Monday, November 06, 2000

Introduction The MSI Star Force 815 is one of many video-cards on the market currently sporting an Nvidia chipset. Micro-Star, for its part, has long been a manufacturer of motherboards recognized for the very high quality of its products, as well as a manufacturer of very good graphics cards. The Star Force 815 is essentially based on the Nvidia reference design, and uses 32MB of DDR memory clocked at 166MHz, for an effective frequency of 333MHz (this due to the fact that DDR memory transfers data on the rising, and falling edges of every clock cycle). Featuring, as it does, the usual characteristics inherent with the Nvidia GeForce2 GTS chipset (which we've listed below), the Star Force 815 upsurprisingly puts up quite a performance. Before running through the test results though, lets take a brief look at the GeForce 2 GTS chipset itself.

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Particularities of the GeForce 2 GTS

To start things off, instead of manufacturing the GTS using a 0.22 micron process, Nvidia chose to manufacture their newest GPU at a 0.18 micron level. Thanks to this reduction in size, the GTS GPU is able to operate at 200MHz - quite a bit better than the 120MHz of the GeForce 256. This increase in frequency allows the GTS to surpass the 480 Megapixels/sec speed of the GeForce 256, with a speed of no less than 800 Megapixels/sec. While still using the QuadPipelining technology of the GF256, the GTS is able to manipulate 2 textures per pipeline, compared to the GF256's single texture per pipeline limit. Because of this, the GeForce 2 GTS is able to push an impressive 1.6 Gigatexels per second. The GTS is also compatible with both SDR, and DDR memory, to which it communicates using a 128-bit bus. The Star Force 815 which we're reviewing, is itself available in two forms: one which includes 32MB of DDR memory, and a second which uses 64MB of DDR RAM. Since in this case, the memory oscillates at 166MHz (effective rate of 333MHz), this means 5.3GB/sec of memory bandwidth. This is quite impressive when compared with the GF256 SDR, which is limited by a comparitively anemic 2.5GB/sec of memory bandwidth. Note than the GeForce 2 GTS RAMDAC operates at 350MHz.

Asides from those improvements, Nvidia has also made a few tweaks to the GPU's graphics engine. One new bit of technology is the NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer (NSR), which allows upto 7 pixel operations to be performed in a single pass. Among those operations that can be performed simultaneously, are: bump mapping, shadow maps, shadow volumes, volumetric explosions, vertex blending, elevation maps, waves, refraction, spectacular lighting, and 2 different types of DirectX bump mapping.

Elsewhere, adjustments have been made to improve the T&L engine. The new engine is capable of treating 25 million triangles per second, compared to the 15 million of the GF256, as well as being able to handle lighting transformation, and clipping calculations that the old GPU passed on to the CPU for cyphering. Users thus see a double gain: one by having a graphics card capable of performing all of its own operations, and a second by unloading the CPU of an extra burden, thus freeing it up for other things.

Finally, the GeForce 2 GTS includes a High-Definition Video Processor (HDVP) which permits it to thread the wide variety of ATSC formats to a video-out port. The GTS thus allows for the transmission of computer monitor signals, flat-panel (DVI) signals, and television signals - all according to the options provided by the manufacturer. A optional video-in port also allows video to be captured, as well as transmitted.

Next: The drivers

Specifications

MS-Star Force 815 (MS-8815)

General Features
-Per-Pixel Shading, 8 Texels Per Clock
-2nd-generation T&L Engines
-Integrated Single-Link TMDS Transmitter
-256-bit Graphics Architecture
-Double Date Rate (DDR) Memory
-AGP 4X with Fast Writes
-Industry only true 32-bit Z/Stencil
-DirectX Texture compression Support
-1.6 Giga Texel Fill Rate
->25 Million Triangle/sec
-5.3 BG/sec Memory Bandwidth
-Maximum 3D/2D resolution of 2048 x 1536 @ 75Hz
-complete DirectX 7, DirectX 6 and DirectX 5 support

Visually Stunning Interactive 3D
-8 texture-mapped, filtered, lit texels per clock cycle
-Signle pass multi-texturing
-H/W Anti-Aliasing
-High Quality Texture Filtering, Including Anisotropic
-Advanced per-pixel, perspective-correct texturing and shading
-Fog and Depth Cueing

High-Performance 256-bit 2D Acceleration
-Optimized for multiple color depths including 32, 24, 25, and 8-bits per pixel
-True-Color hardware cursor
-Multi-buffering (double, triple, quad buffering) for smooth animation and video playback

Full Software Support
-Windows(R) 95 and 98 Display Drivers
-Windows(R) 2000, Windows(R) NT 4.0 Display Drivers
-OpenGL ICD for Windows(R) 2000, Windows(R) NT 4.0, Windows(R) and 98 Linux

Supports Super High-Resolution Graphics Modes
-640x480        8/16/32 bit colors with 240Hz
-800x600        8/16/32 bit colors with 240Hz
-1024x768      8/16/32 bit colors with 200Hz
-1152x864      8/16/32 bit colors with 150Hz
-1280x1024    8/16/32 bit colors with 120Hz
-1600x1200    8/16/32 bit colors with 85 Hz
-1920x1200    8/16/32 bit colors with 75Hz
-2048x1536    8/16 bit color with 75Hz