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 by Shawn Sanders |
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With the need to counter the impending doom of Sadaam's high-tech chain of PS2 war machines, the GR scientists have spent the better part of a year trying to harness the awesome power of the Now & Later! More durable than steel, harder than a diamond, faster than a locomotive and able to destroy a set of perfectly good teeth in mere minutes, this tasty but potent childhood snack was thought to be our only hope. But our sole pothole on the road to success and victory was finding that Now & Laters don't play video games very well (must be some incompatibility with OpenGL).
"Blast it! Back to the drawing boards!" thought the GR men of science. It was as if we were ex-funnyman Steve Martin and our "hope" was "comedy" - all we could do was watch it float way, never to be seen again.
But just when it seemed that all was lost, a savior in a blue box bearing a
familiar name arrived on our doorstep. It was the Gladiac 920, Elsa's
new video board with Nvidia's brand new Geforce 3 chipset at the helm. Their
impressive (yet somewhat pricey) Gladiac GeForce
2 proved to be an invaluable ally in the past.
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The Gladiac 920 is a video card of the highest order, and I mean that in every possible sense. From the competitive price tag (as far GeForce 3's go) to Nvidia's ground breaking nFiniteFX engine, this is the current king of the ring.
But before we can get to the fancy parts, we have to conduct the goodbye ceremony that is removing the old and installing the new, which is just as easy as ever. The old was the Hercules 3D Prophet 2 Ultra. With a few trusty swings of the screwdriver, out pops the Ultra and in pops the Gladiac.
As is the case with any new video card, driver installation can be a monumental pain in the keister. The included CD contains Detonator drivers version 11.0. However, Nvidia is now up to 12.something-or-other, so you might want to bypass the old for the new. Just download them from the Nvidia site, double-click the ".exe" and the self-install does the rest. Now you're ready to play.
Along for the ride is a full copy of the beautiful Giants: Citizen Kabuto optimized for DirectX 8.0, which the nFiniteFX engine is based around. I played through the original game once when it was initially released. This new optimized version is largely the same, though the gameplay is smoother due to an improved framerate. Otherwise, there are really no immediately apparent visual enhancements. But regardless, Giants (this version, by the way, is fully patched) is a great game to bundle with this card.
There are three new features that put the GeForce 3 chipset light years ahead of the GeForce 2. The most prominent is the aforementioned nFiniteFX engine. This marvel of modern technology makes the GeForce 3 the only programmable vertex and pixel processor on the planet. When I say vertex think textures, and when I say pixels think detail (as in the number of pixels to enhance that detail). This programming enables developers to code in a near limitless amount of special effects for specific utilization with GeForce 3 boards.
Interestingly, the programmable vertex and pixel shader has been licensed by Microsoft and is included in DirectX 8, so only DX8 compliant software can take advantage of some GeForce 3 goodies. Better get some brand new games, folks.
But here's a feature that requires no special API compliant software: FSAA (full-scene anti-aliasing), which works for all 3D games. So the second new big improvement from the GeForce 2 boards is support for high-resolution FSAA. This is all brought about by the GeForce 3's Quincunx Anti-aliasing technology. Quincunx allows for 4X anti-aliasing at high rez settings with the minimal framerate loss that would come from 2X anti-aliasing on a GeForce 2 Ultra. Sound confusing? Well, just know that you can expect crisp, clean lines with virtually no jaggies or rough edges.
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Last of the new additions is the 'Lightspeed Memory Architecture', making the
GeForce 3 the fastest 3D card known to man. It only renders visible pixels to
prevent bottleneck issues, a bane for even the GeForce 2's 4 pipeline
architecture. Lightspeed Memory Architecture is a much-needed addition and can
really be felt.
Returning goodies include 2nd generation hardware T&L and improved bumb-mapping, which is able to handle many more cuts and grooves.
The Gladiac 920 comes equipped with TV-Out for viewing games or DVD movies on your television. This used to be an option that required throwing down more cash, but now Elsa has made this standard issue. Smart move!
With all this power under the hood, it's plain to see why the Gladiac is an awe-inspiring video card. But I know some of you need numbers and hard data before you're convinced. Skeptics, don't fret. GR has enough benchmarks to satisfy even the most stubborn nerds. Click here for numeric geekiness with GR's figures, thanks in part to 3Dmark 2001.
Back so soon? Indeed, the Gladiac blows away the competition with a whopping score of 5306 - beating out 3Dmark 2001's own sample GeForce 3 score of 5007. Elsa claims that the card is capable of achieving a score that creeps into the 6000s, which I don't doubt. But to achieve this, it's recommended that all startup programs be disabled along with any virus protection utility. And while this provides an ideal testing ground, it's just not a realistic gaming environment. Who turns all that stuff off before they boot up Counter-Strike? No one. So I left all my startup programs running and did a few tests at 1024x768, as this is a common resolution for gaming. Just know that the Gladiac can run at the highest rez with very little hiccup.
Of course, all this joy comes at a price; namely, $350. While that might seem like a good deal of bread to the uninitiated, that's $60 less than a brand new GeForce 2 Ultra. And we won't even get into Hercules' GeForce 3 going for half a grand (well, we will when we review it). Ouch!
Elsa scores huge points from Game Revolution with the Gladiac 920. The GeForce 2 cards treaded new ground in speed and performance, but with the GeForce 3 Nvidia has switched their focus to improving every aspect of visual quality. With the Gladiac 920, you get an adequately priced card chock full of goodies with unlimited gaming potential. Provided developers start taking advantage of Nvidia's programmable effects processor, we're in for a very smooth, intricately detailed future.
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Little card packs a big punch.
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| Revolution Report Card |
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+ Games look incredible! |
