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VIDEOLOGIC VIVID XS KYRO 2 REVIEW
"Videologic VividXS Kyro 2 review tested against the Palit Daytona GeForce2 MX. Video cards tested on a system using a 1.3Ghz Athlon and a JETWAY 663AS PRO. Software used was:- Max Payne, Quake 3 Arena and Serious Sam."
 For this test we are using the Palit Daytona GeForce 2 MX and the new Videologic Vivid XS using the amazing Kyro 2 gpu, they are both AGP and have 32MB of memory.
WHY IS TILE BASED RENDERING SO SPECIAL?
The Kyro 2 uses tile based rendering instead of the more common immediate mode rendering used in such cards as the GeForce2. With immediate mode rendering all of the scene is generated, with tile based rendering only visible parts of the scene are rendered. This approach is obviously more efficent and it means that the video card has to process less information thus saving memory bandwidth.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO SAVE MEMORY BANDWIDTH?
Even though video cards are getting more and more powerful all of the main graphics chip producers face the same problem, memory bandwidth. The higher the resolution, colour depth or number of polygons the more memory bandwidth you will need. You can only pass a certain amount of information over the video card's memory bus, this is the problem they are all facing. ATI was first to tackle the memory bandwidth problem with their HyperZ technology which provides a huge 40% performance increase in some tests. Nvidia introduced the Lightspeed Memory Architecture for the GeForce3, however none of these go far enough to prevent the latest video cards from being limited by memory bandwidth.
There's one chipset which doesn't use immediate mode rendering, it uses something very different. Something efficent, something called tile based rendering. Tile based rendering is nothing new, it's been around for quite a while but so far has never really caught on. However with the release of the Kyro 2 chipset I'm sure that's all about to change.
GENERAL SYSTEM INFORMATION
| PROCESSOR |
AMD ATHLON 1.3GHZ |
| VIDEO CARD |
VIDEOLOGIC VIVID XS KYRO 2 |
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PALIT DAYTONA GEFORCE2 MX 32MB AGP |
| POWERVR DRIVER |
v1.04.14.0028 |
| NVIDIA DRIVER |
DETONATOR v23.11 |
| MOTHERBOARD |
JETWAY 663AS PRO |
| MEMORY |
512MB SAMSUNG PC-133 SDRAM |
| OPERATING SYSTEM |
WINDOWS 98 SE |
| DIRECTX VERSION |
v8.1 |
QUAKE III ARENA
 | 103 |
 | 107 |
| 77 |
| 107 |
| 50 |
| 97 |
PALIT GEFORCE2 MX VIDEOLOGIC VIVIDXS
COMMENT - "Using 32bit we witness the Palit GeForce2 MX being beaten at ALL resolutions due to it's limited bandwidth. The Videologic VividXS Kyro 2 starts off strongly and at 800x600 is already 30fps faster and at 1024x768 the Videologic VividXS Kyro 2 gains an impressive 47fps advantage over the Palit GeForce2 MX." |
BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Default GLdriver
GL Extensions on
Fullscreen on
Four.dm68 Benchmark
NORMAL QUALITY
32Bit Colour Depth
32Bit Texture Quality
Lightmap Lighting
Geometic Detail Medium
Texture Detail 75%
Bilinear Texture Filtering
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QUAKE III ARENA
| 95 |
| 107 |
| 70 |
| 100 |
| 45 |
| 71 |
PALIT GEFORCE2 MX VIDEOLOGIC VIVIDXS
COMMENT - "Let's use 32bit and Trilinear to see what these two video cards can really do. The Videologic VividXS Kyro 2 takes an early lead of 12fps at 640x480, then at 800x600 this has stretched to 30fps and then at 1024x768 it's 26fps. The Palit GeForce2 MX is very bandwidth limited at anything above 640x480 which is disappointing." |
BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Default GLdriver
GL Extensions on
Fullscreen on
Four.dm68 Benchmark
NORMAL QUALITY
32Bit Colour Depth
32Bit Texture Quality
Lightmap Lighting
Geometic Detail Medium
Texture Detail 75%
Trilinear Texture Filtering
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QUAKE III ARENA
| 70 |
| 119 |
| 64 |
| 112 |
| 58 |
| 41 |
PALIT GEFORCE2 MX VIDEOLOGIC VIVIDXS
COMMENT - "Let's investigate the performance gain or loss using different filtering methods with the Palit GeForce2 MX and the Videologic VividXS Kyro 2. The Palit GeForce2 MX loses 6fps going from Bilinear to Trilinear and a further 6fps going from Trilinear to Anisotropic. In total the Palit GeForce2 MX loses only 12fps going from Bilinear to Anisotropic filtering. The Videologic VividXS Kyro 2 starts off strongly losing only 7fps going from Bilinear to Trilinear but when going from Trilinear to Anisotropic the Videologic VividXS Kyro 2 loses a massive 71fps. Anisotropic is an option with Videologic VividXS Kyro 2 owners should never enable." |
BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Default GLdriver
GL Extensions on
Fullscreen on
Four.dm68 Benchmark
HIGH QUALITY
800x600 Video Mode
32Bit Colour Depth
32Bit Texture Quality
Lightmap Lighting
High Geometic Detail
Full Texture Detail
Trilinear Texture Filtering
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QUAKE III ARENA
| 10 |
| 0 |
| 13 |
| 7 |
| 9 |
| 23 |
PALIT GEFORCE2 MX VIDEOLOGIC VIVIDXS
COMMENT - "It's been confirmed with these tests that the Palit GeForce2 MX has a major bandwidth problem, let's turn on texture compression to see if things change. The Palit GeForce2 MX gains between 9fps to 13fps , once again the sweet spot for this video card is 800x600. The Videologic VividXS Kyro 2 gains nothing for using texture compression at 640x480, only 7fps for 800x600 but at 1024x768 it gets an impressive 23fps increase. If you like running games at high resolutions then turning on texture compression will give your games a nice boost with the Videologic VividXS Kyro 2." |
BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Default GLdriver
GL Extensions on
Fullscreen on
Four.dm68 Benchmark
NORMAL QUALITY
32Bit Colour Depth
32Bit Texture Quality
Lightmap Lighting
Geometic Detail Medium
Texture Detail 75%
Trilinear Texture Filtering
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CONCLUSION - "The Kyro 2 is a budget speed demon especially using 32bit and at high resolutions. You only have to look at the 32bit benchmark's to see how easily it beats the GeForce2 MX. The FSAA scores detailed above are especially impressive for a budget video card, no longer will FSAA be a feature which makes your games turn into a slideshow. For even more speed you only have to enable texture compression and the Kyro 2 will offer you GeForce2 GTS speeds without the high price!
GOOD POINTS
• Amazing budget price $58 (£62) on www.pricewatch.com
• Excellent 32bit, FSAA and high resolution performance.
• Excellent 2D, 32bit and 16bit image quality.
• Excellent and very frequent driver support.
BAD POINTS
• Lack of hardware t&l does effect performance in some games.
• Anisotropic filtering takes a large performance hit."
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