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Posted by
Toby Crundwell
on September 07, 2001
Manufacturer: OCZ Technology
Product: Titan
2 Ultra SE
Technical features explained
Digital Vibrance Control (DVC)
This supposedly makes the colours more
vibrant, the picture sharper & the image more lifelike,
although in reality it just increases the contrast of the
image.
NVidia Shading Rasterizer (NSR)
Here's what nVidia have to say:
"Delivers incomparable resolution and accuracy. Complex
scenes are now rich with detail. Features such as per-pixel
bump mapping can be utilised to a more dramatic visual
effect."
Included with all GeForce 2 cards, this
feature is probably noticeable when you compare the image
quality of GeForce 2 cards with that of the GeForce 256.
Although the image quality is not noticeably better than
that of rival cards based on non-nVidia chipsets.
High Definition Video Processor (HDVP)
Incorporating a new per-pixel shading
processor. Each of the four new rasterization pipelines
process two textures per pixel in 32-bit colour.
Digital
Visual Interface (DVI )
An alternative video output, as often
used on TFT flat-panels. As the name suggests, it is
digital, rather than analogue as used on DSUB connectors,
and provides high quality output. DVI is compatible with
standards such as VESA, P&D & DFP. Not to be
confused with the DVI (Digital Video Interactive) codec.
Second generation Hardware Integrated
Transform and Lighting (H/TnL)
H/TnL theoretically massively improves
frame rates. It acts to take some of the TnL instructions,
mathematics, or vectors away from the CPU and put use the
GPU to calculate them, freeing up the CPU. However, it
suffers from several drawbacks. Most importantly, games (or
more specifically their graphics engines) need to support
it, and only newer games do this. Secondly, CPUs are now so
powerful that much of the advantage is lost. Thirdly, the
instruction set is static & still somewhat limited
despite being "2gen". The CPU (or more accurately,
the FPU) still gets a lot of vectors to work out before the
Titan can render a scene even if H/TnL is enabled. The TnL
unit on the Ultra chip is also responsible to some degree
for FSAA, when it is enabled.
Twin View
Offers
two screens through one graphics card. Formats supported are
mirroring (creates a clone desktop) or extended desktop. Not
quite as advanced as Matrox's technology but nonetheless
welcome, especially on a budget gaming card. The Titan
offers a variety of ways to connect devices. Unlike other
cards, you can have two monitors connected rather than a
monitor and a television, although one must support the
digital connection. Unfortunately you cannot use all three
outputs concurrently, although I have not been able to test
this myself.
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