<!–#set var="article_header" value="The Influence of CPU on Voodoo2 Performance” –>
Introduction
The easiest way of finding out if the CPU feeds data to the Voodoo² fast enough is comparing game frame rates at different resolutions. A higher resolution requires more rendering work for the 3D chip whilst not being any more work at all for the CPU. Hence you should expect a drop in frame rate as long as the 3D chip is the determinant factor. If there is no drop in frame rate, it shows that the 3D chip has got enough time for rendering at the higher resolution while waiting for data being delivered from the CPU.
Rage’s Incoming, ‘Lux et Robur’ Benchmarking Suite
Incoming is a great looking game that is pretty complex. Hence it requires a lot of calculations done by the CPU.
You can see a drop in frame rate in a system with a Pentium II 300 when using a single Voodoo² board. However there’s no drop at all, actually even a slight increase in frame rate when switching form 640×480 to 800×600 when running two Voodoo2 boards in SLI. This shows that even a Pentium II 300 is not able feeding the Voodoo2 with enough data at 640×480. It requires a CPU that’s significantly faster than this one.
A Pentium MMX 200 hasn’t got the slightest chance of supplying the Voodoo² with enough geometry data even in case of only a single Voodoo2 board. It’s actually quite surprising that there’s even a slight increase in frame rate when switching to higher resolutions, but this is most likely due to the special benchmark.
Acclaim’s Forsaken, Playable Demo
Forsaken is by far not as complex as Incoming is, the game shows a lot less details which makes it a good choice for people with less powerful systems.
The Pentium II system shows a similar effect to above, there’s not enough CPU power for the SLI configuration at 640×480.
Isn’t it surprising to see that in case of a Socket 7 system you will only get a higher resolution but no higher performance out of buying a second Voodoo² board.
Quake II
I guess it’s common knowledge that Quake II asks quite a bit of your system. High frame rates require fast CPUs, the CPU dependency is very high.
Ain’t it shocking? Quake II in multi player mode (is there any other mode of importance really?) plus Voodoo² requires a CPU that’s a LOT faster than a Pentium II 300 if you want to really take advantage of the Voodoo2 power. However it’s kind of cool to see that you can run Quake II at 1024×768 at almost the same frame rate as your friend with only one Voodoo2 board runs it at 640×480.
Wow! Quake II runs at the same speed at all resolutions, the Voodoo² is waiting for the Pentium MMX 200 a lot of time, it might as well have a cigarette break. (yeah, I know you’re an outlaw as smoker in the US)
GLQuake – The Grandfather of 3D Action Games
GLQuake requires a lot less CPU performance than Quake II, but in multi player mode it still asks for quite a bit of power.
Bigass1 shows, even GLQuake could do with more CPU power when running two Voodoo² boards in SLI.
The poor Pentium MMX 200 hasn’t got a chance of serving the Voodoo² well enough when playing GLQuake in multi player mode.
Things look different when running ‘timedemo demo2’. The Pentium II 300 CPU hasn’t got that much of a problem sending enough data to the Voodoo². This is what it should look in all benchmarks, alas the Pentium II 300 is simply too slow.
The Pentium MMX 200 is at least able to show some kind of difference in this ‘diet Quake 3D benchmark’, but it’s not up to feeding the Voodoo² in SLI config at 640×480.
