HERCULES 4500 KYRO 2 REVIEW

"Hercules 3DProphet 4500 Kyro 2 review featuring the Kyro 2 GPU which we last tested 2 years ago in our Videologic VividXS Kyro 2 review. In this article we test the Hercules 3DProphet 4500 Kyro2 against the Elsa Gladiac 511 GeForce2 MX 400. Software used for benchmarking is as follows:- Quake 3, Enclave, Serious Sam Second Encounter and Unreal Tournament 2003."

GENERAL SYSTEM INFORMATION

PROCESSOR	AMD ATHLON XP 2500
	AMD DURON 1.3GHZ (MORGAN)
VIDEO CARD	HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO2
	ELSA GLADIAC 511 GEFORCE2 MX 400
POWERVR DRIVER	POWERVR v2.01.21.0007
NVIDIA DRIVER	DETONATOR v53.03
MOTHERBOARD	ASROCK K7S8X
MEMORY	512MB CRUCIAL PC2700 DDR
OPERATING SYSTEM	WINDOWS XP SERVICE PACK 1
DIRECTX VERSION	v9.0b

QUAKE III ARENA

HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO2

	195
	152
	99

ELSA GLADIAC 511 GEFORCE2 MX 400

	153
	107
	67

640x480 800x600 1024x768

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Four.dm68 Benchmark
32Bit Colour Depth
Texture Compress Disabled
Lightmap Lighting
High Geometric Detail
Full Texture Detail
Trilinear Texture Filtering
COMMENT - "Quake III is more demanding but the Hercules 4500 Kyro2 is able to deliver great performance at all of the resolutions tested. Let's make things more difficult for the video cards and enabled 2x fsaa."

QUAKE III ARENA
2x FSAA

HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO2

	129
	85
	54

ELSA GLADIAC 511 GEFORCE2 MX 400

	68
	46
	28

640x480 800x600 1024x768

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Four.dm68 Benchmark
32Bit Colour Depth
Texture Compress Disabled
Lightmap Lighting
High Geometric Detail
Full Texture Detail
Trilinear Texture Filtering
COMMENT - "The performance of the Elsa GeForce2 MX has just fallen away with 2x fsaa enabled which is very disappointing. Notice how the Hercules 4500 Kyro2 is able to handle 2x fsaa more easily than the Elsa GeForce2 MX. The Hercules 4500 Kyro2 is only 8fps slower running 2x fsaa at 1024x768 than the Elsa GeForce MX at 640x480."

QUAKE III ARENA
4x FSAA

HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO2

	70
	46
	28

ELSA GLADIAC 511 GEFORCE2 MX 400

	42
	28
	17

640x480 800x600 1024x768

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Four.dm68 Benchmark
32Bit Colour Depth
Texture Compress Disabled
Lightmap Lighting
High Geometric Detail
Full Texture Detail
Trilinear Texture Filtering
COMMENT - "Now things get interesting, 2x fsaa is demanding but 4x fsaa is even more demanding. Both video cards are really starting to stuggle now especially at high resolutions, the Hercules 4500 Kyro2's performance is still superior to the Elsa GeForce2 MX at all resolutions tested."

ENCLAVE

HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO2

	46
	32
	22

ELSA GLADIAC 511 GEFORCE2 MX 400

	26
	18
	11

640x480 800x600 1024x768

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Vsync Disabled
Decals Enabled
Max Character LOD
Max Curved Surface LOD
Complex Surfaces Enabled
Max World Textures
Max Character Textures

COMMENT - "The Hercules 4500 Kyro2 offers much better performance than the Elsa GeForce2 MX which can't handle the high quality settings used in this game."

SERIOUS SAM SE

HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO2

	133
	119
	83

ELSA GLADIAC 511 GEFORCE2 MX 400

	105
	73
	46

640x480 800x600 1024x768

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
1024x768 Resolution
Elephant Atrium Demo
Fullscreen Enabled
Quality Settings
Large Texture Size
Optimal Texture Quality
Detail Textures Enabled

COMMENT - "Now we are using a more modern and demanding game, I was surprised to see the great performance both video cards have delivered even using high quality settings. Once again the Hercules 4500 Kyro2 shows it's the king of games like this by delivering impressive performance at all resolutions tested."

UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2003

HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO2

	52
	48
	39

ELSA GLADIAC 511 GEFORCE2 MX 400

	68
	54
	36

640x480 800x600 1024x768

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Antalus Benchmark
Botmatch Setting
Character Shadows Enabled
Decals Enabled
Dynamic Lighting Enabled
Detail Textures Enabled
Projectors Enabled
Foliage Enabled

COMMENT - "It was found that neither video card could run botmatch at high quality settings above 30fps so low quality settings were used. For the first time in this review the Elsa GeForce2 MX is superior to the Hercules 4500 Kyro2 in more than one test. However once again the Hercules 4500 Kyro2 is able to deliver better performance at the all important high resolution."