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Posted by
Paul
"Crazyace" Bouthiller on October 11, 2001
Manufacturer: ProLink
Product: Pixelview GeForce 2 MX400
Find
prices for GeForce 2 MX videocards here.
Benchmarks
For Direct3D I used 3dMark 2001, and for
Open GL I used Quake3 Demo1. My Direct3D settings were set
for best performance, and vertical sync was disabled. Open
GL settings were similar, with vertical sync also disabled.
Quake 3 settings were all enabled, and detail was set to
“high”. Here is what we’ve got:
Performance was good, but really started
to head for a downward spiral at resolutions above 1024x768,
which was pretty suspected with 32MB of ram. 1280x1024 was
very playable (if you can live without 32 bit color), and to
me, was my favorite resolution to play Quake with this card.
I am using a 19” monitor, so I do need higher resolutions
to make things look nice. If used on a 17” monitor,
1024x768 would be sufficient.
32bit Performance was pretty consistent
with 16bit performance, up until I hit 1024x768, although at
68.8fps, this is still very playable. This card really looks
good and performs well at 1024x768, especially if you have a
17” monitor or smaller. As many of you know, the larger
the monitor, the higher the resolution you need to keep
things smooth and crisp.
I don’t really see a need for FSAA
with a game like Quake, because when playing online you need
a good, consistent frame rate. It does look great, but I use
it more while playing sport sims and racing games. While
playing Madden 2002, once I used FSAA, I couldn’t play
without. Performance was acceptable at 600x600, but this
thing chugged like a pregnant turtle at anything higher.
4x FSAA looks awesome, that is if you
like 640x480. It’s really not playable at anything higher.
At 1024x768, the card defaulted to 2X FSAA automatically,
probably because the frame rate was about 10fps, but
that’s just speculation. 4X FSAA is supported, but as you
can see, it’s not real viable.
3dMark scores were good, but defiantly
not comparable to today’s high speed machines. I played
many Direct3D games, and they all played at acceptable
framerates at a 1024x768 resolution.
The system didn’t take much of a
performance hit when switching to 32bit.
2X FSAA scores were decent, but not
recommended for play at resolutions above 800x600 as the
performance degrade is substantial.
Once
again notice that the card defaulted to 2X FSAA at 1024x768.
Things must get ugly at that resolution with 4X FSAA
enabled.
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