Unreal (timedemo) — Frame-rate on 1998 retro PC (Pentium II 400 / 3Dfx Voodoo2 / Windows 98)
Dipshidian
411 views
REAL PERIOD-CORRECT HARDWARE CAPTURE IN 4:3 ASPECT RATIO.
Here is the recognizable flyby timedemo benchmark from Unreal (Epic Megagames/GT Interactive/Digital Extremes, 1998), being made run in Glide, as well as in multiple other rendering modes, on the Voodoo 2. It's a short but hopefully interesting enough video for anyone wondering about the exact frame-rate numbers when using the Pentium II 400 and Voodoo2 in this timedemo. No V-sync and frame-rate caps, this is the real deal!
Kudos to Xan0906 and Sergio Alonso for commenting and for providing much needed constructive criticism of my footage!
The footage was recorded from both Unreal version/build 220 (December 1998) and 225f (May 1999), using the official unrealbeta220.zip and unrealpatch225f.exe patch files (I updated the build 200 retail CD-ROM release). Build 220 is the first version to include the 'timedemo' command for easy frame-rate-based benchmarking (older builds only had milliseconds-per-frame indicators via the 'stat fps' command).
- GAME SETTINGS - -
For the build 220 footage: I used the exact same settings as seen at the start of the video
For build 225f: I only disabled VSync for 3dfx Glide. Other than that, the default rendering settings were used for all APIs/modes. I did forget to bump up the audio sample rate from 22KHz to 44KHz after patching the game from build 220 to 225f, though (not that it makes a big frame-rate difference on a Pentium II).
- SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS -
Operating system used: Microsoft Windows 98 (First Edition/FE).
Drivers used for Matrox Millennium II: Matrox PowerDesk 4.21 (September/October 1998).
Drivers used for Sound Blaster Live: 4.05.1026 VXD (September 1998).
Drivers used for Voodoo2: Glide 2.54 (October 1998).
This footage and audio was captured from the following computer:
Dell Dimension XPS R400 case and motherboard (manufactured on April 30th 1998 according to case label)
Intel 440BX chipset
Intel Pentium II 400 Mhz processor (S-Spec SL2S7, manufactured week 14 1998)
Matrox Millennium II AGP (8MB) video card (2164W chip manufactured week 4 1998)
Creative Labs 3D Blaster Voodoo 2 (CT6670) (12MB) 3D accelerator card (old variant with dark-colored circuit board, board manufactured week 9 1998)
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! (CT4620) sound card (board manufactured week 21 1998)
192MBs of PC100 SDR SDRAM (1x128MB & 1x64MB DIMM, manufactured week 42 1998 & week 11 1998)
The capturing was done with VCS (VisionRGB Capture Scaler) and OBS Studio using a Datapath VisionRGB-E1S PCI-Express capture card plugged into the following system: ASUS Maximus IV Extreme motherboard, Intel Core i7-2600K CPU, 8 GBs DDR3 SDRAM, nVidia GTX 580 video card. A VGA-to-DVI cable is connected between the source computer and the Datapath capture card to enable video capturing. Audio capture was done by feeding a 3.5mm stereo jack cable into the line in on the motherboard from the sound card of the vintage computer. Resizing/upscaling of the raw original 640x480 capture to 2560x1920 was done using VirtualDub2.
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Configurations
1:05 - Glide, Build 220
2:10 - Glide, Build 225f
3:12 - Software, 320x240
4:17 - Software, 640x480
5:22 - Direct3D, Build 220
6:25 - Direct3D, Build 225f
7:28 - OpenGL
#unreal #unrealengine #epicgames #megagames #3dfx #glide #voodoo2 #intel #pentium2 #software #datapath #upscaling #framerate #fps #benchmark #stresstest #comparison
4 Comments
You can't go wrong...
Voodoo 2 was three times faster than one year older brother.
Unreal? an absolute next gen FPP game
I am pretty sure previous year has something similar.
Quake 1 + Voodoo 1 combo !
Glide forever
Thanks for nice comparison, good memories Dipshidian !
Unreal (timedemo) — Frame-rate on 1998 retro PC (Pentium II 400 / 3Dfx Voodoo2 / Windows 98)
Dipshidian
411 views
REAL PERIOD-CORRECT HARDWARE CAPTURE IN 4:3 ASPECT RATIO.
Here is the recognizable flyby timedemo benchmark from Unreal (Epic Megagames/GT Interactive/Digital Extremes, 1998), being made run in Glide, as well as in multiple other rendering modes, on the Voodoo 2. It's a short but hopefully interesting enough video for anyone wondering about the exact frame-rate numbers when using the Pentium II 400 and Voodoo2 in this timedemo. No V-sync and frame-rate caps, this is the real deal!
Kudos to Xan0906 and Sergio Alonso for commenting and for providing much needed constructive criticism of my footage!
The footage was recorded from both Unreal version/build 220 (December 1998) and 225f (May 1999), using the official unrealbeta220.zip and unrealpatch225f.exe patch files (I updated the build 200 retail CD-ROM release). Build 220 is the first version to include the 'timedemo' command for easy frame-rate-based benchmarking (older builds only had milliseconds-per-frame indicators via the 'stat fps' command).
- GAME SETTINGS - -
For the build 220 footage: I used the exact same settings as seen at the start of the video
For build 225f: I only disabled VSync for 3dfx Glide. Other than that, the default rendering settings were used for all APIs/modes. I did forget to bump up the audio sample rate from 22KHz to 44KHz after patching the game from build 220 to 225f, though (not that it makes a big frame-rate difference on a Pentium II).
- SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS -
Operating system used: Microsoft Windows 98 (First Edition/FE).
Drivers used for Matrox Millennium II: Matrox PowerDesk 4.21 (September/October 1998).
Drivers used for Sound Blaster Live: 4.05.1026 VXD (September 1998).
Drivers used for Voodoo2: Glide 2.54 (October 1998).
This footage and audio was captured from the following computer:
Dell Dimension XPS R400 case and motherboard (manufactured on April 30th 1998 according to case label)
Intel 440BX chipset
Intel Pentium II 400 Mhz processor (S-Spec SL2S7, manufactured week 14 1998)
Matrox Millennium II AGP (8MB) video card (2164W chip manufactured week 4 1998)
Creative Labs 3D Blaster Voodoo 2 (CT6670) (12MB) 3D accelerator card (old variant with dark-colored circuit board, board manufactured week 9 1998)
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! (CT4620) sound card (board manufactured week 21 1998)
192MBs of PC100 SDR SDRAM (1x128MB & 1x64MB DIMM, manufactured week 42 1998 & week 11 1998)
The capturing was done with VCS (VisionRGB Capture Scaler) and OBS Studio using a Datapath VisionRGB-E1S PCI-Express capture card plugged into the following system: ASUS Maximus IV Extreme motherboard, Intel Core i7-2600K CPU, 8 GBs DDR3 SDRAM, nVidia GTX 580 video card. A VGA-to-DVI cable is connected between the source computer and the Datapath capture card to enable video capturing. Audio capture was done by feeding a 3.5mm stereo jack cable into the line in on the motherboard from the sound card of the vintage computer. Resizing/upscaling of the raw original 640x480 capture to 2560x1920 was done using VirtualDub2.
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Configurations
1:05 - Glide, Build 220
2:10 - Glide, Build 225f
3:12 - Software, 320x240
4:17 - Software, 640x480
5:22 - Direct3D, Build 220
6:25 - Direct3D, Build 225f
7:28 - OpenGL
#unreal #unrealengine #epicgames #megagames #3dfx #glide #voodoo2 #intel #pentium2 #software #datapath #upscaling #framerate #fps #benchmark #stresstest #comparison
Thanks to everyone who commented and left constructive criticism on my last failed Unreal timedemo upload! You know who you are!
Here are some points about the footage:
(1) I left hardware 3D audio off to make sure it didn't influence performance. This will likely deduct a few extra frames/sec. on average if EAX 1.0 is enabled, and maybe a bit more with A3D enabled.
(2) Normally, coronas/light flares and reflective floors are disabled in software rendering mode, but I decided to enable them for this footage.
(3) The rendering settings for the Voodoo 2 were left at their default values. Only Vertical Sync was disabled, and triple buffering was enabled (in the control panel), to better reflect how the card performs in both stressful and less stressful scenes.
(4) OpenGL performance was originally implemented for the nVidia Riva TNT, which is likely why it "runs" so poorly on the Voodoo2.