Stuck in the middle.
Written: Dec 27 '00
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Reasonable price, and good performance
Cons: Not a high end video card.
|
|
|
| alseltzer's Full Review: Rio Diamond Stealth III S540, (32 MB) AGP Video Ca... |
I needed a video card which would support at least Direct 3D, with at least 800x600 resolution, and won't cost too much money. I looked around, checked out different cards, starting from krappy Cougar ending with ATI Rage and 3D Prophet. So, why did I go with Diamond? Easy- it fulfilled all my needs.
First of all I have to tell you that, the video card is as good as you want it to be. So, if you want to run Quake 3, in OpenGL with 1280x1024, then you need a Ge Force, or 3D Prophet, but if you're modest in your requirements, then you can go with Stealth 3. I know I'm probably making this card sound like a medium quality/performance device, but trust me, it's not as bad as you think. Otherwise I wouldn't have given it four stars.
I think that the first thing that we are all concerned about is video memory, we see a 32 mg video card and go "WOW", but in reality it doesn't really matter. Anything over 16 is good. What matters is the actual processing chip in the video card, and controller.
I think that S3 satisfies both of these parameters, it has 32 mg of memory, and a all well known, Savage controller (Savage 4 Pro, to be more correct). And it comes for both AGP and PCI buses. Might I say that AGP port is better, so if you have one, then buy a video card for AGP, it's going to work more efficiently. However there's nothing wrong with PCI either.
Just to make sure that you don't buy this card for your Mac, I want to say that this card IS ONLY for Windows platform. Except for Windows 3.1 of course.
Now that we got the technical aspect behind us, let's talk about the important part- performance, and how this video card is holding up to different resolutions and modes.
I will take Unreal Tournament as an example, so all that I'm going to write below applies to running Unreal Tournament under Win 98. For those of you who don't know what UT is, - it's a 3D shooter with pretty heavy graphics to process.
This is 16 bit. Direct 3D.
640x480- I think any card can run in this resolution, and so can S3 without any problems, everything is smooth.
800x600-runs great, no slowing down. Nice smooth ride, no rough edges.
1024x768-Here come the problems. Occasional bugs, in the form of sudden stops and stalls, if you're running and turning really fast, the graphics become little mushy. However if you take it easy, and go nice and smooth, there won't be any problems.
1280x1024-More slowing down, performance drops dramatically. Same thing as with the above but little more bugs.
1600x1200- Squeaky door. It's like you're dizzy, and you turn you head side to side. You know the feeling? Everything is mushy and blended in, mixed with occasional stalls. The picture freezes for short periods of time. Real bad gaming experience.
Now I'm gonna give you a list of games with pretty tough graphics that I've run on my machine, and their results:
Hitman-800x600- D3D, no problems great graphics, no slowing down, smooth and fast.
Soldier of fortune- 800x600 OpenGL!!!! Great, smooth ride, no problems whatsoever.
Rune- 800x600 D3D, little slow, but otherwise bearable. Slightly noticeable occasional stalling.
Homeworld-1024x768 D3D- no problems. At all. Nice and smooth.
Prince of Persia- 800x600 D3D- excellent performance, very smooth and enjoyable.
There are absolutely no problems with flat games like AOE2, Tzar, C&C Tiberian Sun, Caesar3, Commandos etc,.
So, as you can see, the performance is not that bad, unless you've got very high standards.
As much as video card matters, your processor matters a lot more. The Mhz you've got the faster a game will run. That's why I said, that you can have, a 16 mg card and that would be enough, if you have a good processor. For the games that are coming out now you need at least 400/500 MHz for a solid performance in OpenGL with a 1024x768 + resolution. If you have a 75Mhz processor then even a 64 mg ATI Rage won't help you run Unreal T in OpenGL at 1024x768.
Conclusion: you get what you pay for. It is a card that's worth a $100. Not more. It gives you solid performance up until 1024x768 in D3D, everything after that is becoming questionable. So, if you can live with that, that's fine. I know I can. If you want real good performance at OpenGL with top resolutions, consider a more expensive video card. Or just upgrade your system.
My computer:
350Mhz IP
191 SDRam
S3 32mg AGP
Other components are not important
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
alseltzer
|
|
Member: Alex
Location: Somewhere in Asia
Reviews written: 59
Trusted by: 12 members
About Me:
I'm absolutely in love with cheese, and thanks for reading my reviews! Kisses sunshines!
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.