One Kick --- Graphics Card
Written: Jan 19 '00
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Fastest card on the market. Nvidia demos are Sweeeeet, Nvidia is known for releasing faster drivers every month or so.
Cons: Kinda on the expensive side, The bundled software was disappointing.
|
|
|
| billyhigin's Full Review: Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator |
I previously had a 16mb NVIDIA TNT graphics board and was very please with its performance. When I learned about the worlds first GPU (graphics processing unit) in the form of the geforce I was totally excited. This card has more transistors on it than a Pentium 3 processor. It actually calculates graphics more internally and uses less of your CPU allowing faster frame rates on any computer with an AGP slot. I ran out and bought it the very first day it came out. The Guillemont card was already on the market for a week but I was waiting for the Creative Labs board with its 32mb enhanced speed DDR ram. I excitedly drove home and yanked out my TNT and popped in the Creative Labs GeForce Annihilator Pro. Installation of drivers was a breeze, up and running time from the time I opened the case appx 10 minutes. Of course Quake3 being the litmus test for todays graphics cards I immediately popped in and noticed an increase of appx 50 fps in low quality. So I jacked the game up to the highest quality setting and found my self surrounded in a beautiful 32bit color world with very comfortable 35-80 frame rate. The game was flying, and I was never going back.
Next, I decided to install the extra software that gets bundled with this Amazing board. The first being the Geforce demos by Invidia. This was fascinating and showed off the quality of hardware transformation and lighting (a first on a home gfx card) and overall graphics capabilities. Then i installed the other programs on the cds that came bundled with. For some reason Need for Speed Hot Pursuit ran like absolute crap. I was disappointed mostly at the game and slightly because it was bundled. As a note of history this is the first NFS game that actually allows Direct 3D the others using a software mode or 3dfx (eh). So they're a little rusty at Direct 3d, but overall the game is enjoyable with the low frame rates it brings. The other program were more of an exploration of eyecandy. Picture yourself walking through a lens flared filled world with little creatures moving about and suspended huts in trees. I must admit that despite the weirdness that this program brought the polygon count was insanely high showing more of eye candy than frame rates. I immediately uninstalled this nameless program which now occupies the box destined to remain there for all eternity. Overall this graphics card FLIES. 3d will never be the same and you'll never go back to your 16 bit low quality settings in any of your games.
Note: this card works for win9x as well as linux (requires additional download)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 300
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
billyhigin
|
|
Member: Robert Pakus
Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 5 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.