September'2001 3Digest -
NVIDIA GeForce 256 SDR 64bit
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By Andrey Vorobiev
This chip is presented by ASUS AGP-V6600MX, 32 MBytes, AGP videocard.
Features:
- NVIDIA GeForce 256 SDR chip, 120 MHz clock rate;
- 32 MBytes SDR SDRAM memory in four Winbond 7ns microchips, 143 MHz clock
rate , 64-bit bus;
- Peak speed of scene drawing in multitexturing mode is 240 megapixels/sec
and 480 megatexels/sec.
Wasn't overclocked.
We've got a "sell anyhow" card from ASUSTEK here. Nobody
buys old GeForce256 SDR 64 MBytes cards, so they halved the memory, simultaneously
spoiling the bus, as it was designed for 16-bit microchips only (16*4=64bit).
In addition memory clock rate was lowered. So we get a modern variant
of Riva TNT2M64 with HW TCL, Bump Mapping, Cube Texturing, trilinear
filtering support, and the price will not be low, in ASUSTEK traditions.
But somebody still might buy it.
For the 20th of September'2001 the latest drivers from NVIDIA are 14.70
and 21.81.
We were unable to test this card on Pentium III platform as after replacing
Chaintech 6OJV motherboard with new 6OJV2 revision it turned out that
AGP slot had special latches, preventing AGP Pro cards from installation.
I advise you to read about S3TC influence on speed and perfomance,
because S3TC realization in OpenGL is important nowadays, and it shows
good results. Especially on this 'stub'.
There are no 3D quality problems in any game. You can compare screenshots
with the reference ones (NVIDIA GeForce3).
Game list:
- 1. Quake3
- 2. Unreal
- 3. Unreal Tournament
- 4. No One Lives Forever
- 5. Serious Sam
- 6. Colin McRAE Rally2
- 7. American McGee's Alice
- 8. Mercedes Benz Truck Racing
- 9. Sacrifice
- 10. F.A.K.K. 2
- 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. Anachronox
- 26. Max Payne
2D quality is good enough. Only in 1600x1200 you can see some "soaping"
effects on some monitors. The majority of users will be satisfied. And
I shall mark that 6.* version 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.
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