The Minimum Requirement
Written: Jul 11 '00
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Installation was easy
Cons: Minor problems with OpenGL
|
|
|
| NGenTek's Full Review: Hewlett-Packard Ati Rage Fury |
Competition in the 3D video market is fierce to say the least. With nVidia turning out a new chip on a six-month schedule, a company either keeps up, or dies. Combating the 900-lb gorilla that is the TNT2/GeForce is the Rage 128 chip from ATI. While the Rage Fury Maxx employs a dual-chip configuration to challenge the GeForce, the Rage Fury places itself into the path of the TNT2 line of video cards. Unlike the Voodoo3, the Rage Fury is a full-featured card, offering 32-bit color and a hardware DVD decoder. Of course, none of that matters if the Rage Fury can't match the framerates of the competition. Before we start the battle for the mid-range video market, lets have a look at the specs of the Rage Fury:
ATI Rage Fury
-ATI RAGE 128 GL, a high performance 128-bit graphics accelerator with superior 2D, 3D and video acceleration
-True 128-bit 3D graphics and advanced features including triangle setup engine, ATI's Superscalar Rendering technology, twin cache architecture, complete alpha blending, video textures, texture lighting
-Full 3D acceleration in all modes and color depths in resolutions up to 1920x1200 @ 32bpp
-32MB with TV/VCR output
-CRT Monitor: 15 pin VGA connector
-TV: S-Video and Composite (TV out version only)
3D Acceleration Features
-OpenGL ICD for Windows NT 4.0 & Windows 98/95
-DirectX, Direct3D, DirectDraw
-Triangle Setup Engine
-Texture Cache
-Bilinear/Trilinear Filtering
-Line & Edge Anti-Aliasing
-Texture Compositing
-Texture Decompression
-Specular Lighting
-Perspectively Correct Texture Mapping
-Mip-Mapping
-Z-buffering and Double-buffering
-Bump mapping
-Fog effects, texture lighting, video textures, reflections, shadows, spotlights, LOD biasing and texture morphing
The Inside Story
Obviously, the Rage Fury is based on the Rage 128GL chip, and the specs above show the impressive array of features it packs. The board is somewhat long, but didn't interfere with anything in my case. The chip itsef is under a small heatsink, no fan included. Inside the box, you get a copy of Half-Life: Day One, MotoRacer 2, Expendable Lite, and the driver disc with the ATI DVD player. In an age of no-bundle cards, it was a pleasant surprise. The drivers install a small icon in the tasktray that allows quick access to any of the display properties, including the TV-out function. Installation was easy, and the card was up and running in a matter of minutes.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID: NGenTek
|
|
Member: Joel Buhr
Location: Bellevue, NE
Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 1 member
|
|
|