Warp3D and a Radeon 9250 ?

[matthey]

Hi all i have just installed Payback Demo and im trying to run it in hardware mode but when i run setup i only get the software renderer option and the Hardware renderer is greyed out, so would i need to install warp3d in order to use the radeon card?

There is no AmigaOS 3.x 68k Warp3D support for any Radeon card. You either need to install a Voodoo 3-5 gfx card or use AmigaOS 4.x PPC which does have a Radeon Warp3D driver.

[matthey]

He is just telling him, that the only way to get Warp3D for Radeon is by using AOS 4.x

Matt, look at his sig. He has an 030 setup. You are not telling him to buy ppc to play a game?

There are 2 logical options to use Warp3D with hardware acceleration for Payback. Buy a Voodoo 3+ card or buy a PPC accelerator/computer. The 1st option costs $50/30Euros and will be slow with a 68030 and the 2nd option costs at least 10x as much and would be much faster. It would be nice if we had more options but it does simplify the options. I suppose there is UAE+W3D hardware if some emulation counts.

But in the specs it says it can run under os3x with rtg and a minimum of an 020?

That may be true but the specs are for the software renderer. Isn't an FPU required also? Warp3D at least requires an FPU (the Voodoo/Avenger W3D driver requires a 68040 or 68060 but I have a version that should work with the 68020 and 68030). RTG can be 2D without 3D.

[matthey]

Some people will say there's no speed difference between the Voodoo 3 and Voodoo 5 5500 but there is, and the extra RAM on the Voodoo 5 is great :-)

Only downside is that the Voodoo drivers only support one of the GPUs on the Voodoo 5 :-/

My Voodoo 4 performs better with deeper and higher resolution screens but my Voodoo 3 with SGRAM is faster in memory and for some 2D operations. The extra memory is nice but the extra cost is not unless finding a bargain. The Voodoo 4 doesn't need an extra power supply like the Voodoo 5 so it is more practical. The Elbox 2D drivers have problems with big endian modes on the Voodoo 4/5 and the latest voodoo.card and pci.library don't work at all. A Voodoo 3 3000 with SGRAM is competitive with the Voodoo 4/5 in a Mediator and is one of the fastest and best 2D/3D gfx solutions for any classic Amiga.

I own both the cards but i have more ram on the Radeon which is 128mb im only using 31mb of the card and the rest im using as fast ram but the voodoo card i have only has 16mb so i really dont want to have to go back to using that gfx card

Is it possible to have both the radeon and the voodoo in the same sytem?

Yes, it's possible to have both the Voodoo and Radeon cards at the same time. It's been supported for awhile now by the Elbox drivers. All 128MB of the faster Radeon memory could be used for memory and DMA buffers (for fast ethernet) while the Voodoo 3 is completely used for 2D and 3D gfx. There isn't going to be a big difference in the 2D performance between the Radeon and Voodoo so you wouldn't be giving up much.

[matthey]

Would have to disagree, even Doom/quake runs a lot better with the Voodoo 5 card over my Voodoo 3. Plus workbench runs smoother and I can get 1920x1080 with high true colour (or whatever it is) so if one can get a really good deal (which come up quite often on Amibay) I'd get the Voodoo 5.

The VSA-100/Napalm is more powerful but it only shows with deep screens at high resolutions which I have observed also. I have a fast 68060 and it can't push anything over 800x600 in 3D so it's useless for 3D. There is enough CPU power for higher resolutions and depth in 2D but then the Voodoo 3 is only a hair behind here also. With my Voodoo 3 3000 with SGRAM, I get faster I/O bus throughput and gfx memory speeds than my Voodoo 4. This mainly helps with lower depths and CPU dependent gfx operations.

The display also looks sharper, doesn't compare to the ATI card for 2D though.

I agree and this was a well known fact back in the day. The Voodoo 4-5 has a sharper display than the Voodoo 3. I consider this a minor advantage though.

I can also over clock the Voodoo 5 higher than I could with the Voodoo 3 and the gains can be seen in frame rate. The latest drivers work fine for me. As for it needing additional power  it's no different than plugging in a HDD so not really a good reason to not get a Voodoo 5 if you can.

That's interesting because my Voodoo 3 was way more overclockable than my Voodoo 4 which I am not overclocking at all now (it had pixel problems with minor overclocking and the VSA-100 supposedly burns out easy with overclocking). My Voodoo 3 3000 would overclock by 20% easy and all day with no extra heat sinks or cooling. I never found the limit of overclocking but I stopped because the gains were minor and I don't like aggressive overclocking. Maybe the VSA-100s in your Voodoo 5 received a die shrink which would help with overclocking and power consumption.