[an error occurred while processing this directive]

August 2002 3Digest -
3DLabs Visual Processor, 128MB





This chip is presented by 3DLabs Wildcat VP870 128MB DDR, AGP card.




Features:

3Dlabs has recently announced its new, revolutionary solution - P10 GPU, renamed to VPU (Visual Processing Unit or just Visual Processor) afterwards. We reviewed it together with a card on it. Now I'll just say that currently VPU are produced for professional applications, but we advisedly included this card into the 3Digest. Soon Creative, as a new owner of 3DLabs, plans to announced a gaming solution based on the VPU, so it was interesting to test this card with drivers NOT OPTIMIZED for games to compare the results with game drivers in the future.

There will be three cards on the VPU. Today we review the middle one - Wildcat VP870.

On the 10th of August 2002 the latest drivers version from 3DLabs is 4.23.

There are some problems: Sacrifice, Neverwinter Nights, Max Payne do not run, and Renegade reboots the system. There's some criticism about the performance in Morrowind, shown on the screenshots. The behavior in Unreal 2 (alpha) was interesting: having 1024x768 resolution in configuration files, the game run at 1920x1080 on this card. Though it's more of an advancement, as this game doesn't run on ATI cards at all.

VP870 causes a number of artefacts in a number of games:












Again, we've tested the professional card in game apps. And below you can compare the screenshots with reference images, obtained with NVIDIA GeForce3.

Games / Cards 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
3Dlabs Wildcat VP870












































-














NVIDIA GeForce3


































































Game list:

  • 1. Return to Castle Wolfenstein
  • 2. Unreal2 (alpha version)
  • 3. Comanche4
  • 4. Jedi Knight II Outcast
  • 5. Morrowind
  • 6. Colin McRAE Rally2
  • 7. Red Faction
  • 8. Rally Trophy
  • 9. Sacrifice
  • 10. Venom
  • 11. Unreal Tournament 2003 DEMO
  • 12. Real MYST
Games / Cards 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
3Dlabs Wildcat VP870




-









































NVIDIA GeForce3





















































Game list:

  • 13. Blade of Darkness
  • 14. Neverwinter Nights
  • 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. Warcraft III
  • 24. Soldier of Fortune II
Games / Cards 25 26 27 28 29 30
3Dlabs Wildcat VP870 - -



















NVIDIA GeForce3































Game list:

  • 25. Command and Conquer: Renegade
  • 26. Max Payne
  • 27. AquaNox
  • 28. Serious Sam: The Second Encounter
  • 29. IL2: Shturmovik
  • 30. MoHAA


Andrey Vorobiev (Anvakams@ixbt.com)
Alexander Kondakov (kondalex@ixbt.com)
Evgeniy Zaycev (eightn@ixbt.com)



Article navigation:



  Most Popular Reviews More   RSS  

Intel Core i5-660/661 Processors

The long-awaited dual-core solutions for the LGA1156 platform.
Jan 09, 2010 · Processors: Intel

AMD Athlon II X3 425, 435 Processors

Three cores for the price of two.
Oct 30, 2009 · Processors: AMD

E-MU 0404 USB

A top-class external audio interface.
Nov 23, 2006 · ProAudio

Intel H55, H57 Chipsets

Integrated chipsets for lower-end Nehalem processors.
Jan 18, 2010 · Chipsets

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1

An external X-Fi solution in tests.
Sep 09, 2008 · Sound Cards
  Latest Reviews More   RSS  

ASUS M4A785G HTPC/RC Motherboard

A microATX board with a high-quality audio codec and a remote.
Feb 05, 2010 · Motherboards

Thermaltake Element G Mid Tower Case

Compact size, fan controller, and stylish lights.
Feb 03, 2010 · General Platform

ATI RADEON HD 5670 Graphics Card

A low-end solution with DirectX 11 support.
Feb 02, 2010 · Video cards: ATI GPUs

i3DSpeed, January 2010

Updated the list of benchmarks. Added test results for Radeon HD 5670.
Feb 01, 2010 · 3Digests

Intel Celeron E3300 Processor

A full-fledged low-end solution or a "socket stub?"
Jan 29, 2010 · Processors: Intel
  Latest News More   RSS  
 
  Useful Links Get listed  

Platform  ·  Video  ·  Multimedia  ·  Mobile  ·  Other  ·  Compare Prices  ||  Feedback  ·  Advertise at iXBT Labs  ·  About us  ·  Affiliates  ·  Forum


52

Copyright © Byrds Research & Publishing, Ltd., 1997—2010. All rights reserved.