So, I just bought a PNY GeForce FX 5600, and I cannot run the Dawn and Ogre demos. I was wondering if anyone else had issues running these demos. Maybe, sadly, I’m the only one.
I’m wondering because I want to use the cool features the card supports in the OpenGL games I’m programming, but if I’m having trouble already, that’s not good.
Just to be clear for everyone reading–I’m not outright bashing NVidia or PNY at all…yet. And also, I spent two days researching, looking for, and downloading all the drivers, updates and service packs…just to totaly screw up my system even more (We’re talking having to completely format everything and start over.) And yes I have WinXP and 512 MB of RAM.
Another thing I noticed about the GeForce 5600 compared to my old GeForce 2, NOT MUCH! The only differences are the supported features, my games still run at a snail pace with the exception of maybe the original Unreal Tournament. I expected much more from a card three generations ahead of my old card.
So, all ranting and raving aside, has anyone else encountered similar problems? Has anyone else noticed the poor performance improvement in OpenGL? If not, I humbly bow out and will eat my foot.
When you say “it doesn’t run” that gives us absolutely no information to work with. The best we can come up with is “then fix it”.
If you get no speed improvement out of a GeForce 5600, then something else is the bottleneck in your system. Do you have the right AGP drivers? Is your CPU outdated? Are you trying to feed an AGP 4x card using PC133 memory, and feed the CPU at the same time? Are you even getting hardware acceleration?
I suggest looking on some of the many good hardware support forums that are out there for end user and “tweaker” users; they are much more likely to take this post as on-topic, and have good responses to problems like yours. Good luck!
(sharky forums, voodoo 3d, tom’s hardware forums, forums for specific games such as warcraft, all are good resources for hands-on hardware advice)
Dawn (not Dawn Ultra) and Ogre both require a processor with Intel SSE extensions (Pentium III/IV, Athlon XP, Opteron). I was under the impression that the other GeForce FX demos did, as well, but the SSE code may have been added in between the 5800 and 5600 launches.
Someone at the Beyond3D forums (Colourless, I believe) created a patch for Dawn (I don’t know which Dawn) that disables the SSE code.
Well thanks guys. So, if I understand correctly, I need an Athlon XP to run these heh? So a regular desktop Athlon won’t work huh? By the way, I have a 1.3 GHz w/512 DDR PC 2100 266MHz RAM.
Sorry jwatte if I’s a little mad. This probably wasn’t the best forum to post in, but I knew the demos ran in OpenGL, and I was just wondering if anyone else had any problems and they could help me. Thanks again.
Maybe your old drivers are causing a mess. Try uninstalling them, and cleaning your registry w detonator destroyer or system mechanic. About performance, FX5200 is as fast as GF2GTS if we look at fillrate, but it runs at least 10x faster in gaming environment. DX9 games are boosted a lot. And if you are looking at ARB_f_p demos, then speed is 100x greater, as you don’t need to emulate vp/fp on CPU. If you need high fillrate, you must get Radeon 9700/9800 Pros or FX 5800/5900 Ultras.
Talking about demos I remembered something: there where rumors that the Luxor Jr. demo that NVIDIA did with GL to show off the GeForce3 where available somewhere.
I finally figured out what the problem was, my card was bad! PNY gave me a list of things to check and do, and said that if I still had problems, to return my card.
Darn it! Oh well, I’ll just have to save for a GeForce FX 5900 Ultra. I’m really looking forward to the Ultra Shadows extension, along with all the other goodies. Doesn’t it look like it will kick some major butt? I mean come on, COOL!!!
Originally posted by JanHH: madman, then the fx5200 is a fast card? would you recommend it? i never heard any good about it…
Well, let’s look at his post:
Originally posted by M/\dm/
: About performance, FX5200 is as fast as GF2GTS if we look at fillrate, but it runs at least 10x faster in gaming environment.
The 10x is exagerated, unless you turn on FSAA – in which case it’s not quite as exagerated.
DX9 games are boosted a lot. And if you are looking at ARB_f_p demos, then speed is 100x greater, as you don’t need to emulate vp/fp on CPU.
Definitely true, but an irrelevant comparison since running a fragment program (pixel shader) in software is uselessly slow.
Basically, in terms of speed it is a small step up from a Geforce 2 GTS or a Geforce 4 MX. The only thing it -really- has going for it is features, though. If you want decent speed as well as features, the FX5600 Ultra (the newer, higher clocked version) or the Radeon 9600 Pro (or 9500 Pro) are much better choices.
But it is completely rediculess for a company like nvidia to create demos with such restraints.
Think of it from nVidia’s perspective. They make AthlonXP motherboards, not TBird mobo’s. As such, they’d like you to upgrade your TBird to an XP (and likely use an nForce-based mobo). This is a subtle hint.
Originally posted by Korval: Think of it from nVidia’s perspective. They make AthlonXP motherboards, not TBird mobo’s. As such, they’d like you to upgrade your TBird to an XP (and likely use an nForce-based mobo). This is a subtle hint.
Lol… it is also true that lots of older boards can run a XP just fine.
Demos are meant to impress people into getting the required hardware to ‘oohhh & awwwe’ the user, which is why people upgrade.
They could have made the Dawn demo for gf2 based cards, but it would look much worse.
They should have had 2 demos posted, 1 with SSE code, the other without. But if Korval’s theory holds up, the next demo will require SSE2, and use 64-bit extensions, so get ready to buy a Opteron or a Athlon64
(We’re talking having to completely format everything and start over.) And yes I have WinXP and 512 MB of RAM.
