The highly anticipated GeForce 2 graphics cards are now available everywhere.  With the technologies changing at such a frantic rate, many may wonder as to whether they should get the 'latest and greatest' or wait a few more months for something better.  You may also own a powerful card that may not even need the upgrade.  Read on...

At the 2000 E3 show in Los Angeles, nVidia demo'd their hot new GeForce 2 graphics cards to a select few.  The demos they provided looked totally sweet.  The shadowing effects and lighting were really and truly lifelike.  It is clear that in time as systems get more powerful that computers will be able to simulate reality, in gameplay and in graphics.

This review will be focused on the Asus brand graphics card, which has been shown to be the most streamlined and perhaps best performing GeForce 2 card available.  The one downside to the hardware is that it lacks an S-video output.  Many users will not care about this feature, but as a hardcore enthusiast, the $30 part would have been appreciated, allowing me to output my games to a big screen TV and/or to output the graphic signal to a VCR.  This shouldn't deter you from buying a great card though if it is indeed the 'best' performing.  There are other GeForce 2 cards on the market that have this feature, but you will generally have to pay for the added feature.

A good way to delve into the features of the card is by showing you the technical stats of the card.  This list is provided by Asus:

Graphics engine
	NVIDIA® GeForce2 GTS GPU
Video Memory
	32MB 332MHz DDR (166MHz x2) SGRAM
RAMDAC
	Integrated 350MHz RAMDAC supporting from 640x480 up to 2048x1536 in true color
T&L Engine
	2nd Generation Transform & Lighting Engine
Maximum Polygons
	Up to 25 million triangles per second at peak rates
OpenGL
	Fully 1.2 Compliant OpenGL Support
Multi-Buffering
	Double, triple, and quad buffering for smooth animation and vibrant playback
Vertical refresh rate
	60-240 Hz
Bus standard
	Full AGP 4X/2X with Fast Writes
Multiple Video Windows
	Hardware color space conversion and filtering (YUV 4:2:2 and 4:2:0)
Optimized for 3D Acceleration
	With complex support for DirectX 7 features, such as multi-texturing, bump mapping, light maps, reflection maps, full scene anti-aliasing, trilinear and 8-tap anisotropic filtering (better than trilinear mipmapping)
Minimum System Requirement
	Intel PentiumTM, Pentium ProTM, Pentium IITM III or compatible CPUs
	Intel chipset mainboard recommended
	One available AGP compliant slot
	Microsoft® Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows NT4.0 with Service Pack 3.0 or later version
	64MB System Memory
	CD-ROM Drive

Maximum Refresh Rate Table (Hz)
Resolution	Color Depth (BITS)	Max Refresh Rate (Hz)
640 x 480	8/16/32	240/240/240
800 x 600	8/16/32	240/240/240
1024 x 768	8/16/32	240/240/200
1152 x 864	8/16/32	200/200/170
1280 x 960	8/16/32	170/170/150
1280 x 1024	8/16/32	170/170/170
1600 x 900	8/16/32	150/150/120
1600 x 1200	8/16/32	120/120/100
1920 x 1080	8/16/32	100/100/85
1920 x 1200	8/16/32	100/100/85
1920 x 1440	8/16/32	85/85/75
2048 x 1536	8/16/32	75/75/75

As you can see, this card is ultra powerful.  It contains the best technology money can buy.  But all this technology won't mean much unless your gaming experience is better, right?  So lets jump into the games!

Keep in mind, the computer system that both cards were tested was a Pentium 3 500 Mhz with 128 MB DRAM.

The first game I tested was Electronic Arts "Need for Speed Porsche Challenge".  I am very familiar with this title, as it is one of the games I have completed somewhat recently.  All of my previous trekking through this game, and for all other comparisons in this review are with a 3Dfx Voodoo 3 3500 AGP graphics card.  This game uses direct 3D for graphics acceleration.  Upon first playing the game with the GeForce 2 card, I was surprised that tings looked really about the same.  So I began playing with the rendering options in the game trying to find that perfect resolution/detail combo.  After about 15 minutes I realized that there really was no noticeable difference between the two cards that were tested.  I was surprised.  I was expecting the GeForce 2 card to totally crank.  The other thing that disappointed me was the fact that I could not tell the difference between 16-bit and 32-bit textures.  With out a side by side high quality printout of the two, I doubt you could either.

Voodoo 3 Card 1 - GeForce 2 1 (tie)

The next game tested was Sierra Studios "Ground Control."  This game seemed to slightly favor the GeForce 2 card.  It looks great with the Voodoo 3, but there were times where I was in awe at the smooth scrolling as the game panned the landscape.  I tried upping the resolution a bit and increasing the visible distance and that seemed to suddenly slam the brakes on performance.  I still had to be careful as to what rendering settings I had, but with 1024 x 768 resolution and good viewable distance, the game looked great.  Although not a major improvement, it was noticeable.

Voodoo 3 Card 1 - GeForce 2 2

Next game tried was the popular "Diablo 2" by Blizzard.  The game looks descent with the Voodoo 3 card, the only flaws being that the resolution is fixed at 640 x 480, but this is not the graphics card's fault.  Using the Glide driver on both cards (yes, the GeForce 2 can do Glide) I noticed that the GeForce 2 card had a problem with contrast.  Performance was identical with the 3Dfx card, but tings looked very washed out and dark areas were to dark.  I changed the 3D renderer to use the direct 3D mode instead, hoping for a solution, but unfortunately, the same contrast problem still existed.  Even paying with the contrast control within the game helped a bit, but something did not look right.  Perhaps Diablo 2 is not yet optimized for the GeForce 2 card yet.  Unfortunately, the older card gets the point.

Voodoo 3 Card 2 - GeForce 2 2 (tie)

The next game tested was Blizzard's classic 2D game "StarCraft."  The best place in this game to test (I figured) was to build a fleet of carriers and launch a couple hundred autonomous intercepters at targets, trying to note frame rate.  Put bluntly, the performance and look of the game was identical on both cards.  I could not tell the difference at all.  Both cards performed well, so both cards win.

Voodoo 3 Card 3 - GeForce 2 3 (tie)

Next, I thought I would try some of the pack in games that came with the GeForce 2.  The first game is "Re-volt" by Acclaim.  I set the game to 1024 x 768, all features turned on, and in 32 bit color mode on.  The GeForce 2 card looked totally awesome!  I thought to myself, here is a game that hs obviously been optimized for the card, and it shows.  I played the demo level a few times then tried the 3Dfx version of the same game later.  I was shocked to see that the game looked just as good!!!  I could not choose from a 32 bit color palette, but again, I was unable to tell the difference.  Even with the GeForce 2 card, I was alternating as fast as possible between color modes and could not tell a difference.  As is turns out, Re-volt looks breathtaking on either card, and as a side note, this game turns out to be loads of fun!  This is a game I think I will have to come back to.

Voodoo 3 Card 4 - GeForce 2 4 (tie)

The last game I used to review the card was another pack in from Psygnosis, called "Rollcage."  Again, it looked sweet on both cards, like Re-volt, it had liquid fast frame rates, certainly exceeding that which the monitor could even display.  Rollcage is a Wipeout style racing game with a closed circuit track, so the polygon count was probably a little light, but regardless, it looked perfect... on both cards.  So again, we have another tie.

Voodoo 3 Card 5 - GeForce 2 5 (tie)

So what does all this mean?  My conclusion is that the GeForce 2 Direct 3D engine is roughly the same as that of the 3Dfx Voodoo 3 3500 card.  Performance on practically every game was identical.  Now, I know the GeForce 2  is capable of doing more.  I saw it myself at the E3 show just a few months ago.  nVidia's famous T & L (transformation and lighting) effects are awesome, but I actually think they are a little before their time.  None of the game I tested were optimized for the GeForce 2, an none of them took advantage of the T & L effects.

A good analogy for this situation would be like saying you purchased a $2000 computer and only use it for e-mail.  The card is capable of more, but nothing is taking advantage of it.  I was disappointed to see that the direct 3D tests were not any better while using the GeForce 2 card.  I was expecting performance to double, allowing me to up resolutions and details.  Again, at the E3 Expo, nVidia had the demos and benchmarks showing how their card was better than the Voodoo 5 card.  That's right, they were comparing it to the Voodoo 5.  In this review I was comparing it with the roughly 1 year old Voodoo 3 card.  When it boils down to the core, what should matter most is whether or not your games run better for you.  In the coming months, there will be games that take advantage of the T & L effects, so in time, the GeForce 2 will show what it is capable of.

For the current sticker price, I think that only the absolute hardest of the hardcore game fans should consider this card.  The high sticker price is not warranted after what I have seen with performances in the games that I play most.  Although, you may want to look at it in another way; for the extra money you are spending on this card over existing Voodoo 3 technology, you are buying a little more life for your card.  GeForce 2 cards will be utilized more and more as time goes on, and the neat effects it is capable of will be utilized.  Personally, I would rather spend $100 less and get the instant gratification of knowing the cheaper card performs as good as the 'high-tech' card.

Bottom line is that this card is a great card, it provides great frame rates and is stable.  The problem is that these great frame rates should be better.  I should be able to upgrade resolutions beyond what my older Voodoo 3 card can do, and I can't.  Late this year and early 2001 games will take advantage of the features this card has, but until then, I think it is too expensive a card for what you get.  In time when drivers are optimized the direct 3D performance improves, it will be a better choice for the average gamer.  If you want to get a jump on the technology tree, this card will do it, but you will be paying a premium for it and there won't be a lot of support for it in the short run.  If you don't mind spending the extra bucks, this card will perform as good as any other card out there on the market.