3dfx Driver Build 1.04.01: Increased Performance and Hidden Surface Removal (HSR) for the Voodoo4 and Voodoo5

Voodoo5 5500 - Unreal Tournament Performance

The minimum framerate recorded by Unreal Tournament increased significantly when going from the release drivers to the latest 1.04.01 drivers. With a framerate increase of 11.1 FPS or 30%, the minimum framerate recorded by the Voodoo5 5500 clocks in about 2 FPS faster than the minimum framerate that the GeForce2 GTS produced.

This increase is quite dramatic, as it shows that by simply upgrading the Voodoo5 5500's drivers one is able to significantly improve gameplay.

The average framerate associated with the Voodoo5 5500 remains relatively unchanged regardless of driver build. Although we saw a dramatic increase in minimum framerate, the average framerate is not affected. This is most likely due to the fact that the minimum framerate number is only hit very rarely during gameplay (under times of extreme system stress). Regardless of how the Voodoo5 5500's performance varies with driver build, the card remains 3% faster than the GeForce2 GTS at 640x480x32

Once again, we see minimum framerate dramatically increase with the latest Voodoo5 5500 drivers. Rising 19 %, the minimum framerate that the Voodoo5 5500 produced was 35 FPS. Although this is 5 FPS behind that of the GeForce2 GTS, it is a substantial improvement over the 30 FPS that the card previously produced.

Unlike at 640x480x32, the average framerate for the Voodoo5 5500 at 1024x768x32 increases with the latest driver build. The Voodoo5 5500 was able to increase performance by 4 % with the simple driver update and was able to narrow the margin of defeat down to 10%.

At 1600x1200x16, there is only so much that a driver can speed up hardware. The raw power of the Voodoo5 5500 is simply not enough to compete with the GeForce2 GTS, and therefore the Voodoo5 5500 is easily dominated. The lack of performance increase with the latest drivers suggests that the Voodoo5 5500 is no longer driver limited at this resolution but rather hardware limited.

Similar to the results we saw in the minimum framerate measurement of Unreal Tournament at 1600x1200x16, the Voodoo5 5500 appears to have hit its maximum performance regardless of drivers. The lack of performance increase between driver builds suggests that the Voodoo5 5500 is simply over powered by the GeForce2 GTS.