X-bit labs

S3 GammaChrome S18 Pro Graphics Adapter Review (page 7)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin

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

The GammaChrome isn’t speedy even with simple version 1.1 pixel shaders – the RADEON X300 is faster in this test.

It’s somewhat better with version 1.4 shaders – the GammaChrome S18 is ahead of the RADEON X300 and closely following the RADEON X600 PRO.

The new product from S3 is sluggish with version 2.0 pixel shaders, too. It is just a little faster than the RADEON X300 here.

3DMark05 supports all existing versions of pixel and vertex shaders, including 3.0. Despite S3’s claims about support of extended pixel and vertex shaders, the benchmark found the GammaChrome S18 capable of executing version 2.0 shaders at most. The RADEON X600 PRO and RADEON X300 worked in this mode, too, while the GeForce 6600 used version 3.0 shaders. The pixel shader speed test from the 3DMark05 suite is much more complex than the analogous test from 3DMark03. Part of the cliff from the third game test is being rendered here, and this puts a heavy mathematical as well as textural burden on the GPU.

As we already know from the results of Xbitmark, the GammaChrome S18 isn’t much versed in mathematics. So, the twofold advantage of the RADEON X300 isn’t surprising at all. That said, the new graphics processor from S3 may have some issues with games considering the ever-growing complexity of pixel-shader-based special effects we see in modern gaming applications.