GeForce2go

[Guest]

anyone have an inspiron that knows how good the card is and how it stacks up with the ati ones?

 

[Guest]

The April 2001 PC Gamer has a review of the Inspiration 8000 with the GeForce2 Go, 16MB DDR RAM (32MB version available too.) Some benchmarks:

Quake III:
640x480: 87.6 fps
800x600: 71.6
1024x768: 46.7
1280x1024: 22.1
(All tests run in 32-bit color with effects set to max.)

3DMark:
800x600: 4241
1024x768: 2753
(All tests run in 32-bit color with effects set to max.)

MDK 2 refused to run, as did Unreal-based games in OpenGL mode. Unreal-based games ran fine in Direct3D and Quake III ran fine in openGL mode, so they weren't sure what the problem was there. Overall they said it was a very bug-free, high-performance solution for gaming on a laptop, and they tested a lot of games on it.

Some interesting quotes from the article:

<font color=red>"Now <i> this </i> is what we're talking about! Forget everything you think you know about gaming on the go because, friends, the future just got a whole lot brighter. Back in December we reviewed three notebooks from Dell, each equipped with ATI's Rage Mobility 3D graphics hardware. They were good--the best you could get for gaming-on-the-run at the time--but they're nothing compared to what Dell has in store for you today.

...For years now, PC gamers have longed for a laptop that could do justice to their games. Finally, with NVIDIA's GeForce2 Go GPU, Dell has brought the dream to life." </font color=red>

As a note of warning, PC Gamer reviewed the Toshiba Satellite 2805-S402 in the June 2001 issue, a laptop which also has the GeForce2 Go. This one, however, has only SDR graphics RAM--not DDR--so it does not perform <i> nearly </i> as well. Just another reminder that you really have to watch exactly what they are selling you in this business.

Also in the Toshiba review they said this: <font color=red> "While its GeForce2 Go is a bit underpowered, it's still much better than any of the chips in ATI's existing Mobility line." </font color=red> So to give you a comparison, they say the GeForce2 Go is better, even with SDR RAM, than any of ATI's laptop chips.

Cheers,
Warden