Unfortunately, I still have not had a V2 board in hand, and I'm working to remedy this as quickly as possible so that I can do more detailed performance comparisons on the sims you and I love! Until then, I am relying on second hand reports.

Typically, we get the benchmarks and hope to see a real life increase in relation to the figures from the test systems. But the Quake Time demo doesn't represent the kind of results you will get with most simulations. And simulations are the most demanding applications out there, and use processing and pixel power in a different way than does Quake.

In this short article we want to provide you with an update on simulations that are running under Glide in WIN95. Specifically, JSF, F22 ADF, Longbow 2, F/A 18 Korea, and Janes F15. All but F15 have already been released. I could comment on M1 TP2, but it really doesn't need the power that a V2 board will supply. Team Apache might be another story, but I will wait for a later beta and a hands on experience to comment on that one.

When Creative Labs released its board, F/A-18 Korea wouldn't run at all. The same was true of Joint Strike Fighter and F22 ADF. (The patched version of ADF would run under D3d). However, GSC has already addressed the problem and released a v.1.02b patch.

I spoke with Tom Kennedy recently who is a Hornet Korea fan who obtained a Creative Labs 12 meg board. He downloaded the patch and gives this report:

I already had v1.01 installed, so I downloaded the v1.02b update from GSC's FTP site and it runs perfectly. There isn't much of a frame rate increase so I guess they havent' added support for the extra texture unit. But the sim doesn't slow down as much as it did at low level or when dropping GBUs. Someone told me that there might be a bigger performance boost on PIIs over my 166 MMX, but GSC states that the sim is limited in software to 20 fps barring an update release.

The F22 ADF patch has been released, and the performance increase is very noticeable. DiD have apparently added support for the extra texture unit and early reports are that frame rate can jump close to 100% on PII machines compared to the original 3dfx chipset. For some reason some users are experiencing virtually NO increase in frame rate so there may be an install problem whereby you may find yourself accessing an old version of Glide. Hopefully this will be sorted out in the next release of Glide.

Joint Strike Fighter initially would not run under the V2, since the Voodoo 2 doesn't allow triple-buffering. However, Eidos released an update patch that corrects this problem and you can download it HERE. Note that in many cases you have to reinstall Voodoo 2 or recopy the new Glide files from the Voodoo installation 3d after installing patches. This is also true for F22 ADF. The default Glide install with these sims is for Voodoo 1 even though the executables are now V2 compatible.

At the moment Front Line Fighters won't run on Voodoo 2 boards, but DI have stated that they will address this in a Direct 3D update soon. However, when I asked if this will include a Glide update they would not commit themselves. There are so few boards available that many developers would rather go the way of adding support via Direct3d, and Glide support may follow when the installed base of V2 boards is higher. Tom Kennedy also has Flying Corps Gold, so I asked him to check it out under the Blaster Two.

Flying Corps Gold runs great on this board, way faster than on my Orchid 3d. Occasionally I am getting some graphics stitching and artifacts that I havent seen before, but at least it runs! I've probably close to doubled the frame rate, and it doesnt matter how many enemies are in the air. Multiplayer is also much better for me now.

I checked out Longbow 2 and I can tell that its faster, but not double the speed it was before. But now I can run with ALL options to the max and get good performance. I'm looking forward to moving to a PII or AMD K63d, but I want to wait til the 100 MHz bus is available. I bet V2 will really smoke on a 100 MHz bus!!

Janes F15 beta runs fine, according to reports from testers. F15 really doesn't need Voodoo 2, but on a lower end machine like a P100, the benefit would be nice. Though it might be a cheaper upgrade to pop in a new CPU, many older mainboards that sport P100 chips won't support that large an increase. And of course, if you later upgrade your machine, you can keep your Voodoo 2 board where a CPU upgrade would likely be lost cash.

As you can tell from the above, installation may be hassle free since there are no IRQs or DMA addresses in question, but that doesn't mean your installation will work as you expect! Complicating the matter, documentation supplied with the early boards is sparse, to say the least! Still, with a little fiddling they are working as advertised, and the overheating problems appear to be unsubstantiated rumor.

For best performance, use these settings in the advanced tab for your V2 setup:

• Check both "don't sync buffer swaps"
• Check "force trilinear filtering"

As for news on the hardware end, Creative has announced that they will begin shipping 8 meg boards starting next week. The 8 meg boards come with pack in, but nothing that will interest most sim fans. When will someone pack in a good sim like F22 or a Janes simulation??

Jazz also made an announcement yesterday that they will be releasing their 12 meg board with no pack ins at a price of $229, but then you can take off a $30 rebate! Too bad we won't see this one sooner. STB also entered the fray with their Black Magic 3d. Orchid is expected to start shipping their Righteous 2 very soon now, but they may be available in very small numbers initially.

Quantum3d has announced their 12-meg TV-out Voodoo2 card called the "Obsidian 2 S-12 TV" for an estimated $330. Given Q3ds reputation that sounds like a great buy. I have a feeling that California Graphics will also release a very high quality product, so if you don't get your board soon you will want to consider one of these other companies.

If you haven't yet ordered your V2 board, you can do so by using the Chips and Bits button below...Download the latest Voodoo 2 drivers from Operation 3dfx

© 1997 - 2000 COMBATSIM.COM, Inc. All Rights Reserved. .