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eVGA e-GeForce2 MX
TwinView Plus Review
By: Jonathan Martini -
January 24, 2001
Although
many proclaim that Unreal Tournament is a horrible benchmarking game because
of it's high dependency on the CPU, many, such as I, prefer it to Quake 3
Arena, which is why I've included it in the review.
I benchmarked using the Reverend's Thunder
demo in S3TC OpenGL mode, which has been made possible thanks to the work of Mr.
Vogel from Loki Games.
The GeForce2 MX is quite capable of running UT optimally at 800x600 at 32-bit color.
This is quite a feat as UT is a very texture intensive game, especially when
running with the huge, memory intensive S3TC textures.
As the resolution increases, the gap between standard and clone mode widen to
over 8fps at 1024x768. But, we see the GeForce2 MX is handling whatever UT can
throw at it quite well.
Haven't caught a glimpse of what the S3TC high resolution textures are capable of? Here's a quick comparison:
UT - 1024x768 @ 32-Bit Color - Direct 3D
UT - 1024x768 @ 32-Bit Color - OpenGL S3TC
The much more decorated and precise textures really
make you feel in awe of our wonderful home. Here's more:
UT - 1024x768 @ 32-Bit Color - Direct3D
UT - 1024x768 @ 32-Bit Color - OpenGL S3TC
The huge leap in graphical quality is easily viewed by these
small thumbnails! S3TC is definitely the way to play UT!
3DMark2000 is the sole benchmark in this suite that capatalizes on the 2nd
generation T&L engine that the GeForce2 MX houses in its GPU. Although careful examination between the results that each of the barrage of tests 3DMark perform is much more appropriate for comparison, space limitations require that I compare the overall 3DMark number that the application spits out.
The fill rate limitations of the GeForce2 MX come into play at 800x600 in 32-bit color as the gap between the 32 and 16 bit scores is wider than the minute difference at 640x480. At 1024x768, we see that the gap has grown much more as there is a difference of over 1600 3D Marks between both color settings.
| Mercedes
Benz Truck Racing |
Mercedes Benz Truck Racing is by far the
best benchmark for racing enthusiasts as it scales wonderfully with increasing
resolutions as well as having it's own built-in benchmarking program.
The performance hit brought on by clone mode is barely noticeable
at the lowest resolution, whereas at 1024x768, the performance hit is
drastic.
Once again, the GeForce2 MX performs admirably at 800x600 with 32-bit
color.
The sweet spot for many games running on a decent system with the GeForce2 MX are
1024x768 in 16-bit color or 800x600 in 32-bit color. The choice is yours, color depth or resolution. We see that this
budget graphics card is certainly not skimping out on the performance aspect.
Next Page: Conclusion
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