X-bit labs

S3 GammaChrome S18 Pro Graphics Adapter Review (page 3)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin

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

Drivers

We got two CDs from S3 with the version beta-1904-15.14.10e driver. After the installation, there appeared the standard set of S3 tabs in the graphics adapter’s properties window. We described them all in our DeltaChrome S8 review (see our article called The Return of S3: DeltaChrome Graphics Card Review) and the S3Config OGL tab in the DeltaChrome S8 Nitro review (see our article called S3 DeltaChrome S8 Gets Nitro Acceleration: Review of the Revamped S8). As for new options, you can now enable 4x full-screen anti-aliasing (the DeltaChrome was limited by FSAA 2x), but the GammaChrome still uses the resource-consuming super-sampling method that leads to a tremendous performance hit in games.

There were no errors during the installation of the drivers, but we did have problems after that. We don’t know what exactly to blame – the imperfect drivers or some defects in the design of the graphics card itself – but errors and hang-ups occurred in many games. For example, the popular shooter Half-Life 2 would report the following:

Another popular game, Far Cry, also had image artifacts or invoked the notorious “Blue Screen of Death”. Games like Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and The Chronicles of Riddick wouldn’t start up at all; Aquamark3 would hang the computer up, too. Similar crashes and hang-ups occurred in a number of other games, with the following error message:

We can’t call this stable operation. We still hope, however, that these defects will have been corrected and the drivers improved by the time graphics cards on S3’s new GPU come to retail.

According to S3 sources, these games run fine on their systems, so we will work closely with S3 guys to find out what the problem was on our side. Stay tuned for an update.

Noise, Stability and 2D Quality

We didn’t overclock the card: neither RivaTuner nor the version of PowerStrip we had at hand was compatible with the GammaChrome. The device was quite expectedly quiet – its noise was simply inaudible against the clamor from the rest of the system components. But keep it in mind that the final version of the GammaChrome is going to be equipped with a different and maybe louder cooler.

The image quality in 2D applications was up to the mark in all the resolutions despite the card’s status of an engineering sample. But unlike other graphics cards, the GammaChrome S18 wouldn’t permit to set a resolution above 1600x1200@85Hz, although our laboratory monitor supports display modes up to 2048x1536@60Hz. That’s a curious fact, but a fact nonetheless. At least we have this situation with the current drivers from S3 Graphics.

Like we always do when encounter a new graphics processor, we performed a series of theoretical tests to reveal the potential of the S3 GammaChrome in comparison with same-class solutions from other manufacturers. We’ll present the results of these tests below, after the description of our testbed.

Testbed and Methods

We ran our tests on the following testbed:

• AMD Athlon 64 4000+ CPU (2.40GHz, 1MB L2);
• ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe mainboard;
• OCZ PC-3200 Platinum EB DDR SDRAM (2x512MB, CL2.5-3-2-8);
• Samsung SpinPoint SP1213C hard disk drive (Serial ATA-150, 8MB buffer);
• Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 audio card.

Software:

• Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2, DirectX 9.0c;
• Marko Dolenc’s Fillrate tester;
• Xbitmark v0.51;
• Futuremark 3DMark2001 SE build 330;
• Futuremark 3DMark03 build 360;
• Futuremark 3DMark05 build 120.

Drivers:

• S3 Graphics 1904-15.14.10å
• ATI Catalyst 5.2;
• NVIDIA ForceWare 66.93.