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:- Enhanced T&L, Unreal 2, Max Payne 2 and X2 The Threat."

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

UNREAL 2

HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO2

	34
	32

ELSA GLADIAC 511 GEFORCE2 MX 400

	22
	13

640x480 1024x768

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Hight World Texture Detail
High Skin Detail
Detail Textures Enabled
All Game Options Enabled
All Misc Options Enabled

COMMENT - "I consider 30fps to be playable and the Hercules 4500 Kyro2 can manage that right upto 1024x768. The Elsa GeForce2 MX however really struggles with this game and can't even reach 30fps at low resolution."

MAX PAYNE 2

HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO2

	76
	74
	63

ELSA GLADIAC 511 GEFORCE2 MX 400

	102
	96
	70

640x480 800x600 1024x768

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Anti Aliasing Disabled
High Texture Colour Depth
High Texture Resolution
Trilinear Texture Filtering
All Content Scalabilty High

COMMENT - "I am surprised by the great performance shown by the Elsa GeForce2 MX, it manages to offer much better performance than the Hercules 4500 Kyro2 even at the highest resolution tested."

X2 THE THREAT

HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO2

	24
	21
	18

ELSA GLADIAC 511 GEFORCE2 MX 400

	28
	23
	18

640x480 800x600 1024x768

COMMENT - "We are now using the most recent game in this review and both video cards are struggling. It was found that this game had graphical problems with the Hercules 4500 Kyro2, however once "EnTNL" was enabled the game looked great although performance suffered. Although the Elsa GeForce2 MX was able to outperform the Hercules 4500 Kyro2 it was a close result, maybe new drivers will help improve the performance of the Hercules 4500 Kyro2."

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
1024x768 Resolution
Fullscreen Enabled
Auto Quality Enabled
Anti-aliasing Disabled
Bumpmaps Enabled
Shadows Disabled

ENHANCED T&L

ENHANCED T&L DISABLED

	9475
	4503
	76

ENHANCED T&L ENABLED

	7899
	3716
	76

3DMARK 2000 3DMARK 2001 SE MAX PAYNE 2

COMMENT - "EnTNL tricks software into thinking the Hercules 4500 Kyro2 can use d3d hardware t&l when it is really just using d3d software t&l. Here we see that with EnTNL enabled 3dmark 2000 and 2001 both deliver much lower scores. Max Payne 2 however delivers the same score which I think is because EnTNL has already been enabled in the drivers for compatibility reasons."

LOW CPU POWER (640x480)

HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO2

	2717
	121
	44

ELSA GLADIAC 511 GEFORCE2 MX 400

	4069
	127
	59

3DMARK 2001 SE QUAKE 3 ARENA MAX PAYNE 2

COMMENT - "With this test we are using the Duron 1.1Ghz cpu to show performance on a slower system. The GeForce2 MX is able to win all of these benchmarks easily partly due to it's use of hardware t&l. The Kyro2 only has software t&l so all calculations have to be done on the cpu which slows things down."

LOW CPU POWER (1024x768)

HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO2

	2511
	96
	42

ELSA GLADIAC 511 GEFORCE2 MX 400

	2786
	66
	58

3DMARK 2001 SE QUAKE 3 ARENA MAX PAYNE 2

COMMENT - "We are now using a higher resolution and the results are much closer with the Hercules 4500 Kyro2 able to outperform the Elsa GeForce2 MX by 30fps with Quake 3 Arena."

GAME BENCHMARK	HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO 2	ELSA GLADIAC 511 GEFORCE2 MX 400
ENCLAVE	114	74
MAX PAYNE 2	213	268
QUAKE	631	617
QUAKE II	594	517
QUAKE III ARENA	446	327
SERIOUS SAM 2ND ENCOUNTER	335	224
UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2003	139	158
X2 THE THREAT	63	69
TOTAL GAME PERFORMANCE	2535	2254

CONCLUSION - "The Hercules 4500 Kyro2 was able to beat the Elsa GeForce2 MX in all but the three most recent games. The Hercules 4500 Kyro2 was also able to win all of the the synthetic benchmark tests. The only worry with the Hercules 4500 Kyro2 was the lack of performance with the latest games."