Kyro 2 Vs. Geforce 3

[Cleaner]

My System (Home Built)

Original Athlon K-7 700 O/C to 800 w/ GFD
Epox EP-7KXA Mobo
Memory Man 256 Ram in Cas-2 setting
Hercules Game Theater XP Sound Card
Realtek NIC on ADSL with Verizon
Numerous other pieces parts

Originally had an ASUS V6600 Pure SGRAM GEFORCE Vid card and decided to retire it after 1.5 years of use. After reading all the write ups on the Kyro 2 Chip I opted to purchase the Hercules 4500 Kyro 2 Vid Card. Loaded all the current drivers and it worked great in AH. With the Vid Synch turned off I was getting 70fps in the tower and 130+ looking straight up into the sky. The visual landscape and buildings were a definite improvement over my previous card, as well as the planes. The weak point of the Kyro was when I flew near a storm bank or dusk and dark came, that drove my fps down to 15-20. After numerous settings and all areound dicking around with the card, I still could not get better fps under those circumstances. Aces High must be T&L heavy in those areas of the game, as the Kyro does not have T&L onboard the card. Finding this to be unacceptable I slapped my old ASUS card back in and boxed the Kyro up and returned it for a $149.95 refund.

Still needing a new Vid Card, I dug down deep and bought a VisionTek Geforce3 card for $399  . Brought it home and loaded up latest Nvidia 12.6 drivers as well as the Geforce tweak utility http://www.tweakfiles.com/video/geforcetweakutility.html  and set it to quality settings with Vsych on and Quintex FSAA turned on. Fired up AH and was getting 65 fps in the tower and 85 looking up into the sky and 35 fps driving thru smoke. Visual quality of this board was to say the least, Jaw Dropping, UFB and any other words you can conjure up in your mind. To may a long story longer, the definition of the planes was so precise I could figure out which way the enemy plane was moving from a far distance as oppose to much closer thus giving me the ability to counter his moves ahead of time. Killing became much easier and using less ammo to do it as well, who would have thought a Vid Card would help that much. Needless to say I am a very happy camper now and would highly recommend forking out the cash for a Geforce3 card.  

P.S. In all fairness, if you have a high end system 1.3Ghz or above the Kyro 2 may be the right card for you, as it is so hardware dependent.

Cleaner AKA Yakrobat

[Swager]

Thanks for the write-up Cleaner!

How do you like your Game Theater XP? Do you plug your gaming controls into it?  If so, how is the performance?

Thanks!

Swager    

[Cleaner]

Love the Game Theater, it was squeak to setup at first and configure but it rocks once you do it. And yes, I use the USB ports for my Saitek X36 and Ch Pro Peddles on the control box with no problems. From what I understand the card is much easier now to configure since they have updated the install program.

[Swager]

Read this on an AnandTech GeForce3 Video card review.  Had to do with a DirectX 8 test.

"It is also interesting to note that the Kyro II does extremely poorly in all of the benchmarks.  If this is an indication of how the Kyro II will perform on future DX8 titles it could be a major turnoff for those that were planning on keeping the $149 card for more than 6 - 9 months."

It may be something.  Just something to think about with AH possibility of going to DX8.

[Nifty]

Computer Gaming World did some benchmarks on about 3 name brand GeForce 3 cards.  I can't remember which they said was the "best" of the 3, but interestingly, it was the least expensive of the 3 (meaning it wasn't the Hercules!)  I guess I'm going to wait for whatever is after the GeForce 3, since I've got a GF2 GTS 64mb, no need to spend the money to upgrade yet.  Maybe once Neverwinter Nights comes out, definitely when Star Wars comes out next year sometime (hehe, I'm still an RPG nut at heart!)

<S!> to ya Yakrobat!  We had a fun fight last week (I think it was last week) in the MA.  Best I've ever flown an LA7 before, and I needed every bit of that to get you the first time.  You cleaned my clock when you got back out there tho!  

I'm probably gonna get the Game Theater eventually.  Once I get the funds squared away to get the 2nd athlon box completely functional.  

[sprint]

Thanks Cleaner ... You answered my post about the Hercules 4500 Kyro 2, I was thinking about buying one but I'll put that idea on hold, and still use my trusty old V770 Ultra
which I still get good fps in 1280 x 1024, and wait for my major upgrade.

I like hearing about your sound card and hope you wil post some more about it .. the Game Card is on my list.

Thanks,
sprint

[Cleaner]

Sprint the GTXP is probably one of the better Sounds card's out there in the $150 price range. And the best feature is it sucks up almost no system resources as compared to the Sound Blaster card I had which is now skeet. Also like the  additional USB ports it gives me, and the nice attractive box thats sits on my desk desk as well  

[Shamus]

MMMMaaaarrrooooffff!!! Cleaner , havnt seen the old Meese call in a while, how ya been bud?

Shamus

[sprint]

Thanks Cleaner  

sprint
*MOL*

[Cleaner]

Been busy Shamus, Some of us unfortunate souls are stuck doing Beta Testing for IL-2 Sturmovik