September'2001 3Digest
Dual ATI RAGE 128 PRO (MAXX)
By Andrew
Worobyew
This tandem is presented by ATI RAGE MAXX 64 MBytes,
AGP videocard.
Features:
- Two ATI RAGE 128 PRO chips, 125 MHz clock rate;
- Two 32 MBytes SDRAM memory banks in four SEC 7ns microchips
each, 143 MHz clock rate, 128-bit bus;
- Peak speed of scene drawing in multitexturing mode is 250 megapixels/sec
and 500 megatexels/sec.
Wasn't tweaked due to specificial drivers. PowerStrip
utility couldn't help either.
This cards has been loudly & proudly released
in January'2000 and has made a real competition to NVIDIA GeForce256
cards. But ATI has had to cancel it due to some technological development
mistakes. And now the situation is rather sad with this card because
ATI has "left" it. No mass production, no new drivers,
no Windows '2000 support. It's a pity to see such an abandoned product.
For the 20th of April'2001 the last drivers version
is ATI - 6.40 cd15.
And there's no much difference in perfomance
between various versions of drivers.
Many artefacts that showed up on ATI RAGE 128 PRO
are present here as well. There are texture bugs in Unreal and Unreal
Tournament:
I must add that drivers do not allow the card to
fully use AGP4x mode on KT133A systems and it locks up in this 3D
mode.
Below to the left are screenshots taken on RAGE
MAXX, and to the right - reference ones taken on NVIDIA GeForce3.
Quake3:
Unreal:
Unreal Tournament:
No One Lives Forever:
Serious Sam:
Colin McRAE Rally2:
American McGee's Alice:
Mercedes Benz Truck Racing:
Sacrifice:
FAKK2:
Need For Speed 5 (Porshe 2000):
Real MYST:
Blade of Darkness:
Giants:
3DMark2001 Pro, GAME1:
3DMark2001 Pro, GAME2:
3DMark2001 Pro, GAME3:
3DMark2001 Pro, Vertex Shaders:
Black & White:
Undying:
Need For Speed: Porshe 2000 lacks fog. And Sacrifice work normally
with disabled fog only.
Real MYST shows unpleasant moire, texture blinking and sand effects:
And there are also sudden perfomance overfalls in ultra-high resolutions
(1280x1024 and higher).
2D quality is good enough for gameplay and is on the level of ATI RAGE
128 PRO because it works on the same chip. Only in 1600x1200 slight
soaping effects appear on some monitors.
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