| Author | Message | ||
     Mark Pflaging Rating: N/A |
This is partially a "review" of certain games and a "complaint" about a certain card - I deliberately put it here instead of the "Support" forum because I don't think anyone will be able to fix my problem  (read on) I can't believe no one has mentioned Grand Theft Auto 3!! It has sold 7 million copies (most of them PS2 I assume) and there are tons of articles about it in the media because it is too "gory" and "violent" (yeah right). It also happens to be a ton of fun. Anyways I think it looks *GREAT* in stereoscopic 3D!! I've been playing it for months on a P3-1Ghz w/512MB PC133, ELSA Gladiac 920 (GEForce3), Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, Win98. Cars come careening straight at your face, trails behind the enemy bullets look awesome, explosions and cop chases pump up your adrenaline big-time. The modeling of the cityscape can be breathtaking at times. And you *must* try changing the camera angle when you're driving! You can put the camera right up on the front bumper, and it feels like you face is 3 inches from the pavement when you're driving 100 MPH! IMO, the biggest strength of the game is the physics. I had major problems at first with the Santa Cruz on GTA3 ("skipping" audio, lock-ups), none of the many "audio driver" choices worked, and DxDiag was telling me I had no sound card hardware buffers, after updating the driver it works - but ONLY with GTA3 audio driver set to "DirectSound hardware". And with GeForce3, it is VERY important to turn OFF Trails on Video options, and also turn OFF Vertical Sync, or else you will get incredibly slow frame rates. Using nVidia-based stereo drivers from ELSA (specifically for Gladiac 920) running at 1024x768 x 100Hz and ELSA glasses, the only complaints I have are a few of the cutscenes (way too close), occasionally slow frame-rate (when lots of moving objects are near, or when fog or rain is present). The other day I am playing it, then I go to eat, so I put the Windows desktop on, and when I got back an hour later, the monitor was at 60Hz refresh and *would not change*. At least I thought it was the monitor. By attaching a known good monitor I realized it was actually the video card, the Gladiac I had paid so much $$$ for, a little more than one year ago. (Does anyone know about how to get warranty service for an ELSA board, now that they are insolvent?? It is supposed to have a 6-year warranty!) I replaced the Gladiac with an old Erazor III (which is a TNT2 board from ELSA) and I can now successfully change the refresh rate with my favorite monitor (NEC Multisync 90). However GTA3 is painfully slow - unplayably slow (other games are fine). DO NOT BOTHER buying GTA3 for PC unless you have at least a GeForce 3!! There is nothing on the GTA3 box that indicates such, it just says 32MB video card (it really should say 64!!!) Rather than sit around and wonder what actually fried my GeForce3 board, I ordered a GeForce4 Ti 420 since according to reviews it is faster & better & cheaper, and will probably still work w/ my Revelators. It's not here yet, so I will post again later. Actually, I have some ideas about what might have fried the old board. It's been a hot summer here in the District of Columbia (U.S.) and I don't always turn on the air conditioning. The motherboard and CPU each have different temperature sensors. The game would sometimes "freak out" for no apparent reason (lose frame rate & audio & stereo-flipping, barely playable) in random situations during the game (usually during explosions or rain). I made a note of the temperature conditions each time and lowered the "alarm thresholds" to match. When the "system temperature" reached 113 deg., it was pretty much guaranteed that the game would soon fail. Testing other games on the same system had no such problems, even on hot days. My "solution" was to turn on the air conditioning in the house whenever the system temp. got too hot, if I wanted to play GTA3 on a hot day. It is obvious that this game uses so much CPU and DPU (display processing unit) time that it causes my system to literally heat up! This is exacerbated by the fact that it regularly accesses the CDROM drive during this game, and the CDROM I have tends to heat up rather quickly (I noticed this a long time ago - some CDROM drives simply generate more heat than others). It was not particularly hot on the day that video card starting malfunctioning, so I think the heat damage "caught up" to me and something failed. The symptom is that the video card always outputs 60Hz vertical refresh. When attempting to change it, the signal "flashes" (like its "trying" to do something), but then the signal just goes back to 60Hz. This happens in the Windows desktop and all games, whether they are stereo-enabled or not. I'm just posting this as a warning to others because GTA3 is a very addictive game - but if I had known it would fry my video card... (of course I don't really have any "proof"...) I think it would be really great if card manufacturers put temperature sensors on video cards, like the two temperature sensors on my Intel 815E motherboard (D815EEA2). If GTA3 malfunctions at random moments (and other games behave correctly) *you might have a serious heat problem*. Then again, maybe my video card was defective when I bought it. I have also played Max Payne, Giants, and American McGee's Alice on this video card and been doing other 3D applications, so I suppose ultimately the failure is not a "complete rip off". Both Max Payne and American McGee's Alice look & play fantastically in stereoscopic 3D (nVidia stereo drivers with LCD shutters). (Alice was released in 2000 in case you've never heard of it.) Giants looked *terrible* in stereoscopic 3D - there was something very wrong with the sky / background drawings. So I played all the way through it without stereo. (It is a great game anyway!) That's enough ranting and raving for now, I suppose. -Mark |
