Recently, the ability to process and produce 3D images efficiently has become more important when it comes to customizing your system for optimal performance.  The manufacturers responded to this demand at an extremely fast pace, offering different chipset solutions each with their own strengths and weaknesses.  However which card is right for you?  While some cards are suited for certain situations other cards fail miserably in those same predicaments.  To completely answer that question we must first discuss the two different facets of 3D acceleration with today's Personal Computers...

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Entering the Third Dimension

In the early 1980's Microsoft introduced the world to a new era in computing, gaming, with their historical release of the Microsoft Flight Simulator for the IBM PC.  Since then we have come a long way, computers have become tools of work and tools of play, the hardware industry is pushed by the expanding needs of both gamers and professionals who desire more.  While the computer was originally intended to be solely a productive tool, users have managed to influence the market enough to transform the personal computer into an object of productivity as well as recreation.

Working in 3D

Why do professionals need the ability to work in three dimensions?   Artists can more accurately depict their works, architects can plan out their designs before building them, and engineers can test theories without even laying their hands on a piece of equipment other than a keyboard.  Advances in computer graphics and the implementation of 3D capabilities into the desktop and workstation PCs has allowed professionals to expand their horizons and pursue new facets of their careers.

Playing in 3D

First there was black and white, then we got color, next was sound, then interactivity became popular, now the "fad" for gamers is 3D.  While not knowing what is needed to produce the pretty pictures die hard gamers see on their monitors they mindlessly pop in a Quake 2 CD and watch the textures fly, literally.   The gaming industry obviously has a major influence on the computer hardware industry, with every new technology that is developed by the programmers at some of the most competitive game manufacturers there is a new piece of hardware being designed to compensate for the immense requirements of that new technology.  One can almost predict where the next major hardware advances will be, and that is in the 3D arena.   Major CPU manufacturers have already proposed their own proprietary 3D geometry processing units which will shortly appear in their processors within months. 

What I Tested

How I Tested

• Each benchmark was run 3 times, with the final result being an average of the three.  If any of the three test runs resulted in a failure the entire score was made void and the set of three tests was run again until a reliable set could be achieved or until the benchmark tests failed 3 times in a row.

• The FIC PA-2012 VP3 Based Socket-7 AGP Motherboard was used for all Socket-7 CPU tests and the AOpen AX6L LX Based Slot-1 AGP Motherboard was used for all the Pentium II tests.  Both test systems were configured identically with no differences other than the motherboard and processor.

• A full 400MB Quake 2 installation was performed, as well as a full installation of Winstone 97 and Winbench 98.  The CDROM drive present was an AOpen 24X.

• The Quake 2 Timedemo Frame rates were achieved by typing the following in the Quake 2 Console (hit the '~' key to activate):
                                  TIMEDEMO 1
                             DEMOMAP DEMOx.DM2

       Where x is the corresponding demo number (either 1 or 2) .  All Quake 2 tests were run at 640 x 480

• All other tests were run at 1024 x 768 x 16 bit color

• No foreign drivers were present in the test system other than those required for the system to function to the best of its ability

• All foreign installation files were moved to a separate partition during the test as to prevent them from effecting the test results

• The ATI Xpert@Work used the beta OpenGL ICD from ATI

• All 3Dfx based Voodoo accelerators used Glide 2.43

• All 3Dfx based Voodoo 2 accelerators used Glide 2.5

• All NEC PowerVR PCX2 based accelerators used the standard PowerVR OpenGL Port

• All 3DLabs Permedia 2 based accelerators used the default OpenGL drivers

• All Rendition Verite V2100 based accelerators used the beta OpenGL drivers for the Verite chipset

• All Riva 128 based accelerators used the Beta nVIDIA OpenGL drivers for the Quake 2 Tests

Now on to the comparisons...

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A killer 2D card for your K6?  The AGP Matrox Millennium II seems to be the clear answer in both High End and Business Application tests.  While only a few tenths of a point faster than the STB Velocity and Diamond Viper in the Business Application tests, the AGP Millennium II is approximately 5% faster than the 2nd place ATI Xpert@Work when it comes to High End applications such as CAD/Engineering apps, etc...

Although the Millennium II does come out above the competition in the 2D tests you must take into account that the Millennium II has very little girth when it comes to 3D acceleration, in which case the Diamond Viper and STB Velocity, both Riva 128 based cards, appear to be much more well rounded choices for the AMD K6.  

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We have the same picture here, the Millennium II (AGP) comes out on top, closely followed by the STB Velocity and Diamond Viper (both AGP).  If all you're looking for is 2D acceleration then the clear choice is of course, the outstanding AGP Millennium II, however for the most well rounded card in these tests you probably want to lean towards one of the Riva based alternatives. 

Holding up the rear of this comparison are the two Voodoo Rush based cards (Intergraph Intense 3D and California Graphics 3D Emotion) along with the two Rendition V2x00 cards (Diamond Stealth II 3D and Hercules Thriller 3D).   Surprisingly enough, the PCI Millennium II, can also be classified with those cards which came up under par in the comparison.  This just goes to show you how much the Accelerated Graphics Port (see AGP Guide).  The exxtremely powerful Permedia 2 based Graphics Blaster EXXTREME from Creative Labs comes in a dead last place in the Cyrix 6x86MX tests which will continue to be its home until we move out of the Socket-7 arena.

 

Same deal here, the ATI Xpert@Work moved up a few slots in the Business Winstone tests while the Voodoo Rush and Rendition boards held up the rear of the train.

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Here's where things get confusing, remember that extremely low performing Permedia 2 card from Creative Labs?  Well it now comes out as being the first place leader in the Business Winstone 97 tests, scoring a full 2.4 points above the Xpert@Work from ATI but only 1.4 points over the AGP Millennium II.  In the High End tests the STB Velocity 128 is once again limited to its 2nd place position by two tenths of a point provided by the AGP Millennium II which was the first place winner in these tests.  One common occurrence was the placement of the Rendition and Voodoo Rush boards, it is quite obvious that those two chipsets were not intended to be great 2D performers (probably why the term 3D is used in the names of all of the products which used those chipsets ;)...).

2D - Windows Performance Conclusion

The world is full of extremes, not excluding the computer hardware world, and of course including the Video Accelerator Market.   For the absolute best performance when it comes to normal everyday 2D Windows acceleration, the obvious choice is the Matrox Millennium II (AGP).  However when you factor in the lack of support for 3D acceleration the Millennium II leaves you with you must consider the next best thing, in this case, a card using a Riva 128 chipset.   The Riva 128 chipset not only provides you with outstanding 3D acceleration in both OpenGL and Direct3D applications, but its 2D acceleration is well beyond the norm for 2D/3D combo cards like the Voodoo Rush boards.  So the top two choices in this test turned out to be the Matrox Millennium II (AGP) and the STB Velocity 128/Diamond Viper V330 with the ATI Xpert@Work poking its head among those candidates.  How does the picture change in three dimensions?  Let's find out...

Determining how well a 3D Video Accelerator performs naturally requires a method of benchmarking, deciding upon how to benchmark the card requires much more thought however. While there are a number of benchmarks out there that claim to be effective 3D Graphics Tests, in reality there is no substitute for a real world 3D gaming test when dealing with a 3D gaming card.  Ziff Davis produces a benchmarking suite known as Winstone, it is used here on Anand Tech as well as on other sites and in magazines.  Winstone itself is nothing more than a compilation of the latest and most popular Business and High End applications, a true real world test that makes it such an effective measure of system performance. 

Unfortunately, there are no such tests produced by Ziff Davis to measure 3D performance.  You may ask, what about 3D Winbench?  Although 3D Winbench is a well manufactured test, it doesn't accurately reflect real world 3D performance, in addition to that simple driver enhancements can often boost 3D Winbench scores while not increasing performance at all.  For these reasons, Anand Tech will only use real world games and their built in benchmarks to compare the performance of all of the 3D Accelerators featured here.  Comparing performance under the OpenGL API isn't all that difficult, id Software's Quake 2, serves as an ideal benchmark since it is a very intensive test that makes beyond adequate use of a combination of the Video Subsystem, Processor, and Memory of a computer.  Shortly a few more titles based on the Direct3D API will emerge, most of which feature frame rate tests, upon their release one will be chosen as the official benchmark of Anand Tech, until then we'll have to live with Quake 2 frame rates for now.

All cards tested here either used their own beta OpenGL drivers, or those included with Quake 2, listed below are any and all third party drivers that were used in the tests:

• ATI Xpert@Work (AGP) - ATI Beta OpenGL Drivers

• NVidia Riva 128 based Cards - NVidia Riva 128 Beta OpenGL Drivers

• Rendition Verite V2x00 based Cards - V2x00 Miniport/ICD

The Pentium II test system consisted of a boxed Pentium II - 300, AOpen AX6L Motherboard, 64MB Advanced Megatrends SDRAM, and a Western Digital 1.6GB HDD.  The Socket-7 test systems used either an AMD K6 233, Cyrix 6x86MX 200+ (clocked at 66 x 2.5), or a Pentium MMX 233 on a FIC PA-2012.

Now let's take a look at the first benchmarks...

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