for me. It runs like a letterbox format, rather than looking like VGA. Perhaps this is normal, but on my past to vid cards, 320x200 SVGA looked identical to VGA. VGA performance is not good, but I didn't find it to be that bad. Using daggerfall as a reference, it was slower in VGA, but not unplayable. It is still somewhat smooth, but by no means choppy. There are also utilities available for the 3d Blaster (which will probably work on the reactor) to speed up VGA performance. The program will activate a "burst" mode or convert VGA to 320x240 SVGA, which runs great. Again, my problem with this is the 320xXXX modes seem to run in a letterbox (and no, its not my monitor). I guess I'm still undecided about the 3d Blaster. I really don't play that many VGA games anymore, but the VGA really isn't that bad. The SVGA improvments are nice, as a few extra fps helps. The verite is by no means the most powerful accelerator out there, but compare accelerated versions of scorched planet, hellbender and quake to non-accelerated versions, and you *will* notice the difference. Lastly, windows performance is good, but not awesome. My #9 was pretty good, but this is slower. I have no problems sliding windows around the screen with the plus-enhanced window thing on (real technical, I know...). The card has its points, but for the price (might get a reactor instead) and performance, its worth taking a look.

> One odd note: 320x200 is kind of messed up for me. It runs like > a letterbox format, rather than looking like VGA. Perhaps this > is normal, but on my past to vid cards, 320x200 SVGA looked > identical to VGA. > Again, my problem with this is the 320xXXX modes seem to run in a > letterbox (and no, its not my monitor). Same here. My 3D Blaster couldn't display any aspect ratio other than 1.33 full-screen. ->ALX<-

On Wed, 13 Nov 1996 06:34:36 -0800, Steven Williamson >This is on a P166. Using >the 3dbench VGA test, I think the Stealth was about 60-70fps, and now the >Reactor tests at 30.3fps. If you have a fast Pentium, the VGA speed might >not be a problem. They do have a 14 day money back guarantee if it doesn't >do the job for you. More on 3dBench and VGA vs. VESA modes: On my Reactor and P133, I get the following 3DBench scores: VGA 28.5 fps VESA 115 fps (calculated, the timer glitches and reports 25) Pick one or more: Model Rockets (competition-NERCB) / PCs (even Atari!) / Papyrus ICR-ICR2-NCR / Who needs a life when you have multiple non-lives?