NVIDIA's RIVA 128 (PCI)
DIAMOND Viper V330 PCI

< Introduction > < The Good > < The Bad >
< Test System Configuration > < Conclusion > < Rating >

Introduction : CREATIVE's RIVA TNT

CREATIVE Technology, the company that made its mark with the Sound Blaster is here to challenge the graphics sector yet again with their newly launched Graphics Blaster Riva TNT.  TNT stands for TwiN Texel Engine.   What it means is that it has the ability to process data with 2 texel engines instead of just 1.  Most cards in the market, including the MATROX G200 falls into the latter category, except for the Voodoo 2, which needs to rely on 2 pixel engine (2 chipset) to do this, NVIDIA better it with a single chip design and is the One & Only Single 2D/3D solution to have a twin texel engine.  3DLab's Permedia 3 is reputated to have this as well but will only be available from early 1999.  We @ Singapore Hardware Zone will demo how this card stack up with S3's SAVAGE 3D and the former 2D/3D kingpin - RIVA 128 (also a product by NVIDIA).

The box received looks rather dull compared to the Viper V550 that I received a few weeks ago.  This TNT card comes with basically the bare body of the chip plus the PCB board, no frills or any thrill like Video Out function found on the DIAMOND's card.

A small bonus is perhaps the free games titles bundled with the card.  However, these 2 titles are quite old already.  Looking at the board, I could not located any sign of the board's revision.  The onboard 8 pieces of 2MB SDRAM are not rated with any marking.  Coded as 81F161622B-80FN (9827 K10F).  It seems to me that CREATIVE does not wish to reveal the brand of memory they are using nor the limit these SDRAM are capable of.  This makes overclocking a little risky.   From intuition, the RAMs are of the more economical type compared to those 125MHz SDRAM used by DIAMOND or CANOPUS.  The whole package was manufactured in CREATIVE's very own new building cum manufacturing plant in Singapore.

These are the contents of the box:

• (1) Graphics Blaster Riva TNT graphics accelerator

• (1) GB Riva TNT Installation CD-ROM with Installation Guide (Hardcopy Manual)

• (1) GB Riva TNT Drivers for Win95/Win98

• (1) Other software

The card comes with a very thin but moderately detailed manual.  Just black and white with instructions for installing, a little introduction on the given softwares like 3DEEP plus troubleshooting details.  My advise is to pay a visit to CREATIVE's website and you can find out much more about any trouble with the card.  CREATIVE just added a new driver revision for Win95/98 (gbrtw9x.exe) and also a bios revision (gbrtbios.exe) on 23th September this month.  Correcting several bug found on the previous bios.

Here are the software that are bundled with the box :

Though cost saving, CREATIVE cares about heating issue & attached a fairly large black heatsink with the card.  The card also comes with 3 years warranty with unparallel local support.

Optimised in DIRECT 3D, it beats RIVALs' including 3Dfx Voodoo 2 & Banshee, Matrox G200, S3 Savage 3D according to others benchmarks found in others website.  Supplied with a full ICD for added OpenGL support, it's currently RAW performance and compatiable issue will be solved soon.

The best point of GB RIVA TNT is that you can actually use the reference drivers provided by NVIDIA to futher enhance its performance.  This is because CREATIVE graphics products are normally 90% design-based on the original reference sample.  Stability is almost close to 95% when using those reference drivers.

Installation of the card is a no-brainer. Installation is similar to most Video cards. Driver installation is guided by the simple setup program. If one does need aid in installing the drivers, the manual explains the process.

Introduction : HERCULES Terminator BEAST

Terminator BEAST card adding it to their family of Terminators running Permedia 2 , INTEL 740 and some chipset. HERCULES made it's name with the Stingray series of 3Dfx Voodoo Rush cards.  The major problem with these cards is that they have non-flashable bios and few driver releases.  I guess HERCULES realised their mistake.  When I went to their website for the latest drivers, I found 2 drivers available for download, both of which were dated less than 14 days apart.

Here are the contents of the box:

(1) Terminator BEAST, accelerator

(2) BEAST Installation CD-ROM with Installation Guide/Demo/Etc

(3) Manual

The card is a REVISION A board , running with some 100MHz SDRAM, which seems to be rather underclocked considering that SAVAGE 3D is a 0.25 Micron chipset.  This means that it is probably capable of much higher clock and of course requires better SDRAM like 125MHz models found on the TNT cards.  This is perhaps the reason for it's much lower price tag compared to the RIVA TNT.  From far, you will be amazed that HERCULES actually took the effort to create such thick manual similar to CANOPUS.  However, upon closer inspection, I realised that HERCULES combined all its range of cards into one single manual.  That means that I was able to find installation guide for Thriler 3D etc in this manual packed with Terminator BEAST.

As for the section on this card, the manual only provided basic installing guide plus a very very short introduction to it's HERCULES Entertainment Center software capable of playback midi, mix and managing Videos.  The HERCULES Touch software is a nice gimmo which allow customing desktop with your card.  The manual is attached with a warranty card (5 years limited warranty)

Here are the software bundled with the box :

The 5 years warranty proves that HERCULES offers nothing but the best after-sales service.  Guess it's better than CREATIVE's 3 miserable years.  But nothing compared to STB 10 years stunning warranty terms.  As with its other products, HERCULES took the effort to include a Heatsink on the chipset, making heat dissipation better.

Installation of the card is really straightforward, similar to most Video cards. Driver installation is guided by the simple HERCULES setup program. If one does need aid in installing the drivers, the manual explains the process.

Introduction : DIAMOND Viper V330 4MB SGRAM PCI

NVIDIA most famous product of 1997 - RIVA 128 chipset which almost storm the whole of graphics market overnight.  DIAMOND's 1997 entry of the VIPER V330 gain back some ground with the poor Viper name previously.   This card is enclosed in a full retailer box which was the FIRST batch of Viper to be shipped into Singapore late November last year.  I can still remember the hype over it as the stock ran out almost within 1 week after it arrived.  Neverthless, let's just get on with it.  Viper shipped the FIRST generation Viper V330 with the actual intention of having Video-in function on the VIPER.  The first 5000 sets shipped out of its US plant came with the Video-in terminal which was abandon after design flaw with the video-in function.  Otherwise I would give it a much higher rating.   Comb with 4MB 100MHz SGRAM, the technical specification was the highest as of that time.  A little mistake was that Viper V330 came without the heatsink on it's chipset.

Bundled were some games and graphics softwares on a few CD-ROMs included in the package

The box design is an aircraft on the Viper V330. Quite attractive in term of overall quality.  Packing inside is as usual DIAMOND's style.  It's very airy.....

These are the contents of the box:

The DIAMOND card is a piece of well engineered PCB with the quality there.  Overall feeling of this card is very good as it comes with very good bundle and the 5 years standard warranty by DIAMOND.  A pity is that the TNT chip is not attached with a heatsink.  I would personally recommend a cooling fan to installed if you intend to overclock it's memory or chip.

Installation of the card is a no-brainer. Installation is similar to most Video cards. Driver installation is guided by the simple DIAMOND setup program. If one does need aid in installing the drivers, the manual explains the process.

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Crash of the Titans

The out-of-box experience .......

On paper, RIVA TNT powered CREATIVE's entry seems the most powerful among all three reviewed with 180-190Mpixel/sec fill rate.  It's definately a notch above SAVAGE 3D in term of benchmarks scores and also excel on the screen quality test compared to the SAVAGE 3D or even the Voodoo 2.

Using the Pentium II 400MHz processor overclocked at 448MHz, the TNT ran like a Bull and left Savage little space to contain.  Not to mention RIVA TNT.  All cards are said to be able to scale according to the processor's speed & excel.  RIVA 128 uses NVIDIA's special technology of getting data store through system memory to increase the overall memory reserviour.  Not too sure if the new TNT pack this technology as well.  S3 have a unique S3TC -- Texture Compression. With texture compression, not only will normal D3D games run faster (for the most part) due to the textures taking up less memory bandwidth, but there will be some nice looking levels for quake/unreal engine games that will not even run on other cards. There's rumors of a 200mb texture Unreal level to show off the Savage3D's abilities (Yes this means unreal will likely work with the Savage3D soon!). Supposedly this level will look pretty damned spectacular.

I have not experienced any hiccups in term of installation with any of these cards.   All are fine under normal circumstance.  Windows applications never seem to be faster anymore.  Brilliant colours and the high refresh rates of up to 1920x1200 @ 60Hz or Savage 1600x1200 running @ up to 85Hz.  Either of this will meet your requirment of a 21" monitor.  No 3D games run at such high resolution yet, mainly useful for designers to enjoy the big screen effect.

The very best point of GB RIVA TNT are that you can actually use the reference drivers provided by NVIDIA to futher enhance it's performance because CREATIVE graphics products are normally 90% design based on the original reference sample.  Stability are almost close to 95% when using those reference driver.  I must also admit a point.   Both the TNT & Savage are experiencing problem with serveral games titles.   Unreal on either cards does not work at it's best.  Even the much publicized S3's S3TC technology did not seem to increase any performance on UNREAL.  S3 cards have problem with many softwares titles and hardware conflicts among other hardware components.

The RIVA TNT shine under all benchmark test (see below) and recorded a 170.3 frames rate compared to Savage's 112.1fps.  That is about 35% higher than the result of Savage 3D.  QUAKE II results also give similar scores.  Making sure it's a better buy if you are looking for a D.I.Y system right now and wanted the BEST.   According to the latest benchmarks results by Anand in regards to TNT performance in Socket-7 boards.  The Creative card he use still gave him pretty high score and unparalled image quality even when using a slow P166-MMX.  Just that everyone advise is not to waste your dollar on it as Savage was said to be better in slower CPU.  The Viper V330 is also a serious contentor for it's pricing now at only S$ 145 (PCI) or even better at just over S$130 for the AGP version.  Both with 4MB.

Desktop Control Utility & OpenGL support

This is perhaps among the MOST important criteria when you wish to make full adjustment on your card and the colours.  CREATIVE BlasterControl is capable of allowing you to adjust gamma, desktop colours and some major TNT functions.  Quite neat but is way off compared to CANOPUS or DIAMOND's offering.  The Terminator BEAST offers the unique feature of creating your very own desktop with the combo you want.  More like D.I.Y case.  Pretty refreshing, but rather complex in terms of using it.  I do not want to elaborate on the old DIAMOND Viper V330 much other than it's pretty stable OpenGL driver as of now.  Using DIAMOND's latest 0.128 driver.  Performance is pretty ok with it's current pricetag.  The 97 version of Diamond's Incontrol Tools also offer gamma correction and refresh rates control.  Pretty much advance. A few hangs was occured when I first run RIVA TNT with QUAKE II.  The screen froze suddenly for no reason and only a reboot will unlocked it.  After the flashing of new BIOS, I did not see this happen again.  Guess it's just one of those bugs issue yet again.   BEAST's OpenGL driver are quite young as yet.  Results & speed wise, I find that it's still noticebly slower than TNT, though the picture quality at 32-bit colour are very brilliant and almost being on par with TNT.

3D Quality & Features

In Quake-2 the image looks beautiful and stunning on RIVA TNT.  Definately on the top class level with Matrox G200 and the renowned Voodoo 2 in term of image quality , better than the Riva-128 condsiderably and it shows how much NVIDIA have improved and excel.  Running the new SMALL SOLDIER game,with very detailed graphics displayed, TNT just brings out the ultimate gaming sensation.  COMMANDO game, looks really cool with the SAVAGE 3D, colouring are just amazing, smooth flowing frames.  Guess the new cards are made to shine on high-end systems.

While many new generation cards boast 32-bit rendering, it's a matter of fact if running 32-bit the chip will be slowed down. NVIDIA have make a point of not making this happen with the TNT (Twin Texel Engine) as it display solid design wins over even the top notch G200.Z-Buffing @ 24-bit is not a single point inferior in picture quality when compare with the MATROX G200 running 32-bit Z-buffering.

Not to be outdone, SAVAGE 3D is also capable of running 32-bit rendering and Z-Buffing @ 32-bit.  Hmm? That means TNT cannot do 32-bit Z-Buffing? Well,relax pals.  In actual real-time applications.  You can never ever notice that using 24-bit buffering difference with the 32-bit SAVAGE.  And TNT even gives a better image quality.RIVA 128 is really totally outclassed here, with it's poor image quality, you will better off with some others card if you need perfect imaging.

Extras

A special bonus for the SAVAGE 3D and CREATIVE's TNT owners are that these 2 cards are capable of running full screen MPEG-2 movies using software.  Both are not equipped with one.  So make sure you get yourself a copy of those widely available software MPEG-2 programs.

The Benchmarks

BenchMarks on the RIVA TNT,SAVAGE 3D & RIVA 128 in Windows98 with DirectX-6 update. OpenGL-ICD is also installed.

So here they are :

*Matrox Millennium G200 results are run on a K6-2 350MHz processor(3.5x100MHz) w/ OpenGL 3D wrapper

* Note: All benchmarks results are running @ 640x480 unless otherwise stated.

All drivers are using the latest from their respective manufacturer.

BUGS wise.TNT is really hit hard on it.CREATIVE & NVIDIA send out new bios/driver almost every fortnight to ensure the bugs to be elimated.

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RIVA TNT - I've got serveral problems with this card running new games like UNREAL, and even older games like MOTOR RACER.  It refused to move and gave me frequent hangs.  After serveral driver and bios updates, the card now is surely more stable in terms of normal applications.  A general reminder here is that TNT will have very big problem running in Super-7 boards especially with it's AGP version.   It's nothing to do with NVIDIA but just that VIA and ALi faces problem using their VART.  AGP driver and AGP slots.  So unless these problems are solved fast, it's better to stay clear of it.  RIVA TNT scores quite average on slower processors,   no worth to waste your cash on it if you own anything like a 166MMX processor.

SAVAGE 3D - The highly touted chip from S3 face many conflict issue with serveral motherboards.  My ABIT seem pretty ok with it.  But report from others was that SAVAGE 3D have major problem with some brands of mainboard.  Do check it out yourself before purchasing.  The overall quality of the SDRAM used are also rather cheap.   Why not folk out a bit more for 08ns 125MHz SDRAM ? HERCULES, U read me?

RIVA 128, the benchmarks shows everything. It's the worse among the 3.  Giving low results but it's still compatiable with the G200, slight slower only, if you are getting a RIVA 128/ZX based card.  My personal recommendation is go for the cheaper makes like CARDEX RIVA ZX 8MB card retail around S$140 giving you the performance of near G200.  It's really a great choice for people on the lower end.  It beat Rendition's V2x00 and all of ATI range of cards with it's faster RAMDAC and chipset.

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