3D Card Update by Loyd Case
Eric T. Busch
Loyd Case of CGW:
"Okay, here's some of my preliminary findings for this month's round of
graphics cards. I've been running a lot of tests for the CGW graphics card
roundup. While I know everyone wants numbers, I'm gonna wait until I
finish the second half (the article's going to be a two parter, running in
the November and December issues).
The cards I tested in this batch were (chipset in parentheses):
STB Lightspeed 128 (ET6000)
Best Windows performance of the ET6k cards. Slightly slower (but only a
very little) in DOS than the Herc. Nice software bundle, if you're into
that (Earthsiege 2, Silent Thunder, first ten missions of Terra Nova).
Hercules Dynamite 128/V (ET6000)
Slowest Windows performance of the ET6k cards, best DOS performance. Same
Hercules utilities & support.
Videologic Grafixstar 600 (ET6000)
Slowest in DOS of the ET6k cards. Duke Nukem 3D performance was a good 5
fps slower (35 vs 40). Also, Quake took on a decided greenish cast running
in VESA mode, which Scitech's Display Doctor cleared up.
Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 - 4 MB version (S3 ViRGE)
This was the smoothest implementation of the ViRGE I've seen. Good Windows
and DOS performance. The DOS performance was better than past S3 cards,
but not on a par with the ET6000. Direct3D testing showed it to be the
fastest in 3D of the ViRGE cards tested by a few percentage points.
Hercules Terminator 3D - 4 MB version
This will be the least expensive of the 4 MB cards (let's just say WELL
under $200 for a 4 MB card...) Its 3D performance lagged the Stealth's a
bit, as did the DOS performance, by just a bit.
Number Nine Reality/332fx
This was something of a disappointment. It was the slowest of the ViRGE
cards in Direct3D testing, middling average in DOS. Most expensive of the
three ($199 for 2 MB). There is no 4 MB version.
Matrox Mystique
Also something of a disappointment, but more because I had high
expectations after the Millenium. The Mystique lacks some key features,
such as bilinear filtering, alpha blending for transparency and fog
effects. It had the fastest Windows performance of all the cards I tested
(no surprise there), but the Direct3D testing was mixed. It can move
pixels REALLY fast, but this didn't translate into fast polygon rendering.
The Mystique version of Mechwarrior 2 runs at 640x400 in Windows 95, looks
better than the stock version, but looks much less pretty than the ATI
version. DOS performance was good, too, maybe a bit better than the
Millenium. It's around $269 for 4 MB.
ATI 3D Xpression PC2TV
All right, let's all lug our PC's into the family room and hook 'em up to
the big screen TV. The new ATI card, using the Rage/2 chip, has built-in
NTSC capability. I don't know if you can have it connected to a computer
monitor and an NTSC display simultaneously, but if it can, the folks doing
Falcon 4 should check it out. Or maybe you guys who brag about your
Warbird antics can videotape them now...
As for performance, DOS performance was mediocre--not bad, mind you, but we
expect more these days. DOS VGA was pretty slow, SVGA somewhat better.
Windows performance was pretty good, and Direct3D performance on a par with
the Mystique and the S3 cards--not great, but not as horrible as everyone's
been painting them, either. Mechwarrior 2, although only running at
512x384, looks terrific. Polygon count of moving objects have increased,
all textures are filtered (and there are ground and sky textures) and the
color map animation in the sky looks great.
Diamond Monster 3D and Orchid Righteous 3D
These cards uses the 3Dfx chipset, and is an add-on board, requiring a
second PCI slot and a VGA pass-through cable (supplied). I've only tested
it with the Lightspeed 128 so far (that's not an endorsement of the STB
card necessarily; it was the one I had in at the time when I tested the
3Dfx boards). The 3D image quality on both 3Dfx boards is stunning. The
Diamond board is a tad slower than the Orchid board, and the Orchid
utilities are a bit nicer. Other than that, both boards blew away the
Direct3D tests. The 3D performance margin was easily 3-4 times that of the
other boards, with more features to turn on, on the benchmarks. I had one
Direct3D game, Hellbender. The Diamond card never dipped below 25 fps on
Hellbender, and the Orchid card maintained 29-30 fps. The multipurpose 3D
cards (S3, ATI, Mystique) ran Hellbender at frame rates ranging from 4 - 19
fps depending upon how furious the action. Pricing will be a bit under
$300, and software bundles aren't yet final, but both boards will be
shipping fairly soon.
That's it for this month. Next month, I'll look at the 3D Blaster, a
PowerVR card, maybe a Permedia card or two, the high-end ATI card, a couple
of ViRGE/VX parts and possibly a Number Nine Imagine/128 series 2.
As ever,
Loyd Case"
--
Eric T. Busch <ebu...@emory.edu>
Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/