Pros: Beautiful color display, GPU Cons: Low frame rate at high resolutions, bit pricey
Overall Rating: (4 out of 5)
I have to say this is the best mid-highgrade graphics card on the market today. It has its own GPU and does not need the CPU
to do lighting. It is very fast and the display is picture perfect. If you run programs at 1024x768 or lower this is the perfect gaming
card for you. If you don't, I can only recommend its brother the DDR version.
Introduction to the GeForce 256 Chipset and Hardware T&L
On August 31st 1999, nVidia announced that there GeForce 256 chipset would feature the introduction of the first Graphics processing
unit for the pc industry.
Without GPU
With GPU
In addition the GeForce would feature transformation of lighting (T&L). Combined, transform and lighting radically enhance photo-realism -- quite simply, things "come alive"
on your screen. Transformation makes things move more naturally, and lighting helps objects and scenes look more realistic.
Trees and other non animate standbys will no longer need to use painted textures. With the GeFroce chipset, polygons will be smooth and truly look real. The chipset will also
feature cube environment mapping. This allows for the smallest details of an object to be viewed. Nvidia has liscenced six manufactures to produce the nVidia’s new chipset. These
companies include but are not limited to: Guillemot, Creative Labs, Elsa, Leadtek, Asus, Canopus (Japan Only). You can expect other 3rd party companies like VisionTek to produce
their version too.
Speed/Performance
Guillemot has done a fantastic job on the SDR 3D Prophet. Compared to the TNT2, the Prophet well exceeds in speed and frame rates. The only hampering is the SDRAM.
However, if you do not exceed 1024x768 resolution, the SDR is all you need.
Software/Drivers
Unless you have never installed an AGP or PCI card before installation is very simple. The SDR comes with a fan jack on the card so there is no need to hunt for a jack
on your motherboard. When installing a new display card, always take out the old one and delete any drivers installed on your system. If you have an onboard display (in motherboard),
you will have to click the disable in all hardware profiles box. Software wise, installing the drivers is painless. Thanks to Windows98, their installation wizard makes installing
hardware easy for the computer illerate.
Bundle/Packaging
Guillemot’s software bundle for the Prophet fell short of a good score. The bundle includes: nVidia demos, Monaco 3D racing sim demo, Scars demo, Speed Busters demo, Tonic Trouble demo,
Acrobat Reader 4.0, and Xing DVD player 2.0.5. A hearty appetite for demos but no complete games. On another note no current games take use of nVidia’s new features. The 3D Prophet's
box is very wicked though!
Benchmarks
Prophet 3d Specifications
120MHz/166MHz core/memory clock
Integrated geometry transform engine
Integrated dynamic lighting engine
Four-pixel rendering pipeline
480 million pixels per second fill rate
15 million triangles per second peak throughput
Cube-environment mapping
Single-pass emboss and dot-product bump mapping
DX6 Texture Compression
350MHz RAMDAC
2D resolution of 2048x1536 at 75Hz
AGP4X with Fast Writes
32MB SDRAM
OpenGL ICD for Windows98, NT4, 2000
DX7 Support
S-video output
Powerful HDTV motion compensation
Full frame rate DVD to 1080i resolution
Testing Environment
Pentium III 500mhz cpu
Abit BX6-Rev2 mainboard
256mb memory
13.6 Quantum KA Plus 7200rpm ata/66
Guillemot 3D Prophet SDR 32mb ram
42x Kenwood CDROM
Acer 4x4x32 CDRW
Sound Blaster 512
10/100 T-Base Network Card
Quake
III Arena Timedemo Benchmarks 640x480x32bit
Low Quality : Demo2
Low Quality : Demo1
Medium Quality : Demo2
Medium Quality : Demo1
High Quality : Demo2
High Quality : Demo1
65.9
67.7
66.3
68.2
62.4
64.2
58
60
62
64
66
68
70
Frames per Second
Quake
III Arena Timedemo Benchmarks 800x600x32bit
Low Quality : Demo2
Low Quality : Demo1
Medium Quality : Demo2
Medium Quality : Demo1
High Quality : Demo2
High Quality : Demo1
70.0
68.2
64.1
62.3
55.8
55.5
50
54
58
62
66
70
74
Frames per Second
Quake
III Arena Timedemo Benchmarks 1024x768x32bit
Low Quality : Demo2
Low Quality : Demo1
Medium Quality : Demo2
Medium Quality : Demo1
High Quality : Demo2
High Quality : Demo1
52.5
51.7
47.3
45.6
40.3
41.2
38
41
44
47
50
53
56
Frames per Second
3D
Mark 200 Benchmarks 32bit, 24bit z-buffer, trilinear
(4 out of 5)
65.9