KyroII Experiences

[gygheyzeus]

Now that I've had my Kyro II for 2 weeks, I thought I'd share my thoughts on this card.

First off, I replaced a Voodoo 5 for this thing. I paid $469.99 (canadian) for the Voodoo5 when it first came out, so paying the roughly $220 canadian for this Kyro II was a great deal.

The 2D image quality of the Kyro II is right up there with the 2D on my VD5. However, I find that 3D image quality, and FSAA to be worse than the VD5. I find that in NFS: Porsche Unleashed that there seem to be a lot of "blotchy graphics."

I also miss the amount of tweaking you could do with the VD5 driver set, as apposed to the KyroII set.

As for issues, the only one so far is that I have not been able to successfully use 4X FSAA on the KyroII in any game or benchmark. It always boots me out. Any ideas here?

I hope that there are some new drivers released for my Kyro II that boost it's performance 10-20% (wishfull thinking, eh? ).. if not, I would advise all VD5 owners thinking of upgrading to the Kyro II to hold off. I only found an increase of roughly 5-7% in 3dmark 2000... and probably 0-3% in the games I play.

Also, my VD5 could use a hardward T&L optimization in 3dmark 2000. I thought the VD5 didn't have hardware T&L?

 

[Rand]

The Voodoo 5 can "emulate" T&L by turning on CPU Geometry I believe it's called in the drivers. It basically uses 3DNow! or SSE to emulate T&L, you need a processor supporting SSE or 3DNow! to use it however.

If you have that enabled then software will be fooled into thinking the V5 can do T&L.

 

[powervr2]

"increase of roughly 5-7% "
that depends on your system cpu...

"It always boots me out"
If you stay bellow or equal than 1024x768 4XFSAA I don't understand why...
my kyro don't do that..
have you reintalled windows?
there might be something left from that voodoo5 in your registry...

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Do you have a TV-out? what's the quality like?

 

[gygheyzeus]

I reformatted of course. I never install a new video card over an old one. I was even trying to get 4X FSAA to work at 640x480 and it wouldn't.

My CPU is a t-bird 1.33GHz... so I don't think its the limiting factor here.

 

[gygheyzeus]

Nah, I didn't go for tv-out (my computer is in my room, and I have a TV-Tuner in this thing, too.

That, and I had tv-out on my Voodoo3 a while back, and it looked like crap (damn TV's to hell )

 

[HappyGamer2]

I have spent plenty of time reading many different message boards, from what I hear most the kyro2 is not a overall upgrade from a voodoo5, it's a side step, true it does better in some games than V5 but the V5 better in some other games (not just UT).........plus the V5 still has better drivers/less bugs even thou the drivers are over 6 months old. now with that said I hope they make it, I would love to see kyro3 be a super killer card.

 

[RobsTV]

Seems the V5 and Kyro 2 do similar in high end systems, like gygheyzeus has with a 1.3GHz AMD. With normal systems around 800MHz or less, the V5 should do much better, as a GHz CPU isn't required, and the V5 performs well with lower end CPU's, as well as high end CPU's..

 

[Teasy]

<<<I also miss the amount of tweaking you could do with the VD5 driver set, as apposed to the KyroII set.>>>

Get a program like Kyro Tools from http://pvr.gamestats.com (this site seems to be down for now but it should be back soon).

<<<As for issues, the only one so far is that I have not been able to successfully use 4X FSAA on the KyroII in any game or benchmark. It always boots me out. Any ideas here?>>>

Which drivers are you using?, I've never encountered that bug with either Kyro 1 or II and I've never heard of anyone having it so its an unusual problem.

<<<I hope that there are some new drivers released for my Kyro II that boost it's performance 10-20% (wishfull thinking, eh? ).. if not, I would advise all VD5 owners thinking of upgrading to the Kyro II to hold off. I only found an increase of roughly 5-7% in 3dmark 2000... and probably 0-3% in the games I play.>>>

No I wouldn't say thats wishful thinking. The drivers are constantly getting better, there very stable but they have a lot of room for performance boosts. For instance the latest drivers (http://www.powervr.com/downloads/Drivers.htm Build 1.0.7.111 Kyro I and II reference drivers) improve performance for Black and White (1024x768x32 now seems even smoother then 800x600x32 was before) NFS5 PU gained allot of speed (some say it doubled in speed but I don't play it so I can't commet), HL Counter Strike now doesn't lose anywhere near as much speed when smoke grenades are used and also flishlights now don't lose to much framerate either (previously they could kill fps), so there improving allot of games. BTW which games do you play?, because if you only see a very small increase in speed going from Voodoo5 to Kyro II then you either only play games that might favour Voodoo5 or there's something wrong with your setup, I used to own a Voodoo5 and its performance was not that close to my Kyro II, it was a great card never the less though. You should make sure you always force texture compression and also force trilinear filtering (both in the driver optimizations tab) were ever possible (which should be almost all games). These two setings can gain you 20-30% extra speed at high res/bit depth when trilinear filtering is used in the game (forcing trilinear is actually using a different form of trilinear filtering that looks just as good but is faster for Kyro II cards when texture compression is also used).

<<<I find that 3D image quality, and FSAA to be worse than the VD5>>>

The 3d IQ really should be better on the Kyro II since it has internal true colour and trilinear filtering and the Voodoo5 only had bilinear filtering and although the post fiter is nice it isn't a patch on internal true colour. Although you might find that the reason you see its IQ as worse is because of the worse FSAA. If you used FSAA on the Voodoo5 allot in games then going back to those games and using Kyro II's FSAA may make that game look worse despite its superior filtering (bilinear vs trilinear) and internal true colour (not for all games but some). Kyro II's FSAA is very good but its not as good looking as Voodoo5's FSAA, Kyro II's FSAA is more efficient however.

<<<I find that in NFS: Porsche Unleashed that there seem to be a lot of &quot;blotchy graphics.&quot;>>>

Could you describe this problem more thuroughly? I did hear someone mention a problem with Kyro II and NFS5 PU were he was getting texture problems on the wheels of the cars, is this your problem? You should make a profile for NFS5 and make sure that render until flip is used and also try it with and without texture compression incase thats causing the blotchyness (some games don't like TC to be forced, most are fine though).

 

[PotNoodle]

&quot;With normal systems around 800MHz or less, the V5 should do much better, as a GHz CPU isn't required, and the V5 performs well with lower end CPU's, as well as high end CPU's..&quot;

Eh? how is there going to be much difference?

 

[bpt8056]

I concur with HappyGamer2's statement. You don't need to semi-upgrade to a KyroII if you have a V5...especially when more next-generation cards will come into the market in the next few month. The V5 has the best FSAA I've ever seen and it still does compared to all of the video cards on the market.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

get rid of that kyro II. too much damn fiddling around with the drivers. get a geforce pro, better performance across the board and better supported. can't go wrong with geforce. kyro 2 still has compatibility bugs to deal with.

 

[Ironduke]

<< get rid of that kyro II. too much damn fiddling around with the drivers. get a geforce pro, better performance across the board and better supported. can't go wrong with geforce. kyro 2 still has compatibility bugs to deal with. >>



more lies.


The truth is.

Kyro2 = Faster the GeFarce2 GTS
Kyro2 = beats the ultra at certain things.
Kyro2 = Better 2d quality then any nvidiot card.
Kyro2 + Latest Drivers &amp; DX8.1(build 620) = awesome.


KYRO 2 ROCKS FOR U!

POWERVR TO THE PEOPLE!

 

[yasha]

Did anyone KyroII look like the plastic static bag was openned and resealed? This would be if you bought it from newegg.

 

[Teasy]

<<<get rid of that kyro II. too much damn fiddling around with the drivers.>>>

What are you talking about? Enabling TC and Trilinear filtering is &quot;too much fiddling&quot; is it? gygheyzeus obviously doesn't agree with you: &quot;I also miss the amount of tweaking you could do with the VD5 driver set, as apposed to the KyroII set&quot;

<<<get a geforce pro, better performance across the board and better supported.>>>

That really depends on the CPU.

<<<can't go wrong with geforce>>>

I'd completely diagree with that, are you trying to say that no'one has problems with the Geforce? I still see plenty of posts about people having problems with Geforce cards. I had a Geforce and frankly I hated it, obviously I'm not saying the card is bad but rather that I went wrong with a Geforce so your comment is wrong.

<<<kyro 2 still has compatibility bugs to deal with.>>>

??? and Geforce doesn't? Don't be rediculess, there's no game I can't play with my Kyro II therefore any incompatability problems Kyro II has is with the setup its in, bad installs etc, which happens with all cards.

 

[bpt8056]

<<

<< get rid of that kyro II. too much damn fiddling around with the drivers. get a geforce pro, better performance across the board and better supported. can't go wrong with geforce. kyro 2 still has compatibility bugs to deal with. >>



more lies.


The truth is.

Kyro2 = Faster the GeFarce2 GTS
Kyro2 = beats the ultra at certain things.
Kyro2 = Better 2d quality then any nvidiot card.
Kyro2 + Latest Drivers &amp; DX8.1(build 620) = awesome.


KYRO 2 ROCKS FOR U!

POWERVR TO THE PEOPLE! >>



There couldn't be a more biased response than the one you just made, Ironduke. As you read more messages on this forum, you'll see that people appreciate a statement that has some value such as unbiased observations. How could you improve yours? Explain in detail why Kyro2 is all those good things you listed.

 

[Teasy]

<<<There couldn't be a more biased response than the one you just made, Ironduke. As you read more messages on this forum, you'll see that people appreciate a statement that has some value such as unbiased observations. How could you improve yours? Explain in detail why Kyro2 is all those good things you listed>>>

Why don't you also ask Sudheer Anne to explain his/her comments then? Why aren't you asking him/her to explain in detail why Kyro II is all those bad things he/she mentioned?

 

[Leon]

<< more lies.


The truth is.

Kyro2 = Faster the GeFarce2 GTS
Kyro2 = beats the ultra at certain things.
Kyro2 = Better 2d quality then any nvidiot card.
Kyro2 + Latest Drivers &amp; DX8.1(build 620) = awesome.


KYRO 2 ROCKS FOR U!

POWERVR TO THE PEOPLE >>



The most biased and moronic response I've seen in a while.

4.9 grade on my trolling scale, congratulations

 

[powervr2]

with the last driver update there is not a single issue with my kyro 2 with all of my games (more than 100 games new and old)
...
Yap some could be slow like 50 fps at 1024x768x32.. but they are working on it..

LOL

 

[bpt8056]

<< Why don't you also ask Sudheer Anne to explain his/her comments then? Why aren't you asking him/her to explain in detail why Kyro II is all those bad things he/she mentioned? >>



Because s/he doesn't seem to have any Kyro2 experiences as to what this thread is about. Look at his/her system rig and you'll see that s/he has a Geforce2 so that's enough clue for me not to put any value on his/her comment. Ironduke, on the other hand, may or may not have a Kyro2 (no clue) and thus, I decided to question this person to explain in details about his statement as I can only assume he has a Kyro2.

 

[TravisBickle]

Kyro II created a pre-launch buzz but hasn't really delivered for end users. I'll stay at ease with a V5 most of the time till I get a GF3 next year then

 

[RobsTV]

Ironduke, I noticed you left out of your truths one little item.

A GeForce 2 &quot;MX&quot; beats a Kyro2 in some instances, with popular programs, so of course a GF2 GTS would beat it by more in those same programs. Check out Anand's review of the Kyro2 for more details. Don't forget that the Kyro 2 &quot;requires&quot; an ultra fast CPU before it can compete with any other cards. In a normal or weaker system, (under 800MHz), it fails to compete, and other cards don't require this extra CPU power to run fast.

 

[rickn]

there are no $90 64mb Geforce 2 GTS cards.

 

[Hender]

RobsTV: The Kyro II was never &quot;supposed&quot; to cost $80, and Anand went out of his way to say that the retail price was $150, so I don't know what you're talking about.

 

[pidge]

In the latest issue of Maximum PC, they gave the Hercules 4500 a score of 6 because of the many problems they experienced with the KyroII board.