Join for quick access. Enter your email below and we'll send confirmation plus sign you up to our newsletter.
By submitting your information, you confirm you are aged 16 or over,
have read our
Privacy Policy
and agree to the
Terms & Conditions. Geographical rules apply.
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Join the club
Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.
An account already exists for this email address, please log in.
A Speedy Tiler: Kyro II on Hercules' 3D Prophet 4500
Even the most expensive high-end cards have one problem: limited bandwidth. Fans of the classic approach, such as NVIDIA, can only deal with the bandwidth problem by packing on fast memory modules. Video memory with short access times is, however, expensive. ATI is doing its utmost to rein in this problem by using "HyperZ" technology. PowerVR, too, is taking different tack from NVIDIA. Let's take a look at the differences.
Conventional cards first fill all the polygons without considering which ones will be hidden later on. PowerVR's technology, on the other hand, first verifies whether it is even necessary to fill all the polygons present in a 3D scene. Generally, only the objects in the foreground require this process. Classic 3D games need to access memory constantly for the z-buffer and to load textures, thereby eating up valuable memory bandwidth.
This diagram makes the huge tasks that 3dfx, NVIDIA and Matrox cards have to undertake even clearer.
