Kyro II Ultra.....With "Enhanced T&L engine"!!

[holdencommodore]

This is straight from Paraknowya....

"From the box it looks like the 4800 will run at AGPx4 along with something called a enhanced T&L engine. This could be like the Vertex Geometry Processor on the MBX which only does the common T&L functions and is not a full blown T&L engine. Then again it could be any number of things. There is also the chance this image is fake, but with all the shops listing the 4800 some part of it must be real. Most people are guessing the Kyro II will run at 200Mhz, to me this is not really fast enough unless T&L is added. "
A pic of the 4800 box

Sound good to me......if it's true

Cheers.

 

[Daemon_UK]

Bah, too little too late.

 

[jbirney]

Maybe not,

if the regular K2 is smaking around the mx and even close to the GF2Ti200 (http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1580&p=1) in U2, then give it a bit more speed and some TnL help and well you can do the math for that game

 

[nemesismk2]

<< Bah, too little too late. >>



I disagree, the original Kyro 2 is performing very well against video cards in it's price range. Releasing the Kyro 2 Ultra with even limited t&l is a great move and will further increase the gap between the Kyro 2 and other video cards in the same UK price range, it will also mean that there is more of a level playing field between the Kyro 2 and other t&l equipped video cards especially at lower resolutions or games which make heavy use of t&l.

Funny story time, a customer came in to the shop where I work (actually part own now) and wanted a powerful video card with t&l, 64mb the works, sold him a Geforce3 and he then told me he wanted to use it for...wait for it....to surf the internet, dumb ass or what!

 

[sash1]

I think this will be a very good card for those on a budget. The Kyro II was an excellent card, the "Best Mainstream Card on Earth," and this will definitely be a good buy for people who want a decent card for the price.

But it all depends, the OEM 7500 is only $99. Dunno how well it will do this late in the game unless its around $80.

~Aunix

 

[Rand]

If it's priced competitively it might just be a viable purchase in the low end.

The Kyro 2 could often match up to the GF 2 GTS... a 200MHz Kyro may well be enough to push it up to GF2 Pro level. And the U2 benchmarks show it may well perform above that level in future games.

I wonder what this "Enhanced T&L" is..... I wonder if perhaps it isnt something similar to 3dfx's little driver trick to get pseudo T&L on the V4/5.
Time will tell I suppose, I'll be interested to learn what it is.

 

[Daemon_UK]

<<
Funny story time, a customer came in to the shop where I work (actually part own now) and wanted a powerful video card with t&l, 64mb the works, sold him a Geforce3 and he then told me he wanted to use it for...wait for it....to surf the internet, dumb ass or what! >>



Remind me not to buy anything in your shop.

 

[Idoxash]

I can say my Kyro II is a kick card but i will skip this one for the 3.....if the 3 is to be out in a few mths why buy this one. anyways maybe one day some of the ppl around here find there selfs taking sides with the Kyro... a few weeks ago most ppl here wanted it burn now it seems if more and more ppl are taking sides with the kyro....

 

[holdencommodore]

For the price of a MX200 in Australia, you can get a Kyro II - I reckon that the Kyro II has the best price/performance ratio of all budget cards.

Cheers

 

[nortexoid]

the most intriguing feature is the enhanced t&l...it sounds non-programmable to me, for some odd reason...maybe only because it's their first implementation of it - i don't know...

then again, t&l hasn't given a huge performance edge over non-t&l cards, so i wonder how much more performance this will add...most likely more to recent/newer games.

 

[BFG10K]

if the regular K2 is smaking around the mx and even close to the GF2Ti200

That may well be but pretty much every card (except for GF3 based cards and the 7500/8500) is crawling at every resolution. As it stands now Unreal2 is totally unplayable on a Kyro2 and I doubt a Kyro2 Ultra would make too much difference.

So while it might be good for the low end market, if you want to play Unreal2 at decent speed and eye candy you need to get the big boys like the GF4 or the R300.

 

[vedin]

Well, this site in German,
http://www.funcomputer.de/default.p...21&PHPSESSID=fa9b6d3436cd06a32171a10ba4a8cb8c
is boasting the same picture and saying it has a 225mhz clock. I'm still not sure if it's real or not, and won't deffinatley believe it until Hercules has it up on thier site, but it is a fun idea to toy with. Even if it is real, I don't think I'll be getting one. I'd much rather wait for the Kyro 3 myself and spend my money on something REALLY worthwhile. If this card really exists, it should put out about 450 megapixels/texels/sec. Anyone have any idea what this would cause it to do in comparison to a GF2 Ti200?

 

[LongCoolMother]

if it can hold its low prices like the original kyro II....it will be an awesome card...heck, i might get it! no...its kyro III for me! isnt it due out by the end of Q2 this year?

 

[nemesismk2]

<<

<<
Funny story time, a customer came in to the shop where I work (actually part own now) and wanted a powerful video card with t&l, 64mb the works, sold him a Geforce3 and he then told me he wanted to use it for...wait for it....to surf the internet, dumb ass or what! >>



Remind me not to buy anything in your shop. >>



My no1 rule with selling is NEVER let a person leave without buying something!

 

[nemesismk2]

<< the most intriguing feature is the enhanced t&l...it sounds non-programmable to me, for some odd reason...maybe only because it's their first implementation of it - i don't know...

then again, t&l hasn't given a huge performance edge over non-t&l cards, so i wonder how much more performance this will add...most likely more to recent/newer games. >>



Hardware t&l has given video cards a performance edge at lower resolutions, mostly 640x480. If the Kyro 2 Ultra has Hardware t&l then it will have a level playing field with the Geforce2 and Radeons which is always a good thing!

 

[nemesismk2]

<< if the regular K2 is smaking around the mx and even close to the GF2Ti200

That may well be but pretty much every card (except for GF3 based cards and the 7500/8500) is crawling at every resolution. As it stands now Unreal2 is totally unplayable on a Kyro2 and I doubt a Kyro2 Ultra would make too much difference.

So while it might be good for the low end market, if you want to play Unreal2 at decent speed and eye candy you need to get the big boys like the GF4 or the R300. >>



BFG10K You say that Unreal 2 is totally unplayable on the Kyro 2 then I guess your also saying that the Geforce2 Pro and Radeon DDR are also totally unplayable because they scored less on the resolutions most people (polls here have confirmed that most people don't play games at 640x480) play games at?

BFG10K You also say that almost every video card is "crawling" at every resolution except for the GF3 and R7500/8500 but in other threads the fps they are getting you've described as a "unplayable slideshow"? The 1024x768 scores for example!

 

[holdencommodore]

As much as I'd like a GF3 Ti 200 or Ti 500 or Radeon 8500, I simply can't justify (or afford) paying $440 for a Ti 200 or $795 for a Ti 500 or $695 for a 8500... maybe some day.... untill then, it's cheap 'n chearfull for me!

 

[Mingon]

nemesis2k - if those scores are true representations of what cards are going to get I would personally not consider anything less than a geforce 3 to be playable at 800x600 and I am not moving to 640x480 thats for sure. Personally I have looked at the picture of the box and I think its faked - the font type is not quite the same its close but slightly wider than the rest.

 

[nemesismk2]

<< nemesis2k - if those scores are true representations of what cards are going to get I would personally not consider anything less than a geforce 3 to be playable at 800x600 and I am not moving to 640x480 thats for sure. Personally I have looked at the picture of the box and I think its faked - the font type is not quite the same its close but slightly wider than the rest. >>



It was a surprise to see how far the GF3 lagged behind the GF3 ti500. Anyway it's good to know that if I get a R8500 instead of a Kyro 3 it will atleast be faster with Unreal 2 than a GF3

 

[Mingon]

The good thing about the geforce 3 range is that it seems a more efficient design than the radeon - judging by core speed relative to performance. Which means the new geforce4 running at 275-300mhz should be extremely competitive with ati, I was considering the 8500 but I have heard so many bad things about the drivers and whilst I dont need to use CAD as much as I used to I do like the nvdia cards performance in these type of applications.

 

[jbirney]

<< That may well be but pretty much every card (except for GF3 based cards and the 7500/8500) is crawling at every resolution. As it stands now Unreal2 is totally unplayable on a Kyro2 and I doubt a Kyro2 Ultra would make too much difference. >>



The reason I brought it up is to offer a counter point from people here that said that the K2 would take a dive in HighPoly games. In this test there were scenes were the poly count was in the rage of 100,000. I am not sure what you call high poly, but that is pretty dam high compared to games you can buy now. Thus it seems like the poor little k2 does not suffer this supper slowdown and can even by pass cards with much more memory bandwidth and fill rate. Now is that not impressive for a card that cost only $60?




<< So while it might be good for the low end market, if you want to play Unreal2 at decent speed and eye candy you need to get the big boys like the GF4 or the R300. >>



I am not saying the k2 is gonna to be the card to run U2. Since one of the developer said that he uses a GF2 on a 1 Gz P3 and finds it playable, I dont think we will have to have the GF4/R300 unless we want 16x12 with every option turned to the max. Keep in mind Epic said this was a worst case stress test (same thing that Anqnox and DroneZ benchmarks), not really a 100% accurate picture of what U2 will be like.

 

[BFG10K]

BFG10K You say that Unreal 2 is totally unplayable on the Kyro 2 then I guess your also saying that the Geforce2 Pro and Radeon DDR are also totally unplayable

Absolutely.

At 640 x 480 anything slower than a Radeon 7500 is a total slideshow and totally unplayable.
At 1024 x 768 not one card that is available today can manage playable framerates.

BFG10K You also say that almost every video card is "crawling" at every resolution except for the GF3 and R7500/8500 but in other threads the fps they are getting you've described as a "unplayable slideshow"? The 1024x768 scores for example!

As I said above I agree. The highest I would go on my system is 800 x 600 and then I'd get 64 FPS which is barely adequate but by no means great. As I said before I'll need at least one CPU upgrade and video card upgrade to play Unreal2 well.

Now is that not impressive for a card that cost only $60?

Perhaps but price/performance is meaningless if you can't reach a certain level of performance.

I dont think we will have to have the GF4/R300 unless we want 16x12 with every option turned to the max.

I disagree. If you want half-decent framerates at a half decent resolution and detail level (eg 1024 x 768 x 32 @ 75 FPS) you'll need a GF4 or R300 class card. And if you want the same framerates and levels of eye candy that I want you'll probably need a GF5 or a R400.

Keep in mind Epic said this was a worst case stress test (same thing that Anqnox and DroneZ benchmarks), not really a 100% accurate picture of what U2 will be like.

And I always plan for the worst-case scenario, that way I can only be disappointed if the final game is slower that what is shown in the stress test.

 

[jbirney]

<< At 640 x 480 anything slower than a Radeon 7500 is a total slideshow and totally unplayable.
At 1024 x 768 not one card that is available today can manage playable framerates. >>



Good sir your missing the point. This is NOT HOW THE GAMES RUN!! This bench is a worst case non-realistic stess test. Just like Dronz and Anaqmark. Both of those bench marks were much much worse than the actual game. do you remember the first bench marks on the GF3 and Anq? Remember how low they were? Then check the article at Toms on the Game, Huge diff.




<< Perhaps but price/performance is meaningless if you can't reach a certain level of performance. >>



Again your missing my poing. The point was lots of people said that the K2 would choke on high poly scenes. IT did not. In fact its with in a few fps of a card that cost 2x as much.




<< I disagree. If you want half-decent framerates at a half decent resolution and detail level (eg 1024 x 768 x 32 @ 75 FPS) you'll need a GF4 or R300 class card. And if you want the same framerates and levels of eye candy that I want you'll probably need a GF5 or a R400. >>



Wrong. Please read the recomend specs for U2 and you will see at GF4 is not needed. But dont listen to me, how about a direct quote from one of the developers:


<< Matthias Worch
Sr. Level Designer
Legend Entertainment:

Sorry, you won't get any FPS numbers from anybody until we're much closer to shipping. I know that people keep asking, and I know that it's important to everybody who wants to upgrade soon, but there's simply no way to give accurate numbers until we've stabilized the build. Things still change on a daily basis, and there's still some important code updates forthcoming that we have to integrate or optimize.
You can be certain, though that I'd be *****ing at my boss every day if my current work computer (P3/1GHz with a GeForce2) wasn't able to run the build in a playable fashion - couldn't get any work done that way >>


U2 developers comments in the thread....


Well know if he can get work done and have playable frame rates on PC thats CPU is 1/2 as fast, and the lower end video cards, I can bet you will not need a GF5

 

[nemesismk2]

The recommended specs for games are USUALLY way off IMO. Iif you had their recommended hardware you'd be running the game at 320x240 just so it's actually playable. They put any old s**t there just to shift a few more games! :|

 

[sc0tty8]

<< Bah, too little too late. >>




My k2(herc) spanks the GF2MX400 I have. And my old radeon 7200. I am happy with it. I can not run my mx at anything higher than 800x600 in 16-bit. With them above settings, I can get like 40fps, and anything higehr is like 20. My k2 pulls off 60 at 1280x1027x32 with everything on high. I am gettin a 8500 soon here, so then I retire this beast.

http://www.vi2.com/maxForumFiles/0_27_2002/overhead_2.jpg