|
 In
late 1999, a then fledgling company by the name of
Absolute
Multimedia, made its mark on the 3D Graphics scene with
a brand of nVidia TNT2-M64 and GeForce based products.
The Absolute Multimedia product offering gained a fair
amount of acceptance in the market place. In addition,
high praise from various media channels, were given with
respect to the product's quality and innovation.
Although standard reference designs were used from a circuit
layout standpoint, the product had innovative cooling
solutions and a host of features that allowed them to stand
out in a sea of "me too" products.
Like a sign of
the times, companies are changing and evolving rapidly to
adapt to the huge swings we have seen in the market
recently. Early in the first quarter of 2001, the core
assets of Absolute Multimedia were sold to a company by the
name of 3D
Power. Comprised of industry veterans in 3D
Graphics, including several ex 3dfx employees, Absolute/3D
Power set out once again to shake up the mix against
"run of the mill" products in the market place.
This is a
HotHardware evaluation of 3D Power's Absolute MORPHEUS (must
have the caps there) GeForce3. As a side note, the
name of the card is not supposed to be related to the
character from the movie "The Matrix". Rather, we were
told it was in reference to the God (maybe Greek?) of
Dreams, Morpheus. So, now you know. Read onward
from here, to learn more about this interesting new 3D
Graphics card and see if it is worthy of your nocturnal
desires.
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Specifications and Features Of The
MORPHEUS GeForce3 |
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We'll take that
reference design but make it pretty. |
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Architecture Features
GeForce3
FEATURES:
- nFiniteFX engine for
full programmability
- Lightspeed Memory
Architecture for unmatched performance
- Surface engine for
high-order surfaces and patches
- Programmable Vertex
Shader
- Procedural
deformations
- Programmable matrix
palette skinning
- Keyframe animation
interpolation
- Morphing
- Fog effects (Radial,
Elevation, Non-linear)
- Lens effects (Fish
eye, Wide angle, Fresnel effects, Water refraction)
- Programmable Pixel
Shader
- Phong-style lighting
for per-pixel accuracy
- Dot3 bump mapping
- Environmental bump
mapping (EMBM)
- Procedural textures
- Per-pixel reflections
- HRAA?high-resolution
anti-aliasing
- Featuring Quincunx AA
mode
- Integrated hardware
transform engine
- Integrated hardware
lighting engine
- DirectX and S3TC
texture compression
- Dual cube environment
mapping capability
- Reflection maps
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Continued:
- Accurate, real-time
environment reflections
- Hardware accelerated
real-time shadows
- True, reflective bump
mapping
- Z-correct bump mapping
- Phong-style lighting
effects on bump maps with reflections
- High-performance 2D
rendering engine
- Optimized for 32-,
24-, 16-, 15- and 8-bpp modes
- True-color hardware
cursor with alpha
- Multi-buffering
(double, triple or quad) for smooth animation and
video playback
- High-quality HDTV/DVD
playback
- High-definition video
processor (HDVP) for full-screen, full-frame video
playback of HDTV and DVD content
- Independent hardware
color controls for video overlay
- Hardware color-space
conversion (YUV 4:2:2 and 4:2:0)
- Motion compensation
- 5-tap horizontal by
3-tap vertical filtering
- 8:1 up/down scaling
- Per-pixel color keying
- Multiple video windows
supported for CSC and filtering
- DVD sub-picture
alpha-blended compositing
Software Package:
- Install / Driver
CD-ROM manuals.
- Full version of Dronez
- Full version of MDK2
- Full Version of No One
Lives Forever
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Well now, isn't that refreshing.
Sure, the layout of the main circuit design on this GeForce3
card, is pretty much standard issue nVidia reference
material. However, that's where the similarities end.
First and foremost, as fine culinary experts would say,
"presentation is everything". Although, this is just a
mere PC Graphics card, by the looks of the finely milled
wooden box it ships in, one would think the contents are
good enough to eat.
Then of course there is the
cooling solution that was utilized here for the GPU itself
and the DDR SDRAM chips. This is by far the best
equipped card in this regard, we have seen to date.
Let's have a closer look.
click for full view
In far right hand shot, you'll
notice that there is a DVI Out Connector on the face plate
as well as TV Out. However, not all shipping retail
versions will have this. Some may come with VGA and TV
Out only, as did our test card.
Beautiful, that would be the one
word that describes the setup and this card. With its
purple colored orb style cooler called the "Ice Cube", that
resides on the GPU and copper colored SDRAM heat sinks,
there is one thing for sure, this card means business.
We'll see just how far this tricked out GeForce3 can go,
later on in this article. We're willing to bet looks
aren't the only thing it's got going for it.
Finally, another very nice touch
that 3D Power has put on the MORPHEUS, is the game bundle
included. Full versions of Dronez, MDK2 and No One
Lives Forever, are tossed in to sweeten the deal. It's
nice to be able to see the benefits of bleeding edge
technology, that the GeForce3 will bring and including games
like Dronez, makes perfect sense.
To say that we were impressed
with the quality, looks and features of this card, would be
an understatement. However, we come from the school of
"show me the money" here at HotHardware, so let's pop the
MORPHEUS in the socket and see if dreams can become reality.
Drivers, Features, and
AA
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