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OpenGL
Benchmarks:
One
more last round of Quake 3 numbers at our new
clock speeds, should do the trick, right? :)
Happiness
is a warm gun and Quake 3 running at 67 fps in
1600X1200X32 mode. There ought to be a law
against this.
Inching
ever more closely to that magical 60 fps, in
1024X768X32, FSAA moves even more fluidly at about
38 fps. It won't be long before we have good
high res. FSAA running at the big 6-0.
Finally,
you may be wondering what a higher end processor
can do with this new found 3D speed. Well,
you came to the right place.
This
is what we call the "Boiler Maker Rig"
here at the lab. A 1GHz. processor running
with the GeForce2 Ultra at 300/500. These
scores were taken in High Quality mode, just in
case you mistook them for "Fastest"
scores. Fastest..... bah! Who
needs it? Interesting to note however, is
that the GF2 Ultra does hit its fill rate at
1600X1200X32 with a .7 fps better score than the
test on the P3-866. Regardless, we didn't
even think about complaining.
Detonator
3 Drivers On The "Old" GeForce2:
Finally, let's have a look at what the Detonator 3
Drivers did for performance on a non-ultra 32MB
board.
32
Bit Color Time Demo
If you
remember from a few slides back, our 64MB GeForce2
card with the old 5.32 drivers, turned out about
83 fps at 1024X768X32. Now you're looking a
a 32MB card doing it at 96 fps. There are
going to be a lot of happy GeForce2 customers out
there, for sure.
Optimization,
that was the word of the day for nVIDIA
when they thought about their "Summer
Speed-Up" product and gave birth to the
GeForce2 Ultra. Not only was the hardware
optimized but the software was trimmed down to
fighting weight as well. The basic
functionality of the GeForce2 Ultra is the same,
as well as the drivers, with the exception of the
GeForce2 MX's Twin View and Digital Vibrance
Control (we may look at that in another
segment). However, everything has been
buffed out and turned up a notch such that it
almost feels like a totally new product. We
don't often get a product in the door here that
leaves us slack-jaw and amazed but the GeForce2
GTS Ultra with its new Detonator 3 Drivers, had us
caught with that "Deer in the
headlights" look. We were genuinely
impressed. For now, it is the fastest 3D
Gaming card on the market, hands down.
Now
for the string... There is always a string
attached, isn't there? The GeForce2 GTS
Ultra will most likely retail for $499 in its
various OEM incarnations. For us, that puts
this card square in the sights of the soon to be
released 3dfx Voodoo5 6000. The GeForce2 has
come a long way since its initial release as did
its FSAA quality, general functionality, and
speed. For many folks, graphics cards in
this price range will seem very impractical.
Then again, for many, practicality doesn't enter
the equation. At the end of the day one
thing seems clear, 3D Graphics is on a roll in a
big way right now, thanks to companies like nVIDIA
who drive innovation and performance to new
levels. The only problem is that we are
often left with too many choices in this
arena. What a great problem to have.
We
are giving the nVIDIA GeForce2 GTS Ultra a
HotHardware Heat Meter Rating of....
Get
in on it at the HotHardware Conference Room!
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