Grex Graphics Conference

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Grex Graphics Item 12: Video Card Item
Entered by eprom on Sat Jul 8 23:35:04 UTC 2000:

  This is the Video card item


I know there is already a Hardware item, but I think
video card deserve there own item.

7 responses total.

#1 of 7 by eprom on Sat Jul 8 23:37:17 2000:

My video card comparison

******************************************************************************
CPU                     (1) AMD 686@723 MHz             (1) AMD 686@723 MHz
Video Board             S3 Trio64V+                     Rage Fury Pro (R128)
Video Mode              800x600@16bits/pixel            800x600@16bits/pixel
RAM                     64 MB                           64 MB
OS                      Windows 95 4.0.1212 B           Windows 95 4.0.1212 B

CPU Integer             2136.474 MIPS                   2136.172 MIPS
CPU Floating Point      880.9008 MFLOPS                 880.9658 MFLOPS
Video(2D)               20.2102 MPixels/s               144.5423 MPixels/s
Direct3D                11.66059 MPixels/s              199.7504 MPixels/s
OpenGL                  9.859842 MPixels/s              142.8696 MPixels/s
Memory                  1750.594 MB/s                   1810.018 MB/s
Cached Disk             145.6381 MB/s                   146.1707 MB/s
Uncached Disk           3.059871 MB/s                   2.512344 MB/s

(I should mention that the S3 contains 1 MB and the ATI card 32 MB)

interestingly at a resolution of 1152x864@16bits/pixel, the performance
didn't decrease significantly (infact the 2D score increased by 3 MPixels)

Basically while I was building my new computer I was using an S3 Trio, the
video card was the last thing to add because I was confused about AGP vs. PCI
(I still am somewhat). but eventually I chose the ATI card because it was only
$110 after the rebate (my projected budget was already $200 more than planned)
and ATI is known for cheap mid-end gaming cards.
 
I don't play games much but needed the OpenGL support for applications such
as IntelliCAD and this nifty 3D Floorplan software. The 32 MB would also be
useful in speeding up texturing and rendering in Photoshop.

you can get the same software I used for free at:

http://wintune.winmag.com/

#2 of 7 by i on Mon Jul 10 02:57:36 2000:

For a minute, i thought that both video cards had 64MB.
Does the ATI system have a crummier hard drive, or what?
Is "AMD 686" generally used to mean "Athlon", not "K6"?

#3 of 7 by eprom on Mon Jul 10 12:43:54 2000:

yeah, the AMD 686 is the Athlon...
im not really sure what you were asking about in your second question but,
if your asking about my HDD, its a very small drive by todays standards;
Western Digital caviar 6 gig IDE...it certainly is much more quiet than
my 4 gig Seagates IDE drive..

#4 of 7 by i on Wed Jul 12 00:02:50 2000:

(I was noting that the drive in one system had a much better benchmark
number than the drive in the other.)

#5 of 7 by eprom on Wed Jul 12 00:48:16 2000:

opps...I should have made it more clear...both are the same exact systems,
I just swapped out the video cards.

#6 of 7 by i on Wed Jul 12 03:24:23 2000:

Looks like that ATI card is doing some serious damage to the hard drive's
uncached throughput, then.  I wonder why.

#7 of 7 by keesan on Mon Dec 11 05:15:38 2000:

Has anyone used AutoCAD 12 (a student version) for DOS and can they tell us
how to set the video to something other than IBM Enhanced Graphics Adaptor
or Hercules Graphics Card <obsolete>?  THe rest of the choices all have the
word Autodesk or ADI in them, except for null video (which gave us no screen).
And there is plasma.  And how to reconfigure after installing?  (Other than
typing things in the .cfg file with a text editor).  The instruction book just
says to choose the correct video setting and does not even list the
possibilities.  Also how do we get the menu at the top of the screen after
setting up without menu?  Hitting F keys got us a grid and snap.  (If all else
fails, we can read the book, I suppose).

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