ELSA
The Erazor II AGP arrived
directly from Aachen from ELSA. The Erazor II also comes without video inputs or outputs.
A version that would include video inputs and outputs does not seem to be on the horizon.
The card features 16 MB of SGRAM, distributed on 8 memory elements (SEC - 8ns) (4 on each
side of the card). The TNT chip is ventilated by a flat ventilator, which is also supplied
with power by the board itself. The card is a bit longer than the Viper 550. The end of
the card contains room and soldered joints for unused elements. A 17-pair connector can be
found on the top part of the card and a 5-pair connectorn on the bottom part of the card,
whose function remains undocumented. The bios version of the card is 2.01.00. The
workmanship is excellent. Installation problems did not occur.
ELSA Erazor II (click to enlarge)
Drivers
As drivers the current version 4.10.01.0100-0003
was used. The drivers from the Internet have to be installed 'by manual'. With respect to
the drivers on the accompanying CD, this is done by an installation program. Aside from
ELSA Info, which provides quick access to bios and driver data, ELSA also provides the 3D
settings, allowing for settings for Direct 3D and OpenGL. Wrong settings, however, will
quickly result in a loss of performance. Therefore, settings should be changed here only
if representation mistakes occur with a game or an improvement in quality (antialiasing -
bilinear or trilinear filtering) is desired. As with NV3Tweak, operations are possible
across several levels, and a gamma setting is provided. Additionally, I also tested
version 4.10.01.0100-0012 of the beta drivers, which to some extent are faster and better
at all.
Results
The Erazor II provides great results with D3D.
Here, and except for Incoming, it is always somewhat faster than the Viper V550. It has a
clear advantage with Turok, almost 10fps at 640x480. With PC-Player Benchmark, too, it is
always a bit better. Erazor has this advantage with D3D also on Reference Drivers.
However, the reverse is true with OpenGL. Here, Viper has a slight advance (also on
Reference Drivers). On Elsa drivers as well, the break in Quake 1 is noticeable compared
to the Reference Drivers. The beta drivers no longer have this problem and surpass the
Reference Drivers even in this respect. With Quake 2, however, there is no improvement in
performance.
The drivers had minor representation problems on Incoming. Shots from the cannon
always displayed a dithered black checkered pattern. But here, too, the problem no longer
occurred with the betas. Performancewise, however, the Erazor II could not quite reach the
Viper V550 in Incoming. More on this later as well.
With the newer beta drivers, the Erazor II has a small advantage at all..
Supported screen resolutions:*
Resolution |
Colors |
60 |
72 |
75 |
85 |
100 |
120 |
640x480 |
256/65k/16,7M |
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800x600 |
256/65k/16,7M |
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1024x768 |
256/65k/16,7M |
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|
1152x864 |
256/65k/16,7M |
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1280x1024 |
256/65k/16,7M |
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1600x1200 |
256/65k/16,7M |
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Modells of the ELSA
Erazor II
00050 (Bulk) ELSA ERAZOR II, 8 MB SGRAM
00656 (Bulk) ELSA ERAZOR II, 16 MB SGRAM
00036 (Retail) ELSA ERAZOR II, 16 MB SGRAM
Drivers/Software
on CD-ROM ELSA WINNERware, 3D-DEMO-CD
Der Retail Version comes with the games Need for Speed III (Electronic
Arts) and Recoil (Virgin).
6 Years warranty
* The data is taken from the german Erazor II
pages. ELSA-USA shows some other
values |
