Usually when you see a commercial on TV comparing a luxury automobile with a cheaper domestic car, the main point that the commercial will try to implant in your mind in 30 seconds or less is that you get the same for less.   Getting the same for less is an interesting topic in the business world...

If you are familiar with the business world you should know that there is always a catch to any situation, and you often get much more than you bargained for when you shoot for the "same for less."  Strings seem to come pre-attached to just about every purchase you make in these days, especially in the world of computer hardware.  If you get a great deal on some generic RAM, you'll get the capacity, but not necessarily the quality.  This theory also holds true in the Video Industry, however there are always exceptions to any rule.  Limits are set to be broken, and Shuttle has tried to do just that with their 8MB AGP i740 based Video Card, which is, break the i740 price barrier while keeping their performance competitive.

How well did Shuttle accomplish their goals with the i740 chipset?  ...and what strings, if any, are attached to a HOT-158 purchase?  Let's find out as AnandTech uncovers Shuttle's 8MB Wonder, the brand new AGP HOT-158. 

AGP Interface

• Supports AGP 1.0 compliant configuration setting
• Supports AGP 133MHz

3D Graphics Visual Enhancements

• Flat and Gouraud shading
• Mip-Mapping with Bilinear Filtering (11LODs)
• Color Alpha Bending for Transparency
• Real Time Texture Paging and Video Texturing
• Fogging & Atmospheric Effects
• Specular Lighting
• Edge Anti-aliasing
• Backface Culling
• Z Buffering

3D Graphics Texturing Enhancements

• Per Pixel Perspective Correct Texture Mapping
• Texture Sizes from 1x1 to 1024 x 1024 pixels (Rect/Sq)
• Texture Color Keying
• Texture Chroma Keying
• Integrated Hardware Palette

Local Memory

• 8MB SDRAM on board
• High-Speed 64-bit 100MHz Interface

Display

• Intagrated 24-bit 203MHz RAMDAC
• Pixel Palette Pipeline Frequency: 203MHz
• Display Resolution 320 x 200 up to 1600 x 1200 Pixels
• Gamma Corrected Video
• Multi-Monitor Capability
• ACPI Compliant
• Display Data Channel: DDC 2B Compliant

2D Graphics

• Up to 1600 x 1200 in 8-bit Color Format at 75Hz
• Up to 1024 x 768 in 8/16/24-bit Color
• Programmable 64 x 64 3 Color Transparent Cursor
• 3 Operand Raster Bit BLTs
• StretchBLT
• Hardware Overlay Engine
• Hardware Double Buffering

Video (optional features)

• Software DVD MPEG-II Ready
• Hardware DVD MPEG-II Capable
• Full Bi-Directional VMI CCIR601 Video Port
• Programmable Video Output Characteristics for VGA and SVGA
• Full Motion Video
• Video Conferencing Support
• Intercast & VBI Support
• NTSC and PAL TV Output Selectable (Option)

System Requirements

• Pentium II processor-based motherboard with one AGP slot (1X or 2X) 

Supported Operating Systems

• Microsoft Windows (95 or higher)
• Microsoft Windows NT (4.0 or higher)

Supported Graphics APIs

• Direct3D
• OpenGL

When first introduced with the Real3D Starfighter, Intel's 740 Graphics Chipset quickly re-wrote the standard for desktop 3D acceleration.  For years we had pursued the thought of running our games at 640 x 480 at 30 frames per second or higher, and with one swift motion of their wand Intel quickly upped the standard to 800 x 600. 

The HOT-158 from Shuttle is available in only an Accelerated Graphics Port 2X interface, which takes advantage of the ability to transfer on the sidebands of the AGP Bus (rising and falling edges - comparable to drinking water from the entire mouth of a bottle vs drinking water out of a straw, you get more if you make use of the entire mouth of the bottle, or in this case you get more bandwidth if you transfer along the entire "length," including sidebands, of the AGP Bus).   Due to this increased bandwidth, the texture memory, a normal limitation for 3D acceleration, can be entirely removed from the card itself which will retrieve textures from the System RAM via the AGP Bus. 

Where even the 12MB Voodoo² cards fail is in their ability to run at 1024 x 768 in 3D games, the Shuttle HOT-158, like all other i740 based 3D accelerators, picks up the pieces supporting resolutions up to 1024 x 768 in games such as Acclaim's colored lighting wonder, Forsaken. 

Compared to the Real3D Starfighter AGP card, the HOT-158 is considerably shorter in length, this is a direct result of Shuttle's decision to include all 8MB of SDRAM on board, using 4 - 2MB chips instead of providing users with 4MB on-board accompanied by a SO-DIMM expansion slot. 

Another noticeable difference between Shuttle's i740 and the Starfighter is the size of the heatsink on the i740 chip.   The heatsink on the Starfighter seems to be a bit of overkill, Shuttle opted for a smaller unit that closely resembles the heatsinks used on BX chipsets.  It could well be that the engineers Shuttle had a few extra units laying around after working on their highly anticipated BX motherboard and decided to pop one on the HOT-158.  The size difference in the heatsink between the Starfighter and the HOT-158 is insignificant as far as reliability is concerned, however as far as the price goes, the difference is apparent.

The HOT-158 from Shuttle was never intended to be a head to head competitor of Real3D's Starfighter, however the job was sort of thrust upon it unexpectedly.  The HOT-158 is an OEM i740 board, meaning it was never intended to be sold with a huge software bundle, it is in this category that the Starfighter dominates the competition.  If you can get past that, then the 158, with optional TV-Out, quickly becomes a low-cost 8MB wonder and threatens the Real3D throne.   

Finding an open slot for the HOT-158 was not a problem at all, the uniquely colored AGP slot on the AOpen LX board used for testing made a nice home for Shuttle's 8MB wonder.  The size difference between the HOT-158 and the Starfighter may even make the difference in whether or not you are able to install it in some situations, especially if you happen to have a motherboard with intruding capacitors placed in close proximity of the AGP slot.  This just goes to show you that bigger isn't always better.

Unlike the Starfighter's installation, the software installation of the HOT-158 AGP will proceed as if nothing were wrong if you have Windows 95 OSR 2.0 loaded on your system.  However the USB Supplement Patch (OSR 2.1) is necessary for proper operation of your HOT-158 card, otherwise your system will not operate at its full potential. 

Using the included drivers CD-ROM, the installation process was a breeze.  A quick reboot after modifying Windows 95's Display Properties Control Panel resulted in a crisp and clear 1024 x 768 x 16-bit color resolution for the test system which was an AOpen AX6L Pentium II - 300 based system.  Overall, the installation process of the HOT-158 could have been improved with some more user friendly installation procedures, but Shuttle chose to keep it short and sweet.  Getting the job done and getting it done well was what they concerned themselves with. 

Shuttle failed to include the OpenGL Wrapper which you can find on Real3D's website for use with Quake 2 in OpenGL mode.  While the image quality and performance leaves much to be desired from this GL Wrapper, a installable client GL driver is in the works and should make its debut shortly.

The drivers included with the 158 are Intel's standard i740 drivers, and work perfectly fine under Direct3D/Direct X games.  There is still a little room for improvement on the performance end under Direct3D games but you can expect the performance this card offers now to remain fairly consistent throughout the many driver revisions that are to come in the near future. 

 

The HOT-158 takes a backseat to the Starfighter by a few percent in 2D performance, not nearly as noticeable as the performance difference between the Millennium II and both i740 cards however.

This time the difference between the HOT-158 and the Starfighter is a bit more obvious, however as the OpenGL ICD nears completion and tests begin to move away from the GL Wrapper they are confined to currently expect that performance gap to decrease in size. 

Here's another close call, the Shuttle HOT-158 is just about on-par if not faster than the Real3D Starfighter under Turok and the full version of Forsaken (running the first demo).   Quite an impressive piece of work on Shuttle's part.

A great 2D/3D combination, and an unbeatable price.  If you don't mind the lack of a bundled software package, and the slightly under-par performance of the card under Quake 2 and 2D situations, then the $80+ saved over the Real3D Starfighter can go towards more memory, a bigger hard drive, or the ever popular "Webmaster needs a Porsche fund" ;)  In any case, Shuttle has once again proved that they are a company that means business, with a product like the HOT-158 under their shoulders it just makes you wonder what would happen if they got their hands on a Voodoo² reference board.

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Shuttle HOT-158 AGP Card
Configurations:

8MB AGP
8MB AGP (w/ TV-Out)

Price - $80
Website - http://www.spacewalker.com

Overall Rating - 86%