Hercules Terminator 3D/DX

The Hercules Terminator 3D/DX caused a stir in issue 32 when its fast 2D GUI acceleration and improved 3D performance put it ahead of our previous favourite, the Matrox Mystique. Since then, improved Matrox drivers and the new cards have once again given the Matrox a slight lead, although, like other S3 ViRGE DX-based cards, the Terminator 3D/DX offers texture filtering, mip-mapping and alpha blending, which the Matrox chipsets don't support.

Hercules is renowned for excellent software support, with easily installed drivers and the Hercules Entertainment Centre supplied on the CD. We downloaded later drivers than those in the package, but frequent updates to the CD should see you get recent drivers when you buy the card. Unlike Diamond's MPEG playback, the Terminator offers excellent scaling and interpolation routines which create a smooth image at a decent full-screen frame rate.

The performance in our applications benchmark was good. For Direct 3D performance, it's dramatically ahead of the S3 ViRGE and ViRGE VX-based competition. Sadly though, new rivals which benefit from the ViRGE DX and GX chipsets offer a higher fill rate and better polygon and intersection throughput. Despite the lower price, there's little reason to choose this card over its faster competitors.