S3 Diamond Viper II Review

Features
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Benchmark Expectations

Looking at what the Viper II hardware is capable in theory, I would assume that in single textured 3D benchmarks the Viper II will probably not do so hot. I also think that in low-resolution modes that the card will probably lag behind the competition a bit as the drivers aren't very mature. When we first did a preview of the Viper II, the software engineer I was working with mentioned that S3 was very careful on how their drivers were geared to preserve memory bandwidth. If this is the case, we should see the Viper II do well under 32 bit testing.

Benchmark Setup

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Hardware Information
CPUPIII 550
Motherboard (BIOS rev.)ABIT BX6 2.0 (BIOS date 7/13/99)
Memory128 MB Viking PC100 CAS2
NetworkNetgear FA310TX
Driver Information
Diamond Viper II4.11.01.9001-9.01.10
Reference NVIDIA GeForce/TNT2 Ultra drivers4.12.01.0353
3dfx Voodoo3 35004.11.01.1213
Matrox G400 MAX4.11.01.1410 w/TurboGL 1.00.001
Environment Settings
OS VersionWindows 98 SE 4.10.2222 A
DirectX Version7.0
Quake 3 ArenaRetail versioncommand line = +set cd_nocd 1 +set s_initsound 0
ShogoV2.14Advanced Settings = disable sound, disable music, disable movies, disable joysticks, enable optimized surfaces, enable triple buffering, enable single-pass multi-texturingHigh Detail Settings = enabledFortress Demo
Descent IIIRetail versionSettings = -nosound -nomusic -nonetwork -timetest
3Dmark 200016 bit settings = 16 bit textures, 16 bit Z-buffer, triple buffering32 bit settings = 32 bit textures, 24 bit Z-buffer, triple buffering