Reference drivers:
To make it complete I show you some screenshots
of the reference drivers v0.36a.
Here you can find some game-screenshots made with the TNT´s.
In the following, you can see two zoomed images,
taken from Incoming 640x480 screenshots. The images show the difference between 16bit and
32bit rendering. The images are zoomed to 200%. The original screenshots can be found in
original size on the screenshotpage.
 |
|
 |
16Bit (200%) |
|
32Bit (200%) |
Summary
Very positive was the stability of the drivers.
The problems that occurred with early RIVA128 drivers did not occur here. All games ran
without problem and without requiring any changes in settings. Nevertheless, as the
various driver versions indicate, here, too, there is room for improvement in performance.
Some reviews mention a picture that is too dark. However, as I use a Trinitron monitor
that provides a very bright image, I was not able to notice this. The image has the same
contrast as with the RIVA128 card. I was not able to see a difference in the image
quality. It is very good with both CE-compliant cards.
Results:
The test turned out differently than expected. I
actually expected that the Erazor II would have a clear advantage compared to the Viper
V550, because the provision of SGRAMs is supposed to accomplish a performance advantage of
2 to 5%. This did, in fact, occur with D3D, although the reverse was true in favor of the
Viper with OpenGL. Thus, there is no clear winner.
If you take a look at the ELSA beta drivers, the Erazor II takes a small lead over the
Viper V550. But you can see that the Viper follows very close if you use the reference
drivers. Diamond´s developers did a good job with that.
The question is, if the Viper can take a advantage of the fact that NVidia´s Refrerencecard
(image) does also use SDRAM. The new 3Dfx Banshee reference driver i.e. differs between
SDRAM and SGRAM. But at all, I´ve expected to see a bigger advantage of the Erazor II´s
SGRAM.
The memory clock might be a possible explanation. According to the german magacine
PC-Professionell, the memoryclock of the Erazor II is 110 mhz (not 115, as I had written
in the News), and the memclock of the Viper V550 is 115 mhz. A review of the Viper V550 at
fastgraphics.com mentions even 125 mhz. This might explain the scattering of the
values sometimes in favor of the Erazor II and sometimes in favor of the Viper V550,
because each game puts different demands on a card (more or less memory-operations).
Unfortunately I have not found a tool that I might use to measure the cycle. Although Powerstrip** might influence it, it does
not measure the default-cycle.
Likewise, I was not able to measure the great SGRAM advantage that was suggested by the
review in PC-Professionell, even though it really ought to exist. As the Viper V550 was
bought on the market, it is not possible that the card was tweaked.
Another possibility might be the BIOS. Perhaps Diamond simply has a better management on
its card. However, I don't know enough about everything that a bios does on a graphics
card these days. By all means I will follow up on this subject.
The decision therefore depends on the equipment or personal preferences. The ventilator on
the Erazor has a certain appeal. It is simply reassuring to have active cooling. On the
other hand, there is the concern that it might fail. In any case, the TNT becomes more
than lukewarm under operational conditions, as I noticed with the Viper. Although one
doesn't burn oneself, it is better not the leave the fingers too long on the ventilator
element. The connector on the Erazor II raises questions, because it is longer than that
on the viper and also has a second one. Are there perhaps options here for a video
input/output add-on ...??
I was not able to get some information of the Viper with Video IN function. Normaly there
is no more room on the card for additional connectors. ELSA has no plans vor a Erazor II
with Video I/O at the moment.
With respect to support, ELSA clearly has the advantage. ELSA support newsgroups quickly
puts one in touch with like-minded users, and fast help is generally available through
ELSA or from users. However, unfriendly contemporaries should not be a deterrence. As in
any newsgroup, the tone can sometimes be a bit rough.
Diamond offers support through forms or E-mail through its web site. This cannot compare
with the 'more personal' support by the Elsa newsgroups. Diamond's E-mail service is a
fine thing. Once subscribed to the list, one is automatically informed when a new driver
becomes available for the card.
There´s also a difference in the bundled software that comes with the retail versions of
the cards. ELSA ships the retail with the games Need for Speed III and Recoil.
With the Viper V550 games are only available with the Retail-XL version. You find the game
Motoracer in the package. Diamond also packs a software DVD-decoder to
the XL. ELSA strikes back with the video editing software MainActor2, by Mainconcept. You can find that software on ELSA´s webpage. If you use a ELSA driver it
works as a fullversion, even with bulk versions.
The advantage, the Erazor II Retail has in bundled software is lost through the lack of
Video I/O functions.
So you also have no winner here.
At the end I can only say that the Erazor II and Viper V550
are great cards which made a hard head to head fight. With most actual drivers the Erazor
II has a small advantage at all but it is not enough for a win over the
Viper V550.
So I can´t use my winner-logo this time :-)
*completion 20/10/98*
I´ve send 10 questions acording to the testresults to ELSA and Diamond.
For ELSA, Ingo Nadler the Productmanagaer Multimedia took his time
to answer my questions. The answers are a bit longer, so I´ve made a
new page for them. At the moment there´s only the german language
version of it available! I´m working hard on the translation of it! ELSA zu Fragen über die Erazor II
*completion 27/10/98*
For Diamond,Reimar Hantke, European Product Manager answered to
my questions. At the moment there´s only the german language version of
it available! Diamond zu Fragen über die Viper V550
*completion 21/10/98*
I now know that the default clock Powerstrip shows is the actual card clock!
Let me know if you´ve missed something in this
review....
RIVA Station 1998 - Lars Weinand
|
