Reviews & Links

[socalgal]

I'm in the market and thought I would pass along this link from CNet - lots of reviews of up to date vidcards.

http://www.gamecenter.com/Hardware/Roundup/Voo3vstnt2/index.html

bye lots of research to do! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif


[This message has been edited by socalgal (edited 06-04-99).]

[Bleeding Edge]

What are you thinking of getting, socalgal?

I'm in the market too. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

Your thinking T2 V3?

[WhoKnowsWho]

I vote for a TNT2 if you don't have any old Glide games you want to play... I can't complain at all about my Guillemot Vanilla TNT2, low price, pretty good overclocking ability so far. If I really want to play something which is Glide, my old trusty V2 is available.

[Bleeding Edge]

WhoKwho.

If you were using a previous TNT card, I'm curiuos as how the two compare?

[Bleeding Edge]

Two good choices you have here. The G400Max is coming out in July. Hmm?, I read that somewhere.

I couldn't wait anymore. My indecision was killing me. Placed an order, 2-day air, on Monday for the Hercules TNT2 Ultra. No idea when it will actually ship. Definitely paying a premium I mentioned this already elsewhere. Were you there? I saw a review at Anandtech's earlier today. http://www.anandtech.com/

[socalgal]

Decisions, decisions...

Looking hard at:

Matrox G400Max. Currently have the old Matrox Mystique 4mg and have been happy with it. G400Max seems to have fine environmental bump mapping.. and a cool DualHead Display, but apparently won't divulge their clock speed http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif )

Nvidia Riva Ultra TNT2 seems to be a hands-down winner tho. (except for the Glide issue) But then, what vendor???

Voodoo3 is out; only supports 16mg mem and 16-bit texturing; and supports only AGP 2X without AGP texturing.

Matrox.. Nvidia + vendor... ???

[This message has been edited by socalgal (edited 06-04-99).]

[socalgal]

Oh, woe.

Online shipment available for G400 in 3-4 weeks. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif Then I could swear I saw it somewhere saying June 1999.. I LOVE the bump mapping. and 256 dual bus.

But the review noted it's extremely cpu dependent. I wonder how that would work out on a PII-400 or 450.

And I wonder about the Descent 3 demo problem. I downloaded the demo and couldn't run it with my current Matrox card... are some games not compatible? aahhhh!

Since I'll be running a Slot 1, it appears that the OpenGL ICD is "functional" yet the article alludes to more driver updates.

sigh.

So what made your decision to get Hercules? (the Dynamite, correct?) And what happened to Elsa?

[This message has been edited by socalgal (edited 06-05-99).]

[Bleeding Edge]

Elsa isn't shipping the Ultra version of the TNT2 yet. For this computer I don't need the Synergy II. There is another machine I may stick it in..

Hercules is the only company to who responded to my email. Stating all their cards retail cards will ship at the higher rated 175/200 clock speeds. They also include a overclocking utilitiy. Leaving the potential for a higher clock rate. Other makers are releasing their cards at 150/175. That doesn't guarantee every card will overclock to 175/200.

The main reason I decided on the TNT2 is the performance level of my current TNT. It is very good both in 2D/3D and business graphics and gaming. -it gave me a thrill went I first started it up with it's drivers installed. I still do in a way. But that urge. the need for speedier graphics. (Oh. I payed premium then too.)

The yet unamed NV10 chip from nVidia, scheduled to be release in late fall, will be the "real thing." But that is then. This is now.

I don't think the TNT2 Ultra will be much of a noticable difference in speed to the TNT. I hope to be pleasantly surprised. The defualt clock value on the my TNT is 90/110, I think. It maxes out at 110/120. There is a slight difference. So, we'll see about this TNT2 Ultra business.

It sounds like your assembling the parts for a new computer. I don't know the price difference of the 400vs450, but I think it's a valid place to save money or route the funds to another area. I been running a PII400 at 450, since swapping out the motherboard. You know about that. Could change the 128 memory module for one that's functons at a higher memory speed. Haven't decided yet.

So what are you going to do? How's that drive?

Edit-

Had a 8MB Matrox awhile back. It doesn't support many 3D features. That shouldn't be the case with the G400.

[This message has been edited by Bleeding Edge (edited 06-05-99).]

[socalgal]

That Hercules Dynamite is sure getting some good reviews. It does seem to have one of the best clock speeds at 175mhz and mem.freq. at 200mhz. They say nothing bad about it except the high price.

The G400 OpenGl drivers issue bothered me. But Matrox' website says the ICD Beta2 release (in the box) and download offers support for six OpenGL-based games under Windows 98/95 including, Quake II, Quake, Half Life, Sin, Heretic II and Hexen II. The ICD Beta2 also offers support for two professional 3D applications, 3D Studio Max 2.5 and Lightwave 3D 5.5 under Windows 98/95.

The G400 clock speed must be 166MHz. (according to Sharky's math). The D3D stats are great. 256-bit DBA. Future expansion AGP4x.

But again the cpu scalability bothers me. But running it on a PII-400/450, this is still considered "high-end" ??? and looks like the cpu dependence may not be that great there.

Like I related previously, I'm not a hard core gamer. I do love great image quality along with above average performance. I like the Dual Head options for DVD/other applications (tho this will be somewhere down the line for me). The price is high (but so is Hercules').

I have narrowed it down to two it would seem.
Maybe I'll just buy both, try em both and see for myself. Now I need to look at MicroTimes and make some phone calls. And check out what's happening at the puter show today.

Have you found out when your card will ship?

Oh LOLA's drive is fine http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif I got Cacheman 360 and will tweak with that sometime. Right now too involved with this new system to tweak with LOLA (I hope she doesn't get too jealous) http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

The Caviar 13G hopefully will go on the BX6 today, or tomorrow.


[This message has been edited by socalgal (edited 06-05-99).]

[socalgal]

Update.

Well it's gets down now to rechecking these cards to make sure they include DVD encoding. (i think that's what I need to check).

I have "Sirius" up and running. Thanks in large part to our mutual bud.

Abit BX6 (flashed to handle PIII)
PIII 450 @ 504
64mgs PC66 SDRAM
WD Caviar 13G UDMA/66
Panasonic 5xDVD/32xCD-ROM
FDD, keyboard, mouse
no monitor yet

Got the PIII, DVD, FDD at the CSUN puter show - for a really good price. Even saw my WD hdd there for almost half the price I paid at Fry's - on sale - one month ago (boo hoo) None of the new vidcards were there tho. So they are still too new to be "out there" I guess.

Still need to tx the USR 56k from LOLA to Sirius, get a sound card and order some PC100 SDRAM.

Whoa this is too much fun! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/biggrin.gif



[This message has been edited by socalgal (edited 06-06-99).]

[Bleeding Edge]

Sounds good! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif