October'2001 3Digest:
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 32 MBytes 5.5 ns AGP
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By Andrey Vorobiev
This chip is presented by SUMA Platinum GeForce2 MX PowerUp 32 MBytes 5.5 ns, AGP videocard.
Features:
- NVIDIA GeForce2 MX chip, 175 MHz clock rate;
- 32 MBytes SDR SDRAM memory in four Hyundai 5.5ns microchips, 183 MHz
clock rate , 128-bit bus;
- Peak speed of scene drawing in multitexturing mode is 350 megapixels/sec
and 700 megatexels/sec.
Wasn't overclocked.
I want to mark that the newer variant of this card with analog SIF filter is
available now.
This card is the same as the first one, but video output and VGA jack are placed
in the daughter board instead of PCB just to improve 2D quality in some
very high resolutions. Read all details in our review of SUMA Platinum
cards.
After the release of GeForce256 cards, NVIDIA representatives have
began to understand that following releases wouldn't replace previous
cards due to the short period between the new releases. Therefore it
has been decided to build a so-called 'ladder' of the market niches,
so that every accelerator would have belonged to one of them according
its price and perfomance. The release of GeForce2 GTS has been marked
by a much higher price for them than for any other of the previous cards.
It has been meant that a cheap solution named GeForce2 MX would follow
the release of more expensive variants to occupy a low cost niche and
to replace more expensive and less faster GeForce256 cards. So, the
Summer'2000 has brought us GeForce2 MX that is still very popular today.
And though this exact GPU is the lowest, its speed and perfomance features
very well correspond to the low price for such cards. Cards with faster
memory occupy a better position, and that is important from the point
of perfomance.
For the 20th of October'2001 the latest drivers from NVIDIA are 15.50,
20.80, 21.83 and 21.85. As the drivers differences are equal for all
MX/MX400 cards, there's no sense in comparing drivers separately for
each of these cards. See NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 32 MBytes section for more information
about drivers.
You can compare screenshots taken on this card with reference ones taken on NVIDIA GeForce3.
Game list:
- 1. Quake3 Arena
- 2. Unreal2 - for GeForce cards, Unreal - for all other
- 3. Unreal Tournament
- 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. Anachronox
- 26. Max Payne
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 very good for working with up to 21" monitors. Soaping
effects can be seen only on some low-quality monitors in 1600x1200. And
I shall mark that there are October 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.
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