Here´s my KyroII review...

[CHHAS]

Nuno, your G400 T&L scores are quite a bit higher than your Kyro 2 T&L scores, are they taken at the same CPU speed ?

[Nuno]

No they´re not.
I know maybe it´s asking too much to read it all from the beggining but G400 scores were taken on a G400 150/200, Tb 1 Ghz, Asus A7V, 111 fsb, 148 Mhz memory and Herc 4500 scores were on a Gigabyte 7IXE4, AMD 750 board, 900 Mhz, 100 fsb, 100 Mhz memory.

I´m waiting for my replacement Asus A7V to arrive so I can compare the results.

Maybe it´s only due to the difference on the clock speed and buses, but i´ll tell later.

[Nuno]

To Bohrn: It works wonderfully with MW4. No problems at all.

Here´s a screenshot at 1600x1200x32 (yes it´s playable )

http://www.terravista.pt/BaiaGatas/3051/mech4.jpg

Update: Just a short note about Half-life/HL oposing force: It´s running beautifully at 1280x960x32, gl_linear_mipmap_linear, no compressed textures. I think KyroII is so fast at lower resolutions that it hits the game max_fps settings and it stutters. At that res, I get constant 60-70 fps with lows at 40´s when much things happening. I think I´ll play Half-Life again Man, it´s beautiful.

[This message has been edited by Nuno (edited 30 May 2001).]

[Bohrn]

Hey, thanx for the info! This thing might be the card for me. G400 is beautiful, and almost fast enough. But the almost part is kicking my ass!

One thing tho, that shot at 1600x1200x32, doesnt look that much better than my G400 at 1024x768x16. But then, you are posting a .jpg and it is compressed.

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AsusP3B-F,P3 880 Slot1, 512megsPC133,G40032megSH, Diamond MX300,13.5gigs of HD's,52X CDrom,WinME, PD 6.21 ,Altec Lansing ATP3Subwoofer,
Envision 17",Terrayon Cable modem,Linksys EtherFast LNE100TX nic,1 grey cat,1 black cat & 1 calico

[Gurm]

You're right. After 1024x768, few games currently out look MUCH better.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Nuno]

In my opinion, it depends on the monitor size you´re using. 1024x768 on a 19´´ looks ok, but 1152x864 or 1280x960 looks better because of less jaggies on the edges. On my monitor, the sweet spot for most games is 1152x864 - Great detail, few noticeable jaggies and still great performance.

That shot at 1600x1200x32 was just bragging rights to say I can play it OK at that res I don´t really know how it looks in the G400, I never tried it, but as every single games looks just as good as on the Matrox board, I would say this won´t be no diferent. And yes, anything with a jpg compression doesn´t tell the whole story... but you wouldn´t want the 5 Mb bmp would you?

Oh and 2 little updates: Just out of curiousity, UltraHLE with a glide2.x emulator (xgl200) actually run perfectly on win2k with kyro drivers. Talk about compatibility

And Half-life takes a noticeable performacne hit when you turn on the flashlight. Don´t really know why but it seems that´s a known issue. Let´s hope they fix it on the drivers.


[This message has been edited by Nuno (edited 31 May 2001).]

[MK]

Nuno - thanks for that one, you did an incredible job !
Do you have the possibility to compare KyroII`s 2D quality with the one of the Radeon`s ?

MK



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Celeron II 850 MHz + Golden Orb
256 MB PC133 Crucial 7E (CAS2)
G400 16MB @ PD 6.10 + TGL
20 GB IBM on HPT U-ATA100 RAID
Iiyama Vision Master Pro 400

[Bohrn]

Yea, what MK said. Does someone have both these cards or access to them? This will be the crux as my decision will be between these two cards unless Matrox can pump out some comparable silicone.

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AsusP3B-F,P3 880 Slot1, 512megsPC133,G40032megSH, Diamond MX300,13.5gigs of HD's,52X CDrom,WinME, PD 6.21 ,Altec Lansing ATP3Subwoofer,
Envision 17",Terrayon Cable modem,Linksys EtherFast LNE100TX nic,1 grey cat,1 black cat & 1 calico

[Nuno]

MK: No, I don´t have that possibility. I don´t really know anybody with a Radeon card. Those aren´t very popular around here, A 64 Radeon VIVO OEM costs around 3 times more than a Herc 4500...

I would go with Gurm, he had a Radeon and said that the 2d quality was very similar with the Radeon, but below Matrox, the 2 being better than Nvidia´s offerings. That´s a good sign, because everybody says Radeon´s have a very good 2d display.

So if that´s the question I would risk to say: Herc 4500 and Radeon have the same 2d quality. So pick up your choice

And again on 2d quality, I say that among the G400 and Kyro II, you must have a very good monitor to see a diference. I have a Samtron 19´´ (Samsung 900P) that you may consider a low-end 19´´ offer, and I can´t tell a difference on sharpness at 1280x960x32@87 hz. Maybe G400 has a slighlty more vivid colors.

[MK]

Nuno - Thanks again !

My descision on my new card will be done on June 19th. Then the waiting time will be over - in one way or another ...

MK

[Raptor^]

I thought the Herc 4500's 2d was better than my brother's Radeon, but I didn't get a chance to compare them on the same monitor.

Should be able to make a better comparison in a week or so.

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Unreal Fortress developer

[xortam]

So which card did you buy MK?

[Michel]

Nuno, great testing..
one question though: is it possible to test Tribes2? (i'm not sure if there is a demo).

I'm looking for an KyroII, but the only game i play at the moment is Tribes2 and i really need some performance for that game (runs 15-50 fps outdoors and 30-80 indoors on my MAX at 640x480 with most details very low ).

[MK]

xortam - I evaluated the Kyro II and I have to admit, that I was positively surprised (especially about its sharp picture). But I noticed too, that the colours are not as crisp as the colours of my G400 and that the picture looked a little bit "washed out" all in all (I hope you understand as English is not my native language ).

As I am working 95% of my time with the computer, I am not willing to accept even this minor deterioration (and I know, I am extreme concerning that).

Therefore I will wait for the first G550 benchmarks and if it is slower than a G400MAX, I will buy a Radeon DDR 32MB.

MK

[Indiana]

I know what you mean with washed-out colours: I'm always thinking this when I'm looking at my friends GeforceDDR256 output - NVidias patented "stonewashed colours"(tm)...
I didn't see a Kyro up to now, but I can assure you that the Radeons do not suffer from this. But then A KyroII beats the Radeon32DDR in 9 of 10 cases hands down speedwise. And it might have the better Win2k drivers as some people have problems with ATIs drivers in Win2k (no problems here, though).

[This message has been edited by Indiana (edited 26 June 2001).]