Software Bundles
Apparently both companies decided to package some software that they felt would be useful to the consumer. Most of us have come to know these types of software as "shovel-ware" which means software that is useless to most people who end up throwing it away. In this case, I believe there are some pretty useful utilities and applications. Ranging from full-fledged 3D software applications to video enhancing utilities.
| Creative Labs Annihilator | Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 |
|---|---|
| NVIDIA High IQ CD sampler is cool for about an hour then it converts to shovel ware as its values goes away pretty quickly. It's an awesome demo to show off the abilities of TnL. You can get a general idea of what games can be like if someone takes good advantage of the hardware's true abilities. | Full versions of Asymetrix Web 3D, 3dfx and Digital Video Producer are some pretty handy applications if you're into creating web content. Web 3D and 3dfx are 3D authoring tools. Digital Video producer lets is exactly what it sounds to be, a audio, video editing tool. |
| Colorific is basically video calibration software. With this you can fine-tune the display of your workstation. | Colorific is basically video calibration software. With this you can fine-tune the display of your workstation. |
| 3Deep software will give developers a way to optimize your display settings so that they can offer the visuals intended in their game. Colorific and 3Deep work best when used in conjunction. | 3Deep software will give developers a way to optimize your display settings so that they can offer the visuals intended in their game. Colorific and 3Deep work best when used in conjunction. |
| InterVideo WinDVD is the bundled software DVD player. | InterVideo WinDVD is the bundled software DVD player. |
| Row 4 - Cell 0 | RealiMation demo is another 3D authoring tool that's quick and easy to use. Unfortunately it's a 45 day trial so it's shovel ware after that point. |
| Row 5 - Cell 0 | Platinum VRCreator and WHIRL are VRML related softwares. VRCreator lets you create VRML content while WHIRL is a plug-in to let you see VRML. |
Creative provides the bare essentials by at least providing the software DVD player so that you can play movies on your PC if you have a DVD drive. On the other hand, Leadtek forks over the goods with a nice line-up of applications that can be useful to some. Granted not everyone cares about producing web content, particularly not VRML, but it seems to be a nice addition nowadays since everyone's on the web.
The Windows98-Driver Of The Creative Labs Annihilator
Blaster Control is what Creative adds to the display properties adding informational windows as well as configuration sections. In this particular window we can see some basic adapter information.
After clicking the report button in the general information window, you get this nifty little summary.
Here we have the monitor adjustment section. It enables you to pre-adjust your screen on the monitor before you fine-tune it with your monitor-adjustments.
In case you toss the Colorific program and/or need to adjust your color settings through software, you can come to this section of the Blaster Control utility.
