My God. If I Could Make Love To This Graphics Card, I Would.
Written: Dec 15 '99
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Incredible gaming experience, speed and visuals
Cons: Expensive
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| psyonik's Full Review: Creative Labs Creative 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2 |
Okay, call me a nerd, but I love this graphics card. If you are a gamer or run anything besides Microsoft Word, you must go buy this card. The visuals are just AMAZING. The TNT2 is the cream of the graphics card crop, and when you play games like Unreal Tournament, you can feel the speed and intricacy of detail. It runs fast, clean, and most importantly, with incredible quality.
One word of warning -- the reason I have a TNT2 is that my TNT 1 melted. Yes, melted. Now this isn't because the card was defective, but rather that when I built my computer, I was stupid enough to try to save money on a case. My case had no ventilation, and the TNT works so hard and runs so fast it comes with its own heatsink. A well ventilated case works with the heatsink to prevent the card from melting, but my case was so crappy that it melted (along with my processor). So if you are going to get this card, don't be cheap. Make sure you have a good case, and a card fan isn't a bad idea either.
Here are the mind boggling specs:
Architecture Highlights
Peak fill rate of 300 million bilinear filtered, multi-textured pixels per second
Over 9 million triangles per second at peak rates
2.9 GB/sec total memory bandwidth
100% hardware triangle setup engine
TwiN-Textel (TNT) dual 32-bit 3D rendering pipeline
2 texture mapped, lit pixels per clock cycle
Single pass multi-texturing support (DirectX®6.X and OpenGL® ICD)
3D Features
Hardware triangle setup engine
2 texture-mapped, lit pixels per clock cycle
Single pass multi-texturing support enables features like bump mapping, reflection mapping, texture modulation, and procedural textures
Per-pixel perspective correct texture mapping
Full scene, order independent anti-aliasing
32-bit Z and stencil buffer
2D Features
Hardware acceleration for all Windows GDI operations
Fast 32-bit VGA/SVGA support
Multi-buffering (up to quad buffering) for smooth animation and video playback
Video Support
Advanced support for DirectDraw
Hardware color space conversion (YUV 4:2:2 and 4:2:0)
Multi-tap X and Y filtering
Card Specifications
AGP 2X with sideband support
Analog VGA output
TV output with S-Video connector (composite adapter cable included)
VESA DDC2B compatible
So go out and buy this card. And if you need suggestions for games that let you realize its full capability, check out my reviews on Unreal Tournament and Kingpin.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 125
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Epinions.com ID:
psyonik
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Location: Berkeley, CA
Reviews written: 103
Trusted by: 134 members
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