CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI200 REVIEW

"In this article we review the Creative GeForce Ti200 to technologically inferior Gainward GeForce4 MX 440."

Creative GeForce Ti200, 175MHz core clock speed, 64MB 400mhz DDR memory, Lightspeed Memory TM Architecture (LMA), nFinite FX engine & Programmable Vertex and Pixel Shaders.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Architecture Highlights

64MB 400MHz Double Data Rate (DDR) Memory
700 Billion Operations Per Second
35M triangles/sec
6.4 GB/sec Memory Bandwidth
4 anisotropic filtered pixels/clock
2.8 Billion Samples per Second FSAA Fill Rate
TV-Out
nfiniteFX Engine for full programmability
Lightspeed Memory Architecture

Specification

256-bit graphics architecture
AGP 1X, 2X and 4X support
64MB of DDR Memory @ 400Mhz
175Mhz Core Clock Speed
350Mhz RAMDAC

Programmable Vertex Shaders

Procedural deformations
Programmable matrix palette skinning
Keyframe animation interpolation
Morphing
Fog effects: Radial, Elevation & Non-linear

Programmable Pixel Shaders

Phong-style lighting for per-pixel accuracy
Dot3 bump mapping
Environmental bump mapping (EMBM)
Procedural textures
Per-pixel reflections
HRAA - high-resolution antialiasing
Featuring Quincunx AA mode

Hardware Transform & Lighting engine

8 lights per rendering pass
Infinite, local, directional or spot
Colored lights

Dual cube environment mapping capability

Reflection maps
Accurate, real-time environment reflections
Hardware accelerated real-time shadows
True, reflective bump mapping
Z-correct bump mapping
Phong-style lighting effects on bump maps
High-performance 2D rendering engine
Optimized for 32-, 24-, 16-, 15- and 8bpp modes
True-color hardware cursor with alpha
Multi-buffering for smooth animation and video playback

High-quality HDTV/DVD playback

High-definition video processor (HDVP)
Independent hardware color controls for video overlay
Hardware color-space conversion (YUV 4:2:2 and 4:2:0)
Motion compensation
5-tap horizontal by 3-tap vertical filtering
8:1 up/down scaling

PERFORMANCE

Per-pixel color keying
Multiple video windows supported for CSC and filtering
DVD sub-picture alpha-blended compositing

Bundled Software

Incoming Forces : Full version
E-Racer : 4 track version

Warranty

3-year limited warranty covering parts and labour

NAME	CHIPSET	TECHNOLOGY	GPU SPEED	MEM SPEED	COST (UK/US)
GEFORCE2 Ti200	NV20	0.15 micron	175Mhz	400Mhz DDR	£73
GEFORCE4 MX 440	NV17	0.15 micron	270Mhz	400MHz DDR	£59

GENERAL SYSTEM INFORMATION

PROCESSOR	AMD ATHLON XP 1700
VIDEO CARD	CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI200
	GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX 440
NVIDIA DRIVER	DETONATOR v30.82
MOTHERBOARD	ASUS A7V266-C
MEMORY	512MB CRUCIAL PC2100 DDR
OPERATING SYSTEM	WINDOWS 98 SE
DIRECTX VERSION	v8.1

MAX PAYNE

640x480

	116
	108

800x600

	97
	83

1024x768

	68
	59

1280x960

	47
	40

CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI200 GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX 440

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Shooting Alex Benchmark
High Quality Setting
Trilinear Filtering
Fogging Enabled
Sounds Enabled
Task Switching Disabled
Triple Screen Buffers Enabled

COMMENT - "A good start for the Creative GeForce3 Ti200, it performs better than the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 at all of the resolutions tested. The Creative GeForce Ti200 starts off delivering a 7% increase over the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 at 640x480 which is usually a cpu limited resolution. The performance increase then rises to a 15% increase at 800x600, falls back slighty at 1024x768 with a 14% increase and then the Creative GeForce Ti200 delivers another impressive 15% performance increase at 1280x960."

MERCEDES BENZ
TRUCK RACING

640x480

	157
	143

800x600

	146
	128

1024x768

	123
	98

1280x960

	85
	68

CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI200 GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX 440

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Triple Buffering Enabled
Reflections Enabled
High Resolution Textures Enabled
24Bit Textures Enabled
Alpha Textures Enabled
Mipmapping Enabled
Sound FX Enabled

COMMENT - "After the great start by the Creative GeForce3 Ti200 with Max Payne we expected good performance with Mercedes Benz Truck Racing and the Creative GeForce Ti200 delivered big time. At 640x480 which already mentioned is usually cpu limited the Creative GeForce Ti200 beat the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 by a good 9%, at 800x600 this increased to 13% and at 1024x768 the performance increased even further to an impressive 21%. At the highest resolution we tested which is 1280x960 the Creative GeForce Ti200 still managed a very impressive 20% performance increase over the Gainward GeForce4 MX 440."

QUAKE III ARENA

640x480

	171
	171

800x600

	167
	161

1024x768

	144
	132

1280x1024

	126
	114

CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI200 GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX 440

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Four.dm68 Benchmark
32Bit Colour Depth
Texture Compress Disabled
Lightmap Lighting
High Geometric Detail
Full Texture Detail
Trilinear Texture Filtering

COMMENT - "The results shown with Quake 3 Arena are much closer than the two previous game benchmarks. 640x480 is VERY cpu limited with Quake 3 Arena and both of the video cards deliver the same performance. At 800x600 the Creative GeForce Ti200 is able to deliver a small 4% performance increase and is then able to deliver a 9% increase at 1024x768. The biggest performance increase for the Creative GeForce3 Ti200 was at 1280x1024 when it beat Gainward GeForce4 MX 440 by 10%."