X-bit labs

S3 GammaChrome S18 Pro Graphics Adapter Review (page 10)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin

[ 04/19/2005 | 07:19 PM ]

Relief Rendering and Other Synthetic Tests

The previous, DeltaChrome S8 processor was bad at rendering relief with the EMBM method, and the new GammaChrome hasn’t improved since then. It can only compete with the RADEON X300 which works at lower frequencies.

The GammaChrome S18 did better with another relief-rendering method, Dot3, but couldn’t reach the level of the RADEON X600 PRO. The GeForce 6600 is unrivalled here – as we said above, NVIDIA’s solution works most efficiently when graphics cards without special support of fixed T&L falter.

The Ragtroll test shows the balance of the “CPU-driver-GPU” chain since the CPU is calculating the physics of the scene, while the GPU processes the geometry. The S3 GammaChrome is better than the RADEON X600 PRO here, especially in high resolutions. The reason is simple: the GammaChrome has four vertex processors against the opponent’s two and has a higher memory frequency.

The results of the theoretical tests suggest that the GammaChrome S18 is capable of rivaling such solutions as RADEON X300 or X600 PRO, but the latter are going to be faster in modern games since the S3 card is rather slow at executing complex pixel shaders. The GammaChrome S18 is better at processing geometrical data, so the decision of S3 Graphics to give four vertex processors to their new GPU seems right to us.

Our final judgment will come after testing the card in real games, and that’s what we’re going to do right now.