Friday, November 24, 2000

The drivers

For testing purposes, we employed the Nvidia reference drivers v4.12.01.0618, but we've provided a photo (below) of the Asus v533 drivers, which are included with the V7700. A test of the Asus v533 drivers showed an 8% drop in performance relative the Nvidia reference drivers v4.12.01.0618.

Below, a photo of the V7700 control panel.

Beneath, an image of the DVD video player that is supplied along with the V7700.

Here (below), we have a picture of the monitoring program that comes with the card. Thanks to this utility, we're able to monitor the temperature of the graphics chipset, the speed of its fan, and it various voltages.

Overclocking

By default, the V7700 arrives with its memory clocked to 166MHz (for an effective speed of 333MHz), and its graphics core set to 200MHz. Note that the drivers that are supplied on the installation CD include the Asus Tweak Ultility, which can be used to Overclock the card, and an image of which we have supplied below. By employing this utility, we were able to Overclock the V7700's memory to 364Mhz, and its graphics core to 220MHz - the maximum settings attainable through this utility - for an overall gain of 1.2%.

Time Shifting

Time Shifting is a function included with the V7700 that allows the user to save one stream of incoming video while watching another. This, for example, allows users to watch live TV, and actually pause an image while the show continues.

The software bundle

Asides from the drivers, the installation CD includes: the Asus Tweak Utility, SmartDoctor (for monitoring the graphics hardware), VideoSecurity - which can detect movement via a camera, Asus Live - which allows the capture of video images, and Asus Digital VCR - which allows video to be captured in digital format. A second CD contains Asus DVD2000 - a DVD video player. Two other CDs are also included, and contain 3Deep - a utility that allows users to calibrate their monitor's colour display, and Video Studio, which is essentially a video-editting package. A final CD includes the full version of Soldier of Fortune.

The hardware bundle

With the V7700 come a few odds & ends, including a pair of 3D glasses, a composite video cable, an S-Video cable, and an S-Video-to-Composite Video adapter.

Next: The test setup.