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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."
 2001 saw the release of the PowerVR Kyro2 chipset, the first two video cards to use this chipset was the Hercules 3DProphet 4500 and the Videologic VividXS. The Hercules 4500 was fitted with 64mb memory while the Videologic VividXS had 32mb. Later versions of the Videologic VividXS were fitted with 64mb memory. Other makes of Kyro2 were later released by such companies as Apollo (Inno3D), Imagine Graphics, Powercolor, Shadow and Suma. The main difference between the Kyro2 and the earlier Kyro chipset was a speed increase from 115mhz to 175mhz.
GENERAL SYSTEM INFORMATION
| PROCESSOR |
AMD ATHLON XP 2500 |
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AMD DURON 1.3GHZ (MORGAN) |
| VIDEO CARD |
HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO2 |
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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 |
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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."
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MAX PAYNE 2
HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO2 ELSA GLADIAC 511 GEFORCE2 MX 400 |
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."
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X2 THE THREAT
HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO2 ELSA GLADIAC 511 GEFORCE2 MX 400 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
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ENHANCED T&L
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."
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LOW CPU POWER (640x480)
HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO2 ELSA GLADIAC 511 GEFORCE2 MX 400 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."
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LOW CPU POWER (1024x768)
HERCULES 3DPROPHET 4500 KYRO2 ELSA GLADIAC 511 GEFORCE2 MX 400 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."
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| 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."
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