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Intel have now launched their bid to capture some if not all of the 2D/3D AGP Graphics card market. The card is based on their own i740 graphics Processor with 4MB of ram (not expandable). It is also AGP only and according to Intel will only work well when used in PII's but not socket 7 based PC's. From the bottom up..... VGA Compatibility. ALL standard VGA modes appear to work correctly. VESA Compatibility. Vesa 2.0 Extensions are supported in BIOS. Windows 95. Drivers - V1.0a, Basic (no applet) but functional. 2D compatibility - No issues found in testing. 2D Speed - Very Fast but no faster that the fastest PCI Video cards when bench-marked Direct3D - Good set of features and Texture formats. Excellent quality of image/Blending. Very Fast. version V1.0 - Developers only (End users may not see this revision released) Includes Applet for Gamma control 3D benchmarks around 2% faster than 1.0a version V2.0 - These drivers are in development Windows 98 support. Should be faster. Performance optimized OpenGL ICD included. OpenGL - Intel have stated that they will have a Full OpenGL ICD for Windows95 around Q3 98 with the possibility of a BETA earlier. To the important section... The games tested - Motorhead - Gremlin All features supported. Very good frame rate. Some visual faults - (Horizontal lines between distant textures) Rating 3/5 Comment - If sorted this will look great. Cart Precision racing - TRI/Microsoft (Patched V1.01) All features supported. Very good frame rate. Some visual faults - (Horizontal lines between distant textures). Rating 3/5. Comment - great frame rate. Monster truck madness II - TRI/Microsoft All features supported. Very good frame rate. Some visual fault - (As CART but not as bad). Rating 4/5. Comment - Looks great Toca Touring car championship - Codemasters (Patched 1.1) All features supported. Very good frame rate. No visual faults - good quality Rating 5/5. Comment - Looks great / High frame rate Jedi Knight - Lucas arts All features supported. Very good frame rate. No visual faults - Best I have seen at 800x600x16 Rating 5/5 Comment - Looks great / Very smooth Tomb Raider II - Eidos All features supported. Very good frame rate. No visual faults. Rating 5/5 Comment - Look no better/worse than other good 3d cards. F1 Racing simulation - UbiSoft All features supported (Direct3D). Very good frame rate. No visual faults. Rating 5/5 Comment - Very high frame rate (Game crashed several times while testing). These tests/rating were performed solely for the purpose of testing visual quality and compatibility, the ratings represent the percentage of what that game can produce. The visual quality issues experienced look to be driver issues, but until they are resolved I cannot guaranty this. Overall comments - A card worthy of the current 3D card battle. Point of interest - There is a Copyright message from Chips and Technologies within the BIOS (Could just be the BIOS was written by them). As this card/drivers are new we will update this page as new information becomes available. Benchmarks Available soon. |
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