X-bit labs

S3 Chrome S27 Graphics Processor Review: Worthy Performance for Its Class? (page 21)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin , Anton Shilov

[ 12/29/2005 | 12:11 PM ]

Performance in Strategies

Age of Empires 3

The improved architecture, high clock rates and new shader compiler put the Chrome S27 on top in Age of Empires , making it the only graphics card among the participating ones that gives at least a minimum of comfort on this game. 25-35fps is quite enough for a strategy. The new graphics card was not brilliant in the “eye candy” mode due to super-sampling, yet it was still faster than its opponents.

Unfortunately, this victory is of small value since Age of Empire is that very game that the current version of the driver had issues. The game started up normally and was stable, but the image quality was unacceptable, we reported the bug to S3 and they have said it will be fixed by a driver update.

Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War

The S3 Chrome S27 is always somewhere around the RADEON X700 in this test, both cards delivering a playable frame rate in every resolution. The GeForce 6600 has too low operating frequencies, while the GeForce 6600 GDDR2 with its higher clock rates can challenge the RADEON X700 and the Chrome S27. The graphics card from S3 isn’t even the slowest in the “eye candy” mode – its fast memory helps it hold to the top position, but the performance is below comfortable level.