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GTS, Kiro or Rad?

L

LegionX

Senior member
hi🙂
i am getting tired of waiting for matrox to bring out a new board so am giving them til the 19th to say anyuthing but if they dont i need a new card... i have tried the radeon but founbd the drivers unstable and i would crash alot but reading i hear the drivers are more stable. also tried a GTS when they first came out but had problesm too - hell might have been my old p3v4x MB. anyway i have been looking at reveiws again and also at the kiro II and wonder which is the best bang for the buck.
Things that are important is image quailty and stability but i also want a faster card than my g400.
i play alot of multiplayer games that use alot of resources as when you go to a spot that has 50 people all moving arround you and your slowing down becuase of the fill rate or somthing so would want a board that can handle that good if not great :0
i cant afford a gts3 and am scared of the image quailty for the gts.
so basically what i am asking is has anything really changed with the radeon and gts to support a second look and how does the kyro look?
Also i am playing mostly in 1024/x and i have a athlon 1333 on a abit kt7 board. i like having my monitor at 85 refresh so would a kyro be able to handle that with the lower clock?
sorry for being all over the place on this post and i appreciate any help 🙂
 
There's no doubt that the Radeon LE (flashed to be a Radeon DDR) is the best bang for the buck. It's a very nice card, and will blow away the Matrox in games.
 
Okay, the only card I have tried and can talk about is the ATI Radeon 64mb. I have this card it is far from being the best gaming card out there. However, I bough it it for these reasons in no particular order...

1) DVD Decoding (ATI is known to have the best built in)
2) TV Out (Here again, ATI is known to have essentially the best built in)
3) TV In (I probably will never use this feature, but if I ever do I have one)

It's not going to give you the fps as a GTS or a Kyro but for me its good enough. The image quality, colors, are really nice on the Radeon. I'm running at 1024 x 768 @ 85hz on my Viewsonic 19" PF790. As for drivers... ATI struggles here, but they are improving fairly quickly IMHO. They have been releasing new drivers pretty quickly, and they got a new one coming out soon even. I've been running Windows 98 and played many different games w/ no crashes. It's the most cost efficient proven card.
 
kyro 2 start to show its potencial from 1024x768x32 and up...

you have a great cpu, with that kind of system you will get more performance from a kyro 2 than a radeon or gts.
I have a duron at 800 overclocked to 900 and I mostly play at 1024x768x32 at 100 hz with my kyro 2...
sometimes I go for 1280x1024x32, but mostly I prefer to stay in 1024x768.

You can't go wrong with a hercules 4500 (kyro 2)...
 
According to Anandtech's review of the Kyro II, it will beat a Radeon 64MB DDR (and thus a Radeon 32MB DDR like the LE) in just about every game. The difference is usually about 30%, sometimes higher, sometimes lower. Because the Radeon 64MB DDR is faster than the 32MB DDR, the difference between the Kyro II and the Radeon LE (once flashed and overclocked) is even greater than 30%. The Kyro II is currently $112 at newegg.com, while the Radeon LE can be found for $70-80. Therefore, the Kyro II offers just about the same bang-for-the-buck as the Radeon LE does, plus you don't have to worry about overclocking or flashing your card to make it work properly.

In summary, get the Kyro II. 🙂

Good luck!
Nick
 
I don't know much about these things but suggest if you had 50 players on screen there would be quite a heavy load on your CPU and geometry, as well as the server 😉
if that Kyro II is a 64Mb version, I'd pull out the extra $30 for it. what is $30 these days? 😀
 
LegionX,

I agree with all the thumbs up on the KyroII. I just ordered mine from newegg.com earlier this week. It came in yesterday, but I wasn't home 🙁

I bought it because I thought it offered the best bang for the buck I could find. I would love to have a GF3, but after I bought the original Canopus Pure3D for $300+Can and found it out of date 6 months later, I vowed I would never spend that much money on a video card again.

Once I have had a chance to use it, I will report back....
 
Another option would be the geforce2 Pro. Several places has it for around $140. You can always overclock it to get close to a geforce Ultra range.
 
you can run a Tbird 1333 (266fsb) on the KT7 (KT133 chipset)?? ok i'm just too picky...

just say NO to the Radeon LE if you got that kinda system....it would be a waste unless you're saving up for something more grand. I would have to say go w/ the GF2 Pro (yes i have one and i am biased)...great speed and good enough 2D for your 1024x768 reso. I couldn't really tell the difference in quality when i'm playing FPS games w/ a Pro or Radeon 64DDR...moves too fast for me to even care. Can't say that I would go for KyroII, cuz I have win2k myself and didn't see that many guinea pigs yet...so in conclusion get yourself a nice GF2 Pro and frag away =)
 
thanks for the replies 😉 and sorry its a kt7a i think - too lazy to look it up but it is the kt 133a chip i think - the newer one .
i'm in canada and the cheapest i have found the kyro II for is 229 but will keep looking. they dont seem to sell it in the small stores so will have to future shop it or EB it.
How is image quality on it?
anyway thanks again for all the help 🙂
 
ohh and the game i play with 50 people on the screen is Ultima Online - i am in factions and a TB so it gets pretty damn cluttered with so many people in Brit fighting and doing stuff and all the NPC's. when i recall in there its like walking through waist high water for a minute or 2 while my card gets used to it.
I am hoping a newer faster card can handle that traffic better and give me even more of a speed boost. hate dying becuase i am lagged to death.
Ohh and if anyone plays that game i have to say that upgrading from a PIII 550@804 to the athlon 1333 tripled my speed - i didnt think it would make such a difference but all i could say was wow when i played for the first time after upgrading😉
 
From what I've heard the Kyro II is brilliant with Ultima IX because the game has loads of overdraw. Just think when 50 players are on the screen in a game every card but the Kyro 1 and II is rendering all those 50 players and anything behind those 50 players (the parts you can't even see) while the Kyro II will only render the players you actually see and nothing behind them. If half the players are covered by the other half then only half the players will be rendered. Of course all the polys are still done but your CPU can already cope with all the polys so all you need is the best fillrate you can get for the best price and that IMO (and especially for the games you play) is the Kyro II. If you can afford a Geforce 2 Ultra then go for it but if not then the Kyro II is your only choice IMO (I suppose the Pro is interesting too though).
 
ultima IX is great with kyro 2 or even radeon...
geforce 3 is even worst than those two above...
there is something wrong with nvidia cards since the beginning (tnt-1) they are crap managing too much textures...
 
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