March 2002 3Digest - NVIDIA GeForce2 MX200 32 MBytes AGP

This chip is presented by SUMA Platinum GeForce2 MX200 32 MBytes AGP videocard.

Features:

NVIDIA GeForce2 MX200 chip, 175 MHz clock rate;
32 MBytes SDR SDRAM memory in 4 Hyundai 6ns microchips, 166 MHz clock rate , 64-bit bus;
Peak fill rate in the multitexturing mode is 350 megapixels/sec and 700 megatexels/sec.

Wasn't overclocked.

When NVIDIA released budget solutions based on a pared-down GeForce2 in the summer of the year 2000, it has become clear that it was not enough for manufacturers to actively implement Hardware T&L into their products, as there were many old videocards like TNT2/TNT2Pro for sale, and NVIDIA decided to release the even more pared-down variant of GeForce2, which, besides SDR memory, had 64-bit bus. It was named 'GeForce2 MX200'. Read more about this product in the video section of iXBT.com.

Now these cards are leaving the market (still they won't disappear soon as there's a great many of them), being replaced by senior models with reducing prices.

For the 10th of March 2002 the latest drivers from NVIDIA are 27.50, 27.70 for Windows 9x/ME and 27.50, 27.51, 27.70 for Windows XP.

Windows ME

Windows XP

As latest driver tests showed, there's no need to use the latest novelties, as old 12.* and 14.* versions are the most stable for MX200. And also maybe 21.85.

I shall mark that overlay settings tab is disabled in a number of 14.*, 21.88, and 22.* versions. It may be enabled with RivaTuner utility.

You can get more information about problems of various NVIDIA drivers at the NVIDIA World site.

You can compare screenshots with reference ones (NVIDIA GeForce3).

Games / Cards	1	2	3	4	5	6
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX200
NVIDIA GeForce3

Games / Cards	7	8	9	10	11	12
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX200
NVIDIA GeForce3

Games / Cards	13	14	15	16	17	18
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX200						-
NVIDIA GeForce3

Games / Cards	19	20	21	22	23	24
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX200		-		-
NVIDIA GeForce3

Games / Cards	25	26	27	28	29	30
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX200
NVIDIA GeForce3

Game list:

1. Return to Castle Wolfenstein
2. Unreal2 - for GeForce cards, Unreal - for all other
3. Comanche4
4. No One Lives Forever
5. Serious Sam
6. Colin McRAE Rally2
7. Red Faction
8. Rally Trophy
9. Sacrifice
10. Venom
11. Need For Speed V (Porshe 2000)
12. Real MYST
13. Blade of Darkness
14. Giants
15. 3DMark2001: Game1
16. 3DMark2001: Game2
17. 3DMark2001: Game3
18. 3DMark2001: Game4
19. 3DMark2001: Dot3
20. 3DMark2001: EMBM
21. 3DMark2001: Vertex Shaders
22. 3DMark2001: Pixel Shaders
23. Black & White
24. Undying
25. Command and Conquer: Renegade
26. Max Payne
27. AquaNox
28. Serious Sam II
29. IL2: Shturmovik
30. MoHAA

There are some games that require something more powerful than this card. Look at Rally Trophy screenshot - we've had to lower quality, but the game was very slow even at medium settings and disabled reflections.

I shall mark that these cards sometimes have Z-buffer working incorrectly in 32-bit mode when Z-buffer itself is 16-bit, what causes artefacts. Such problems were noticed on some games with Unreal Tournament engine. Thus I recommend you to use utilities like Riva Tuner for fine tuning, and pay attention to Direct3D settings of such games.

2D quality is excellent for working with monitors smaller than 21". Soaping effects can be seen only on some low-quality monitors in 1600x1200. And I shall mark that there may be some incompatibilities of SUMA cards with a number of motherboards and monitors. And 6.* drivers are not compatible with the software for sound cards based on Yamaha processor, as well as with SoftXG100 software synthesizer. Start or Close Window buttons can be spoiled by some "garbage" in 2D mode. So we recommend to look for the latest WDM drivers from Yamaha.