Diamond Viper V330

The first generation of 2D/3D cards could handle fast Windows acceleration, but they couldn't match standalone 3Dfx and Power VR cards when it came to arcade-standard 3D visuals. Either the features simply weren't there, or the frame rate crawled when they were switched on. Quite simply, high-end 3D required two cards in your system.

Now a second generation is changing that. ATI, Number Nine and 3D Labs have all designed chips that combine 2D speed with the polygon-throwing power you'd get from a 3Dfx card. NVidia, the company behind the chip in the disappointing Diamond Edge 3D cards, has come up with the Riva 128, as used in this Diamond Viper V330.

On paper the Riva is impressive. In some respects it behaves like Intel's AGP architecture, with textures stored in main memory, rather than in the card's video memory, and fetched into a texture cache on the chip. The Riva incorporates a hardware triangle setup engine, which removes the burden of geometry calculation from the CPU. In addition, it boasts a comprehensive feature set; perspective correct texture mapping, with alpha-blending, fogging, anti-aliasing, gouraud-shading, mipmapping and bilinear texture filtering. For 2D acceleration, it's equally hot. The Riva 128 has a 128-bit engine, and a 128-bit interface between the engine and the 4Mb of 100MHz SGRAM video memory, which can handle a bandwidth of 1.6Gbytes/sec. With a 230MHz RAMDAC, it can manage 1,600 x 1,200 resolution at a refresh rate of 85Hz.

I ran a selection of benchmarks on the card, as well as on competitive products. All tests were performed on a Gateway Pentium II 266MHz, with 32Mb of RAM, using DirectX 5.

My first test used Realibench, which uses Datapath's freeware Realiview 3D scene viewer to evaluate Direct 3D performance. With an intensive animation of Indycar racing, the Viper V330 managed 18.37fps (frames per second) at a resolution of 800 x 600, comparing well with the Number Nine Revolution 3D at 13.91fps, and the Videologic Apocalypse 5D at 13.56fps. The frame rate wasn't totally constant though. At certain points the track chugged, at others the animation was ludicrously smooth. The explanation for this is loading large textures from memory and, despite the texture cache, that's likely to be the case here as well.

I also tested the card with the sort of applications it's most likely to be used for - Direct 3D games. The first was Delphine Software's Moto Racer, which uses detailed textures and advanced 3D features, including bilinear texture filtering. In 640 x 480 resolution, the Viper managed a maximum frame rate of 51fps, but the frame rate tended to deviate between 36fps and 45fps. The Apocalypse 5D managed 32fps, while the Revolution 3D could only manage 31fps.

It was a similar story with Terramark, the test version of Simi's Terracide. I tested at 800 x 600 resolution in 16-bit colour. The Viper could manage a staggering 58fps, but dropped to between 27fps and 42fps in action-packed moments. The Apocalypse 3D could manage 37fps at best, while the Revolution 3D could only creep up to 28fps. Even a Hercules Stingray 128/3D, based on the 3Dfx Voodoo Rush chipset, managed 41.03fps. You might not be playing games, but bear in mind that if you're running any Direct 3D applications, the relative performance will be similar - in other words, it will be extremely good. In addition, while earlier 3D chipsets looked poor compared with the 3Dfx chipset, with its stunning texture filtering and lighting effects, that's not the case with the Viper, which employs all those advanced 3D features to stunning effect. For OpenGL applications, however, like serious content creation and playback tools, you're still better off with a specialist card, like Diamond's own FireGL series.