Guillemot 3D Prophet II GTS
Another
force stirs up the 3D scene.
PC
gaming, you either love it or hate it. It's times like these when we hate
the arrival of yet another new video card, especially after we've just plunked
down hard-earned money for a fast 3D-accelerator card. The game developers,
to stay cutting-edge and competitive, take advantage of every new 3D rendering
technology there is. And every time they succeed, we slide further down the
performance ladder. Such is life. Technology marches on with or without us.
Guillemot is the first out with Nvidia's new video
chip, the GeForce2. I remember in December 1999, it was also Guillemot who
came out with the first GeForce card, the 3D Prophet. They did it again with
the 3D Prophet II GTS.
The GeForce2 is the most complete video chip yet. It supports all the features
of the original GeForce but there are very obvious differences between that
card and the new GeForce2. The new card can apply two textures to each of
the four pixel pipelines, which in theory doubles the potential fill rate
of the card at the same clock speed. Second, the graphics processor runs at
200MHz compared to the GeForce's 120MHz.
This card can dish out 25 million triangles per second and about 1600 megatexels
per second.
Too Much
In terms of game performance, the GeForce GTS is only about 10% faster than
a GeForce-DDR. But this card, if you're lucky enough to have about PhP14,000
extra in your budget will most likely stay plugged in your PC longer than
any of the past generations of 3D cards. Despite the seemingly negligible
improvements, we think that the GeForce2's performance will improve further
the down the road as Nvidia continues to enhance its Detonator driver to pump
up the GeForce2's performance.
As stated earlier, the GeForce2 possesses all the rendering technologies in
one chip -- hardware transformation and lighting acceleration, cubic environment
mapping, dot product, and emboss bump mapping are all supported in hardware.
FSAA or Full Scene Anti-Aliasing isn't quite there yet but it will most likely
be implemented in future driver releases.
Rounding up the 3D Prophet II package is a TV-output and DVD playback capability
that is at par with last year's GeForce. We think there is nothing more to
ask from a 3D card.
What's the bottom-line? If you've got a GeForce, stick to it. If you have
an old CPU in the 400MHz range that is not yet over-clocked, or a Voodoo (any
Voodoo for that matter) or a TNT-class 3D accelerator, the GeForce2 will be
an excellent purchase. It will take care of your performance needs for at
least a year, maybe a year-and-a-half by our estimation.
As for Guillemot, its pricey 3D Prophet II GTS is only the first of several
GeForce2 cards. Maybe someone will come up with a budget screamer, albeit
we're betting it won't be anytime soon. It's your choice, stay cutting-edge
and be the first or stay safe and be last? 
Review by M.B.Reyes
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