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Here´s my KyroII review...
ok, if you have patience and read http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum3/HTML/003949.html you´ll know the previous story...
I´ve tested it with a AMD 750 socket A board, wich means fsb and memory at 100 Mhz and default cpu speed of 900 Mhz. So in terms of CPU performance it should be lagging behind the previous A7V-998Mhz-111 Mhz fsb- 148 Mhz Cas3 memory I had.
About the card: It´s an OEM version, it came on a white box, with only the drivers and a manual. It has 5 ns memory, and this is a complete waste. Why? because it´s a dog to overclock. AT 185 mhz it starts to display graphical errors, so the sweet spot should be between 180-185, but who cares?
Instalation: if we forget yesterday´s nightmare, it installed like a charm on this gigabyte motherboard. Had to reinstall win2k (yes, it´s win2k will be talking about) , though (AMD 750 being slighty diferent from Via KT133
). I installed generic 7.103 drivers, although Hercules released today its own driver based on those ones.
2D display: The only thing I noticed was the desktop colors are slightly less vivid than with the G400. It´s just as sharp as the G400 on my 19´´ monitor (desktop@ 1280x960x32). The limiting factor here may be the monitor, but the fact the text is still very readable at 1600x1200x32 is a good sign. You´ll not be disapointed with 2d quality, I´m sure. No 2d aparent glitches so far, no crashes, no icon corruption. Good. It *seems* that the 2D is slighlty slower (like scrolling a big web page) than the G400, but I don´t know how much I´m influenced by sort of expecting it...
It hasn´t any kind of monitor/resolution/refresh rate customization, and D3D and OpenGl games still start at 60 hz refresh rate. This is a big minus, Matrox has it since early win2k drivers. But the good news it that you can do exactly the same with powerstrip 3.0. It´s sad you have to use a 3rd party utility to do it.
3D display: Excelent. It has a color saturation and crispiness comparable to the G400, and miles away from the slightly whashed-out feeling of nvidia cards (haven´t seen the GF3 yet). One strong point is 16 bit games. It´s unbeliavable how good they look on they kyro. Damn, where´s all that colored spots (dithering) I was used to?? And the feeling it gives on gaming is excelent. Framerate averages doesn´t tell the whole story. In real gaming you notice a very consistent frame-rate, without noticeable slowdowns. Very good.
Now here´s some impressions/numbers from a text I´ve been writing this afternoon The Kyro numbers are at 180/180 and G400 are at 150/200.
Collin McRae 2 Demo
Despite the ocasional slowdowns, common to all graphic cards, AFAIK, (not sure if this was corrected on the final game), it´s absolutely superb at 1024x768x32 at max details, EMBM on. Tottaly fluid. Forcing tex xompression give a nice boost without any noticeable visual abnomalties.
Alice Demo
Superb. Absolutely fuid gameplay everything maxed. Texture compression causes some very minor graphical glitches, only noticeable if you actually pay attention to the non-compressed textures version.
Beetle buggin´Demo
Don´t really know if anyone knows of this one, but it runs perfectly, too. Forcing texture compression also doesn´t cause any strange effects, but it isn´t really necessary because the game is limited to 1024x768x32.
Breakneck demo
Runs fine even at 1600x1200x32 Not a surprise here, N.I.C.E. ran good even on a G200... Nice one to try monter antialiasing and anisotropic...
Clive Barker´s Undying demo
Totally terrifing game. Not for the fainted hearted people. Yes, it rocks on the kyro.
Crimson Skies Trial
Runs fine and smooth, limited to 1024x768. Texture compression not recomended because it induces some ugly banding on the sky.
Deus Ex demo
Run aceptably up to 1024x32. Compressed textures don´t help to much, so the video card shouldn´t be the bottleneck... Don+t really know how much DeusEx likes win2k/PC100 memory.
Ducati Racing
Below-average motoracer clone, it flies on teh Kyro, but someone want´s to play it is beyond me...
Echeleon demo
This one has EMBM and it rocks on the kyro...
Everglade Rush demo
Racing boat game, it runs like sh!t... It also did on the G400. A slide show, various rendering errors, I don´t really know if this game runs in anything else but a Ge-force.
Far Gate demo
Runs fine, aceptable performance, nothing spectacular, but much better than the G400 did. Very vivid colors and no graphical error.
Giants Mecc Demo
It doesn´t perform much better than the G400 (until the higher res). Very cpu limited coded with T&L in mind? Not to forget that it´s running on a significantly slower platform than I tried with the G400. I think the game has this issue solved with a patch.
Gore Test.
It flies. It already performed good on the G400, so it´s not a very demanding game
FAKK2 demo
Q3 based engine, the one Kyro excels at.
I´ve tested it with a AMD 750 socket A board, wich means fsb and memory at 100 Mhz and default cpu speed of 900 Mhz. So in terms of CPU performance it should be lagging behind the previous A7V-998Mhz-111 Mhz fsb- 148 Mhz Cas3 memory I had.
About the card: It´s an OEM version, it came on a white box, with only the drivers and a manual. It has 5 ns memory, and this is a complete waste. Why? because it´s a dog to overclock. AT 185 mhz it starts to display graphical errors, so the sweet spot should be between 180-185, but who cares?
Instalation: if we forget yesterday´s nightmare, it installed like a charm on this gigabyte motherboard. Had to reinstall win2k (yes, it´s win2k will be talking about) , though (AMD 750 being slighty diferent from Via KT133
). I installed generic 7.103 drivers, although Hercules released today its own driver based on those ones.2D display: The only thing I noticed was the desktop colors are slightly less vivid than with the G400. It´s just as sharp as the G400 on my 19´´ monitor (desktop@ 1280x960x32). The limiting factor here may be the monitor, but the fact the text is still very readable at 1600x1200x32 is a good sign. You´ll not be disapointed with 2d quality, I´m sure. No 2d aparent glitches so far, no crashes, no icon corruption. Good. It *seems* that the 2D is slighlty slower (like scrolling a big web page) than the G400, but I don´t know how much I´m influenced by sort of expecting it...
It hasn´t any kind of monitor/resolution/refresh rate customization, and D3D and OpenGl games still start at 60 hz refresh rate. This is a big minus, Matrox has it since early win2k drivers. But the good news it that you can do exactly the same with powerstrip 3.0. It´s sad you have to use a 3rd party utility to do it.
3D display: Excelent. It has a color saturation and crispiness comparable to the G400, and miles away from the slightly whashed-out feeling of nvidia cards (haven´t seen the GF3 yet). One strong point is 16 bit games. It´s unbeliavable how good they look on they kyro. Damn, where´s all that colored spots (dithering
) I was used to?? And the feeling it gives on gaming is excelent. Framerate averages doesn´t tell the whole story. In real gaming you notice a very consistent frame-rate, without noticeable slowdowns. Very good.Now here´s some impressions/numbers from a text I´ve been writing this afternoon
The Kyro numbers are at 180/180 and G400 are at 150/200.Collin McRae 2 Demo
Despite the ocasional slowdowns, common to all graphic cards, AFAIK, (not sure if this was corrected on the final game), it´s absolutely superb at 1024x768x32 at max details, EMBM on. Tottaly fluid. Forcing tex xompression give a nice boost without any noticeable visual abnomalties.
Alice Demo
Superb. Absolutely fuid gameplay everything maxed. Texture compression causes some very minor graphical glitches, only noticeable if you actually pay attention to the non-compressed textures version.
Beetle buggin´Demo
Don´t really know if anyone knows of this one, but it runs perfectly, too. Forcing texture compression also doesn´t cause any strange effects, but it isn´t really necessary because the game is limited to 1024x768x32.
Breakneck demo
Runs fine even at 1600x1200x32
Not a surprise here, N.I.C.E. ran good even on a G200... Nice one to try monter antialiasing and anisotropic...Clive Barker´s Undying demo
Totally terrifing game. Not for the fainted hearted people. Yes, it rocks on the kyro.
Crimson Skies Trial
Runs fine and smooth, limited to 1024x768. Texture compression not recomended because it induces some ugly banding on the sky.
Deus Ex demo
Run aceptably up to 1024x32. Compressed textures don´t help to much, so the video card shouldn´t be the bottleneck... Don+t really know how much DeusEx likes win2k/PC100 memory.
Ducati Racing
Below-average motoracer clone, it flies on teh Kyro, but someone want´s to play it is beyond me...
Echeleon demo
This one has EMBM and it rocks on the kyro...
Everglade Rush demo
Racing boat game, it runs like sh!t... It also did on the G400. A slide show, various rendering errors, I don´t really know if this game runs in anything else but a Ge-force.
Far Gate demo
Runs fine, aceptable performance, nothing spectacular, but much better than the G400 did. Very vivid colors and no graphical error.
Giants Mecc Demo
It doesn´t perform much better than the G400 (until the higher res). Very cpu limited coded with T&L in mind? Not to forget that it´s running on a significantly slower platform than I tried with the G400. I think the game has this issue solved with a patch.
Gore Test.
It flies. It already performed good on the G400, so it´s not a very demanding game
FAKK2 demo
Q3 based engine, the one Kyro excels at.
If anyone knows how to enable this one to work with another cards I would like to know...
) and DVD and Mpeg display because I haven´t tried it yet.
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