Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/196
Almost anyone can fly across the Atlantic if given a jet, however the usefulness of the physics associated with flight become increasingly less efficient if that jet is replaced by some feathers and duct tape. | |
The same situation exists almost everywhere in life, as a parallelism, a good pair of running shoes can only do an adequate runner so much good, each part of that equation being a limiting factor towards the success of the final outcome. |
The Weakness
If you're wondering how this all related to PC hardware, the correlation should be quite clear, especially in the case of nVidia's processor hungry Riva TNT chipset. A graphics chipset can be adversely effected by the various components in your system, primarily, your processor.
One of the strengths of 3Dfx's original Voodoo chipset was that it gave you a tremendous increase in performance virtually regardless of the speed of your processor. Unfortunately, because of this, the Voodoo could never become a high end solution as it was easily replaced by later chipset designs which scaled in a more linear fashion with processor speed.
As graphics chipsets become more powerful it seems that the manufacturers have a tendency to rely more and more on the power of your processor to drive the performance of their high end chipset. But how high end is a chipset when you give it a low end processor? This seems to be one of the major weaknesses of nVidia's Riva TNT Chipset, keeping it out of the hands of many Socket-7 users without the money to make a new motherboard/processor upgrade to a platform the TNT would benefit more from.
At the same time, it is obvious that nVidia as well as the manufacturers of the TNT boards on the market expect non-Pentium II owners to go out and purchase their TNT based cards since the chipset is being found on PCI as well as AGP cards. Since AGP motherboards, excluding Super7 boards, are primarily reserved for newer Pentium II and Celeron systems, a video card designed for a PCI bus interface would most likely be geared towards the lower end of the market, without AGP motherboards, in essence, older Socket-7 systems.
Compatibility Issues
History and experience has already taught us that introducing an AGP bus into a Socket-7 motherboard design will provide for a number of unfriendly compatibility issues. Currently, the AGP support drivers coming from both manufacturers of the top two Super7 (Socket-7 + 100MHz FSB + AGP) chipsets (ALi Aladdin V and VIA MVP3) don't seem to be too incredibly TNT friendly.
After a bit of tweaking and seemingly endless troubleshooting, the VIA MVP3 chipset can be forced to play with the Riva TNT Chipset on an AGP board. Unfortunately this case doesn't seem to hold too high of a success rate, currently, as an AGP solution, the TNT is capable of giving you quite a few problems when it comes to the installation process. If you're lucky, those problems can be solved with a few driver patches and updates, however not everyone will be that lucky. Out of the 3 AGP Riva TNT based cards AnandTech has tested in a Super7 system (Canopus Spectra 2500, Diamond Viper V550, STB Velocity 4400), only one of them worked flawlessly after much troubleshooting. That card was the Canopus Spectra 2500. With improved and more mature drivers, this scene may change, however until then, the TNT is definitely something to be suspicious of when it comes to compatibility issues.
The ALi Aladdin V chipset simply won't accept the TNT as an AGP graphics accelerator and often times refuses to even load Windows in safe mode with an AGP TNT installed. The success rate with Aladdin V boards and AGP TNT cards is next to nothing.
If you have a PCI based TNT card then you no longer have to worry about silly AGP GART drivers if you have a Super7 system (Slot-1 owners don't have to worry about those drivers in the first place). However you also must keep in mind that the drivers designed for the PCI TNT cards are just about as infantile if not more infantile than those for their AGP counterparts. With the production of AGP cards being the top priority, often times you will notice PCI drivers operating considerably worse in some situations. An example of this would be the Creative Labs Graphics Blaster TNT (PCI):
The drivers which shipped with this card would operate perfectly fine provided you used an Intel processor, even on Socket-7 systems; but the minute you attempt to use a non-Intel processor such as the AMD K6, K6-2 or the Cyrix M-II, problems arise. A simple swap of the processor in the AnandTech Socket-7 test system without any other modifications resulted in an inoperable machine which wouldn't even load Windows. A reinstall of the operating system, drivers, and all other patches proved to be useless as the system remained helpless when guided by a non-Intel processor. This problem can most likely be solved by a simple driver patch, however it is because of this incompatibility than only tests on the Pentium MMX could be completed for this article.
The Super-7 Test System AnandTech used was configured as follows:
A Pentium MMX 233 on either an Iwill XA-100 (Aladdin V) or a FIC PA-2013 (MVP3) for compatibility testing
64MB Mushkin SEC PC100 SDRAM
Western Digital 5.1GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive
AOpen 32X IDE CD-ROM Drive
Windows 98 with all of the latest patches/drivers installed
The benchmark suite consisted of the following full version game titles
Forsaken - Running the Nuke Demo
Quake 2 v3.17 using Demo1.dm2 and Brett "3 Fingers" Jacobs Crusher.dm2 demo
In-Depth Gaming Performance Comparison Charts
Quake 2 - Open GL Performance |
||
Pentium MMX 233 |
Timedemo - 640 x 480 | |
- | demo1.dm2 | crusher.dm2 |
Creative Labs PCI Graphics Blaster TNT |
26.9 | 12.5 |
- | Timedemo - 800 x 600 | |
- | demo1.dm2 | crusher.dm2 |
Creative Labs PCI Graphics Blaster TNT |
26.8 | 12.5 |
Well, it turns out that the TNT chipset isn't too greatly limited by the PCI bus as it still packs a powerful punch even when paired with the Pentium MMX 233. Producing a range from 12 to close to 30 fps under Quake 2, and scores well above 50 fps under Forsaken for Direct3D performance, the TNT isn't too bad for a Socket-7 system especially considering the image quality the TNT brings to the game.
The crusher.dm2 scores will improve if you couple your processor with an AGP TNT instead of the PCI card used in these tests, just because of the increased transfer rates capable on the AGP bus in comparison to the PCI bus. With an AGP accelerator texture swapping becomes less of an ordeal and a smaller amount of performance degradation occurs with larger textures, a definite plus in the newer and upcoming 3D games.
Forsaken - Direct3D Performance |
|
Pentium MMX 233 |
640 x 480 |
- | nuke demo |
Creative Labs PCI Graphics Blaster TNT | 91.22 |
- | Timedemo - 800 x 600 |
- | nuke demo |
Creative Labs PCI Graphics Blaster TNT | 83.04 |
- | Timedemo - 1024 x 768 |
- | nuke demo |
Creative Labs PCI Graphics Blaster TNT | 57.87 |
As a solution for high end Pentium II systems, the nVidia Riva TNT chipset is beyond amazing and is definitely the best overall 2D/3D video solution out for now. Moving down the performance ladder to Socket-7 systems, the TNT becomes a potentially well rounded solution while offering above average performance, however the current batch of drivers and compatibility issues will keep that dream from becoming a reality.
For Socket-7 and especially Super7 users, the future will probably lie within the hands of either 3Dfx or S3. The very first cards based on 3Dfx's skeptically anticipated Banshee chipset as well as those based on S3's widely criticized Savage3D chipset will be shipping within the coming weeks, their introduction into the market should finalize the process of putting everything in their proper place.
How will the market break down in the future? Well, you can expect 3Dfx to hold the high ground with their Dual Voodoo2 SLI setup, the ideal situation being a system configured with a nVidia Riva TNT for its outstanding Direct3D performance and crisp image quality, with a Dual Voodoo2 setup for pure performance. While that configuration is a bit overboard, the next step down is a mass of confusion:
For high-end systems, the Riva TNT will probably be the top 2D/3D choice, however if S3 can pull through with the OpenGL drivers on their Savage3D then nVidia may be forced out of that position and into more of a price war between themselves and S3 for control over the rest of the high end market.
Mid-range systems will find that the absolute best 2D/3D solution will be divided fairly evenly between all of the contenders, and depending on your priorities, the favor can be tilted in virtually any direction, including that of Matrox's G200 which, although it doesn't offer the best 3D performance, does offer the best 2D acceleration out of all of the current 2D/3D cards in its class.
Low-end systems will probably have one clear option, the 3Dfx Banshee, and unless S3 can make their Savage3D a Super7/Socket-7 friendly device upon its introduction 3Dfx will have managed to hold both extremes of the spectrum, the low and the high ends, leaving Matrox, nVidia, and S3 to battle it out in the middle of the arena. Who would've thought that 3Dfx would be such great strategists?
In-Depth Gaming Performance Comparison Charts
Quake 2 - Open GL Performance |
||
Pentium MMX 166 |
Timedemo - 640 x 480 | |
- | demo1.dm2 | crusher.dm2 |
Creative Labs PCI Graphics Blaster TNT |
22.4 | 10.4 |
- | Timedemo - 800 x 600 | |
- | demo1.dm2 | crusher.dm2 |
Creative Labs PCI Graphics Blaster TNT |
22.1 | 10.5 |
Forsaken - Direct3D Performance |
|
Pentium MMX 166 |
640 x 480 |
- | nuke demo |
Creative Labs PCI Graphics Blaster TNT | 74.11 |
- | Timedemo - 800 x 600 |
- | nuke demo |
Creative Labs PCI Graphics Blaster TNT | 72.71 |
- | Timedemo - 1024 x 768 |
- | nuke demo |
Creative Labs PCI Graphics Blaster TNT | 56.34 |
In-Depth Gaming Performance Comparison Charts
Quake 2 - Open GL Performance |
||
Pentium MMX 233 |
Timedemo - 640 x 480 | |
- | demo1.dm2 | crusher.dm2 |
Creative Labs PCI Graphics Blaster TNT |
26.9 | 12.5 |
- | Timedemo - 800 x 600 | |
- | demo1.dm2 | crusher.dm2 |
Creative Labs PCI Graphics Blaster TNT |
26.8 | 12.5 |
Forsaken - Direct3D Performance |
|
Pentium MMX 233 |
640 x 480 |
- | nuke demo |
Creative Labs PCI Graphics Blaster TNT | 91.22 |
- | Timedemo - 800 x 600 |
- | nuke demo |
Creative Labs PCI Graphics Blaster TNT | 83.04 |
- | Timedemo - 1024 x 768 |
- | nuke demo |
Creative Labs PCI Graphics Blaster TNT | 57.87 |