Annihilator 2 Ultra: graphics at its best
Written: Dec 02 '00 (Updated Dec 06 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Stunning graphics, full screen anti-aliasing, fast frame rates, breath-taking gaming graphics, worth all the money you put into it.
Cons: Wouldn't be practical for the normal computer user, $500 is a lot for a graphics card if you don't put it to full use.
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| _fate_'s Full Review: Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator 2 Ultra |
Review: Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator 2 Ultra
For approximately 500 bucks, you can purchase the most powerful consumer use graphics card on the market. The 3D Blaster Annihilator 2 is one of the most amazing graphics cards I have ever seen. It sports 64 megs of DDR (double data rate) memory. This is probably more than you'll ever need, even if you are an avid gamer like I am. If you haven't got a nice 3D accelerator yet, and you are searching about for one, I suggest the GeForce processor. However, if you are a die-hard gamer in the market for an extremely powerful graphics card which will literally blow your socks off, I suggest this very card. If you are not familiar with the concept of a 3D graphics card, the purpose is to take the graphics processing load off of your CPU, and place it upon your graphics card, which allows your CPU to handle other things. With 64 MB of memory operating at a breathtaking core clock speed of 460 mHZ, you'll have no problem playing all the latest graphics titles. This graphics card is capable of delivering over a gigatexel/sec of fill rates and has over 7 GB/sec of straight graphics bandwidth.
Features:
I must say that this card also has one of the best texture and lighting engines I have ever seen. I am not saying this from what I have read, or heard, but what I have actually experienced. My friend owns a voodoo5 graphics card, and I, the GeForce 2 Annihilator Ultra, and we turned on anti-aliasing and compared graphics in Quake 3. The results were incredible on both cards, but both my friend and I agreed that the Annihilator 2 Ultra presented a much more aesthetically pleasing result. If you aren't familiar with anti-aliasing, it's one of the most wonderful things invented in the world of graphics. Anti-aliasing is the process of taking all the jagged and bumpy lines in your images, and smoothing them out so as to produce realistic and rather amazing results. The texture and lighting engines within this card add to the realism as well. Shadows are no longer just a black spot on the ground. They get lighter and fade in order to produce a realistic shadow effect, and texture'\s are more defined and just overall better looking. The card supports AGP 4x FastWrite support, enabling a larger pipeline for information flow (if you have an AMD processor you probably need to download a fix for the AGP 4x). It also utilizes 256 bit graphics architecture, as well as compression for Direct3D and OpenGL. This card allows for high frame rates even at extremely high resolutions and stunning scenes. This card is not only a blow-away when it comes to 3D; the 2D on this card allows for breathtaking cinematic effects. The card is optimized for 32, 16, and 8 pixel depths, and it allows for "flicker" free refresh rates at almost 240 HZ.
My Personal Experience:
I purchased this card not long ago at Fry's, my local electronics retailer. I picked it up for about 500 bucks, since I don't run on a budget when it comes to computer parts. I can say that it was worth every penny. I opened the box when I got home, and the card was quite heavy compared to other graphics cards. I scrutinized the card to decide whether overclocking capabilities were present, but I didn't see how I could add a fan without rendering the neighboring PCI slot useless. I turned off my PC, and plugged in the card to my computer after tugging out my old RIVA TNT 2. My computer is a 900 mHZ T-Bird with approximately 190 megs of RAM, and 60 gigs of hard drive space. Considering my processor speed, it is quite adequate for running Quake 3, but my old graphics card didn't sport all the nifty features included with the Annihilator 2, to produce the stunning effects that I so much desired. I booted up my PC and the card was detected by Windows 98. I popped in my software and installed the drivers. No problems there. The instructions were very user friendly and walked the user through the installation process step by step as Creative Labs products usually do. I switched the CD to Quake 3, and loaded the game. I chose a rather high resolution in order to view the game level in all its splendor. I was extremely pleased at what I saw. I got really close to the wall and admired the graphics. The level was ominously realistic and sent shivers down my spine. You won't know what I'm talking about unless you've actually seen this.
Conclusion:
Like I said before, this card is the ideal card for the hard core gamer. At 500 dollars, it won't be logical for the once-a-week computer user to purchase. If you are an occasional gamer, a GeForce MX can be picked up for under 100 bucks. For those of you who are hard core gamers, you won't be sorry. This card is worth every penny of the 500 bucks you put into it. The results are every bit impressive, and I'll say that you won't be needing a new graphics card for a long long time.
Statistics:
-3D Features:
Four independent pixel pipelines
NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer (NSR) per-pixel rendering engine
Delivers up to one billion pixels and two billion texels per second
2nd-generation Transform and Lighting (T&L) engines
Processes more than 31 million sustained triangles per second
Optimized Direct3D® and OpenGL® acceleration
Hardware Full Scene Anti-Aliasing (FSAA)
Advanced per-pixel, perspective-correct texturing Cube environment
mapping
Projective textures
Bump mapping
Texture modulation
Light and reflection maps
Procedural textures
Texture compression (DXTC, S3TC)
Fog and Depth Cueing
Radial or linear
Per-vertex or per-pixel
-2D Features:
High performance 2D, GUI, DirectDraw®
Screen resolutions up to 2048 x 1536
Optimized for 32, 16 and 8-bit per pixel color depths
Flicker-free refresh rates up to 240Hz
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 499
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Epinions.com ID:
_fate_
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Reviews written: 24
Trusted by: 53 members
About Me:
A student studying Computer Science, and obsessed with computers.
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