Well I got my Kyro II yesterday and it works well in all of the games I play under normal conditions. If you play Tribes2, CS, UT, or any other FPS, then stop here. I don't play those games so you may not be interested in this review.
The overall frames are similar to that of my Geforce1 DDR but the picture quality in both 2D and 3D is definitely better. I wanted to try FSAA since the Kyro was supposed to excel in this area but I experienced problems in most games.
In Nascar Heat, I got some artifacting w/ FSAA and frames were unacceptable (20 FPS in 1024x768x16), this game only runs in 16-bit color. Remember this a racing game and the car is supposed to be going 180 mph so any kind of stutter is not acceptable.
I tried 2xAA and I had to go to 800x600 to get something decent at 40 FPS. But even using 2xAA, only horizontal worked w/out problems. 2xAA vertical had artifacting but FPS was same as horizontal. 40 FPS is borderline but I prefer 57 FPS w/out AA. My Geforce1 used to get 58.9 FPS (lock limit on FPS counter) in every resolution, FRAPS said I was getting 63 FPS w/ the Geforce1.
In Madden 2001, text got really fuzzy using any of the AA modes not to mention the menu screens all had a very noticable vertical and horizontal line splitting the the screen into 4 parts. The lines did go away when you started the game but FSAA had unacceptable frames and all AA modes were plagued by the fuzzy text.
High Heat 2002 worked the best with FSAA. It was actually very playable at 1024x768x32 w/ no problems at all.
Nascar Racing 4 got similar FPS as the Geforce1 w/ no AA. I could not get AA to work at all in N4, there were rainbow colored lines on the top part of the screen in all AA modes. Then all of sudden it wouldn't recognize my wheel so I uninstalled N4 and moved on, I prefer Heat anyways.
PGA2000, no problems at all but this game only runs in 16-bit color.
Since 2 of the games I play most only run in 16-bit color, the Kyro II really offers little improvement in gaming performance for the games I play. A Geforce2 GTS or Pro would probably run circles around the Kyro II in these 16-bit color only games, since the FSAA on the Kyro II does not work very well at this point.
All in all, the Kyro works well in the games I play under normal playing conditions. The FSAA was not impressive and seemed to present problems of some sort in most games. The picture quality is definitely better than Geforce1 and I imagine it's better than Geforce2 as well.
Not to mention it cleared up a major bug in my system, well more like an annoying bug, that wouldn't allow me to boot to a floppy. For some unexplainable reason, and I tried everything, my system could not boot to the floppy w/ my Leadtek Geforce DDR. I'd have to swap out the vcard if I ever wanted to boot to the floppy, at least now I don't have to do that.
I don't know that FSAA performance can be fixed by new drivers and if it can't, then the Kyro II really didn't give me a whole lot more than my Geforce1, aside from fixing the floppy problem I had. My favorite game is Nascar Heat and if the Kyro II cannot improve the FSAA from 20 FPS up to about 45 FPS, then it really does not give me any more performance then my Geforce1 because in a racing game, FPS is king, you can't drive with stutter.
When it comes down to it, the bottom line in most games if FPS. FSAA is no good if you can't push the frames and right now the only vcard that is capable of getting good FPS w/ FSAA is the GF3.
I still haven't decided whether I'm going to keep this card or not. I'm sure future driver releases will fix some problems and improve performance. I can probably live w/ this card for another 3 to 4 months until Madden 2002 comes out, and if the GF3 can come down to $250 by then, this card will have served its purpose and I can get a GF3 at that time, and still have this Kyro to stick into another computer.
Just one more thing I wanted to add, my card which is a retail version direct from Hercules, was not overclockable at all. Using Powerstrip, I couldn't even overclock to 180 MHz without picture problems. I didn't test overclocking further since anything less than a 5 MHz gain was useless.
KT7A/1ghz @ 1.33ghz/384mb Crucial 7E
The overall frames are similar to that of my Geforce1 DDR but the picture quality in both 2D and 3D is definitely better. I wanted to try FSAA since the Kyro was supposed to excel in this area but I experienced problems in most games.
In Nascar Heat, I got some artifacting w/ FSAA and frames were unacceptable (20 FPS in 1024x768x16), this game only runs in 16-bit color. Remember this a racing game and the car is supposed to be going 180 mph so any kind of stutter is not acceptable.
I tried 2xAA and I had to go to 800x600 to get something decent at 40 FPS. But even using 2xAA, only horizontal worked w/out problems. 2xAA vertical had artifacting but FPS was same as horizontal. 40 FPS is borderline but I prefer 57 FPS w/out AA. My Geforce1 used to get 58.9 FPS (lock limit on FPS counter) in every resolution, FRAPS said I was getting 63 FPS w/ the Geforce1.
In Madden 2001, text got really fuzzy using any of the AA modes not to mention the menu screens all had a very noticable vertical and horizontal line splitting the the screen into 4 parts. The lines did go away when you started the game but FSAA had unacceptable frames and all AA modes were plagued by the fuzzy text.
High Heat 2002 worked the best with FSAA. It was actually very playable at 1024x768x32 w/ no problems at all.
Nascar Racing 4 got similar FPS as the Geforce1 w/ no AA. I could not get AA to work at all in N4, there were rainbow colored lines on the top part of the screen in all AA modes. Then all of sudden it wouldn't recognize my wheel so I uninstalled N4 and moved on, I prefer Heat anyways.
PGA2000, no problems at all but this game only runs in 16-bit color.
Since 2 of the games I play most only run in 16-bit color, the Kyro II really offers little improvement in gaming performance for the games I play. A Geforce2 GTS or Pro would probably run circles around the Kyro II in these 16-bit color only games, since the FSAA on the Kyro II does not work very well at this point.
All in all, the Kyro works well in the games I play under normal playing conditions. The FSAA was not impressive and seemed to present problems of some sort in most games. The picture quality is definitely better than Geforce1 and I imagine it's better than Geforce2 as well.
Not to mention it cleared up a major bug in my system, well more like an annoying bug, that wouldn't allow me to boot to a floppy. For some unexplainable reason, and I tried everything, my system could not boot to the floppy w/ my Leadtek Geforce DDR. I'd have to swap out the vcard if I ever wanted to boot to the floppy, at least now I don't have to do that.
I don't know that FSAA performance can be fixed by new drivers and if it can't, then the Kyro II really didn't give me a whole lot more than my Geforce1, aside from fixing the floppy problem I had. My favorite game is Nascar Heat and if the Kyro II cannot improve the FSAA from 20 FPS up to about 45 FPS, then it really does not give me any more performance then my Geforce1 because in a racing game, FPS is king, you can't drive with stutter.
When it comes down to it, the bottom line in most games if FPS. FSAA is no good if you can't push the frames and right now the only vcard that is capable of getting good FPS w/ FSAA is the GF3.
I still haven't decided whether I'm going to keep this card or not. I'm sure future driver releases will fix some problems and improve performance. I can probably live w/ this card for another 3 to 4 months until Madden 2002 comes out, and if the GF3 can come down to $250 by then, this card will have served its purpose and I can get a GF3 at that time, and still have this Kyro to stick into another computer.
Just one more thing I wanted to add, my card which is a retail version direct from Hercules, was not overclockable at all. Using Powerstrip, I couldn't even overclock to 180 MHz without picture problems. I didn't test overclocking further since anything less than a 5 MHz gain was useless.
KT7A/1ghz @ 1.33ghz/384mb Crucial 7E
Facebook
Twitter