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To: Piranha who wrote (11135)	3/15/1999 2:46:00 AM
From: Tae Spam Kim	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16960

Lots of competition ahead: -TnT2/Ultra TnT -Metabyte Dual TnT/TnT2 Feature -Savage4 -Matrox G400 -NV10 Can we be sure that 3dfx will beat these cards with Rampage in a timely fashion? Let's hope, but I'd rather be sure than hope. Heck if they specs for Playstation 2 are on target, we may all be playing games on Playstation 2 for years to come with the best graphics. -Tae

To: Piranha who wrote (11135)	3/15/1999 2:53:00 AM
From: Tae Spam Kim	Respond to of 16960

another .plan update: Programmer, Xatrix Entertainment 14-Mar-99 --------- Just to add to Brian Hook's recent comparisons between a TNT in 16bit mode versus the Voodoo2.. the TNT will deliver quite a large visual quality difference over the V2 in Kingpin. The TNT can handle dark textures much better, and also will store textures using 32bit texels, so for some weapon skins that have an alpha map, they'll look better on a TNT in both 16 and 32 bit color depths. Also, the V2 doesn't like blending a dark texture into the scene using a low alpha modulation, due to the way it calculates the blend result. For this reason, effects like smoke will use a different blending method on V2 (additive) rather than the TNT's more realistic blend. The end result, is smoke on a V2 looks more like steam (since it's brighter), whereas the TNT shows a thick dark-grey smoke effect. Nevertheless, we're still seeing more robust performance during large battles using the V2, where the TNT can struggle to keep up the pace. I'm currently working on optimizations for this though, since we still consider framerate the #1 priority. 13-Mar-99 --------- Hurry up TNT2. If you're looking at buying a new 3D card right now, my advice, is to hold off for a month or so, and check out the TNT2. Kingpin will rock your socks with that little gem.

To: Piranha who wrote (11135)	3/15/1999 2:54:00 AM
From: Tae Spam Kim	Respond to of 16960

One of the programmers of Quake 3: Episode 5 - The Hook Strikes Back - 8:55pm MST - Chris "Firehawk" Nell Sheesh...how many .plan updates can the man do in one weekend? Quite a few, apparently... Here's what the GrandMaster had to say this time: Another common question is "If V2/V3 are so fast, why would anyone want to get a TNT/TNT2/R128/S4?" The biggest downsides to running on a Voodoo vs. a 32-bit accelerator are: - blurier textures (both because of gl_picmip 1 and the 256x256 max texture size) - reduced image quality because of banding - no stencil buffer volumetric shadows (which aren't a first tier feature of the graphics engine anyway) So if you have a V2, you're not missing out on THAT much compared to a TNT, but the TNT will definitely look better in 32-bit mode. The only thing a TNT in 16-bit mode offers over the V2 are A.) no need to gl_picmip and B.) larger max texture size, which translates to crisper textures.