Beyond3D's review of the VisionTek XTASY GeForce4 MX440

[Reverend]

The VisionTek XTASY GeForce4 MX440 review

Comments and discussion here. Thanks.

 

[muted]

EMBM is actually very difficult to develop for, and produces a variety of artifacts (which is why you see little content using it)

Is this why ? Matrox and another company ( can't remember which one ) stressed that EMBM was extremly simple to implement

so that's just PR ? or is it that hard to implement ?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: muted on 2002-02-25 05:06 ]</font>

 

[noko]

I sure hope the price is much lower then $179 for this card. Did you get a chance to try out the duel monitor setup? Plus the DVD playback with the supposenly improvment in the hardware advancement for playing DVDs? Looks like this card is really not a serious gaming card and is ment for the majority of computer usage such as for business, interenet, etc..

 

[Geeforcer]

On 2002-02-25 03:19, noko wrote:
I sure hope the price is much lower then $179 for this card.

 

[Pete]

Rev, a paragraph or two on 2D and DVD quality would be greatly appreciated. I'm interested in sharpness/legibility at high desktop res + refresh (1600x1200@75Hz, 32b) compared to a "reference" Matrox/ATi card, and quality of normal and scaled (full-screen) DVD/video playback, again compared to a reference card, if possible. I don't care how good the 3D on a card is if I have to suffer through soft/fuzzy test while visiting websites like this. :smile:

Good review, though comparisons are always appreciated. I understand this is your first review, but I'm looking forward to comparative benchmarks and visual quality opinions in future ones, once you start benching more cards on the same PC.

 

[arjan de lumens]

EMBM can be very easy or quite hard to implement, depending on how the renderer pipeline is laid out in the first place - in particular, it's easy if the pipeline has some sort of loopback and if no mipmap calculations are performed.

For developers, EMBM presents two problems:

• It is an empirical method that does not have a basis in a physics or geometry model, so using it in such a way that it looks good becomes a process of trial and error.
• The normal formulas for mipmap level determination break down when faced with dependent texture reads, so mipmapping generally does not work with EMBM. For this reason, EMBM tends to cause nasty texture aliasing.

 

[Reverend]

I understand this is your first review

Hmm... I distinctly remember doing lots of reviews in the past... :smile:

There are many things I would like to include in this review. It is my opinion, however, that this site will focus primarily on 3D although, yes, a paragraph about things like 2D quality and DVD playback would've been nice... these just didn't make it into this review of mine. That said, I can report it here - 2D quality is perfectly fine for me at 1280x1024x75Hz, text is as sharp as I care and corners do not blur. Didn't play any DVDs though as my DVD drive died a few months back!

 

[Pete]

I meant for the new site--I've read a little of your work (understatement).

If you don't have DVDs, maybe you can just say whether a relatively good quality mpg/avi (200MB Simpsons/Futurama cap, DiVX movie) looks good (smooth, not jaggier than the original) full-screened (higher than its native resolution).

 

[koneill]

it would have been nice if you'd mentioned that this card is much, MUCH faster with a more recent cpu. on an XP 1800+ or faster or a similar processor, this card is significantly faster than what the numbers in your review reflect.

unfortunately, you don't mention any such thing (or you did and i completely overlooked it =), when the truth of the matter is, your machine doesn't have the "umph" it takes to make the card shine.

 

[Pete]

On the flip side, someone like me, with a P3-866, appreciates the greater relevance review with a "low-end" CPU + SDR memory.

Actually, the review of greatest relevance would be one comparing a Ti200 with an 8500 on a P3-866, investigating Counter Strike perf with aniso and FSAA, and noting 2D and DVD quality at 1280x960. If anyone has such a review, feel free to let me know within two days. :smile:

 

[Reverend]

I meant for the new site...

The only other review I did for Beyond3D is the only GeForce3 review (VisionTek's) this site has.

when the truth of the matter is, your machine doesn't have the "umph" it takes to make the card shine.

I have an Athlon XP2000+ but decided against using it for the review of this card. Common sense says that anyone with such a CPU would probably never buy a GF4 MX or even OEM systems with such a CPU would probably never have a GF4 MX in it. So the point of the review is not to "make the card shine" but to put the subject card in a most commonly targetted system, which IMO should be something like a 1GHz CPU based system. [edit]Of course, all reviews would be better ones if more than one base system (say, a 1000MHz cpu as well as a 1800MHz cpu) is used... perhaps when I have the time...[/edit]

_________________
Reverend
Beyond3D
3DPulpit

 

[koneill]

i work for an system builder, and while those with XP 2000+ cpus would probably opt not to use a card such as the gf4 mx440, i'd have to disagree with your thinking on the system builder side.

as of last week, the AMD XP 1600+ went EOL (or End of Life) and the 1700+ will go EOL in a week or two. given that the 1700+ and 1800+, along with the duron 1.4 and 1.5 variants will become the de facto "low end" cpus, you can certainly bet that nearly all system builders will either be building machines with these faster cpus or, at the very least, offering them as options.

whoopsy! =) i'd also like to mention that while i understand your wanting to "put the card in context" so to speak, i also feel that part of a review is to enlighten your readers to a product's potential - as it is, your review lends to the thought that the card is REALLY slow - period (and that's just not the case).

enough of me...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: koneill on 2002-02-25 06:56 ]</font>

 

[Doomtrooper]

As a former computer store owner I diagree greatly, most users like Reverend said who own High End systems don't buy Geforce 4 Mx's. In fact the average CPU clock rate on Madonions webpage was 70% 1000 mhz or less.
Since my company was a gaming computer store meaning we built only high end PC's, I think I sold one Geforce MX in 3 years.
Gamers ALWAYS want the fastest, and a Athlon XP 2000 is a waste on a card like that.

 

[nggalai]

Rev,

great review. I'd have liked some more information on DVD playback quality too(after all, that's one of the features NV touts as main improvement), and that EMBM paragraph puzzled me a bit, as well. Thanks to arjan for the info provided in this thread. Perhaps you could expand your review a bit, in that respect?

in short: well done, and thanks. :smile:

ta,
.rb

________
buy silversurfer vaporizer

 

[DemoCoder]

I can't believe those games were CPU limited at 40fps. Did you try running the same benchmarks on a different card? I get better scores on a 1.2Ghz Athlon and GF2 (non-ultra)

 

[Mephisto]

which is why you see little content using it

Little content? I don't like if such wrong statements by propaganda people are getting printed without any comment by the editor.
EMBM is supported by 50+ available games, more than DX7 Dot3 and DX7 Cube mapping together!

EMBM a very cool technique for certain effects and it is very easy to implement them.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Mephisto on 2002-02-25 09:38 ]</font>

 

[pcchen]

I am pretty sure that there's more games are going to support dot3 and cube map than those for EMBM.

EMBM is not a good method for a general bump mapping effect. It may be good for some interesting effects, but not for bump map. Furthermore, DX8 PS 1.1 is like a bigger EMBM, and by now almost all cards (except cards from Matrox, Radeon, and maybe some others) supporting EMBM supports DX8 PS 1.1. This makes almost all future (and near future) games to ignore EMBM.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: pcchen on 2002-02-25 11:13 ]</font>

 

[Entropy]

I have to say that your contention that the card is "T&amp;L limited" at lower resolutions is, in all probability, flat out wrong as far as the card itself is concerned. In all likelyhood, (and as you've indicated in this thread) the card is limited by your CPU/memory system. This isn't said anywhere in the review though, nor that you chose this lower performance system because you felt it was representative. Might be a good idea to update the review slightly.

(Anyone at all interested in the MX440 is someone putting together decent performance system on a budget. I'd tend to agree that as Athlon XP1500/1600 are EOLing, a low end system today is an Athlon 1700 on a cheapo KT266A MB. Net cost with memory is below $300.)

Entropy

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Entropy on 2002-02-25 11:24 ]</font>

 

[Mephisto]

DX8 PS 1.1 is like a bigger EMBM, and by now almost all cards (except cards from Matrox, Radeon, and maybe some others) supporting EMBM supports DX8 PS 1.1. This makes almost all future (and near future) games to ignore EMBM.

Same can be said about Dot3. That's why the current sutiation is important, and there, EMBM is strong.

 

[up]

Thanx, Reverend!
Excluding EMBM in the G4mx is nothing but a shame for Nvidia...
In combination with texturecompression, EMBM gives so cool graghics - eg. Medal of Honor ;o)
EBMB has a much greater impact than AA ever will have; with high resolutions (1280x1024 or even 1600x1200) AA is actually no longer needed!