Kyro 2 seems pretty decent

[DentyCracker]

Kicks some ass too

[paulcs]

What impresses me is that Guillemot has gotten behind it. That means it'll actually end up on the shelves.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[alessandro]

My favorite quotes from the Anandtech review:

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">
The 149.99 Kyro II once again does the impossible, beating the $340 GeForce2 Ultra not only by a slight margin but by an impressive 6%. Showing the complexity that must be present in Serious Sam in the form of overdraw and large textures, the Kyro II and its 100% effectiveness in the Serious Sam synthetic fill rate benchmark rises to the top of the charts. It is clear that tile rendering systems do have their place in modern day 3D rendering, and that place lies above today's immediate mode renders.
-------------------------------------------
Serious Sam at 1600x1200x32 results in a similar conclusion: not only is the Kyro II a great card for the price, it is also the fastest in Serious Sam. Running 10% faster than the GeForce2 Ultra, the Kyro II's efficiency pays off in a big way. Giving the price, the performance of the Kyro II is nothing short of breath taking.
</font>

WOW!!!!!!! it beats the GF2ULTRA is some benchmarks and that WITHOUT having any T/L engine!!!!!!!!!

[This message has been edited by alessandro (edited 14 March 2001).]

[alessandro]

The fact that a card with :
a) a theoretical fillrate that is significantly lower than a Geforce2
b) less memory bandwidth, and
c) no T&L performs close to a Geforce2 and even can beat a Geforce2 Ultra is impressive.

It makes me think about this "bandwidth problem solution" that is rummored for the G800
Any tile-based rendering for our G800 ?

[Pace]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">From AnandTech:STMicroelectronics Kyro II 64MB
A new contender is out on the video card market. Attempting to take some glory away from the aged immediate mode rendering platforms that prevail today, STMicroelectronics has paired up with Hercules/Guillemot to produce the tile based rendering 3D Prophet 4500 based on the Kyro II graphics chip. Could the $149.99 Kyro II card beat the $340 GeForce2 Ultra? Before we started testing, we didn't think so either...</font>

Some linkage for you folks! Does sound mighty nice I've even fixed Anand's spelling mistake, hehe

However, we all realise, that fusing T&L with tile-based rendering is the way forward.

Oh yea,

[This message has been edited by Ant (edited 14 March 2001).]

[walrusbonzo]

Just read the review...

I'm extremely impressed and seriously thinking about getting one... For so long now I've thought about a Radeon 64mb, but the Kryo II kicks it's ass aswell as the GeForce cards..

One question though, what is image quality like compared to the Matrox cards.. Having used a G100 and G400 and comparing with a Radeon 64mb. I can tell you, I wasn't impressed at all with the Radeon!
Awful!

[Topha]

yo, bonzo, nice name

from what i heard the quality (2 and 3D) is quite good. some say its 2nd best to matrox, but everyone agrees that it is better than gf. not sure about radeon.
im thinking about getting one, but ill wait till i know something (please, anything at all) about matrox next card, except for a borrowed TNT and a voodoo 1 i never used anything but matrox as far as i can remember (used the voodoo 1 together with a mystique 2mb )

[rylan]

Yeah, if its got image quality thats close to Matrox, then I'll probably be gettign one also. The price is right, and with Guillemont backing it up there is going to be good support and good quality parts ont he card.

[Toecutter]

I disagree...sounds better than decent...

[villerk]

Excuse me for asking, but what the heck is Kyro (or Kyro II)? Here in Finland (yes, the reindeer country) I haven't heard anything of Kyro. Did you say Guillemot produces it?

------------------

[CHHAS]

I have the Powercolor Evil Kyro 64 Mb (Kyro 1), the 2D quality is pretty good, although NOT Matrox quality. However I feel that the 3D quality surpasses Matrox' by the tip of a cat's whisker.

The funny thing with a Tile Based Renderer is how different games run on it. I looked at the detail results of Geforce2 MX cards in 3Dmark2001, and in some tests I'm way behind while in others I'm way ahead.

Bottom line, the card runs great, I can play UT in 1280x1024x32 at around 45 FPS (measured with FPS counter on while I play), but I usually play at 1024x768x32 (around 60 FPS average) due to my 17" monitor (the texts gets too small in 1280x1024 )

[Novdid]

I going to buy a Kyro II if Matrox doesn´t release anything at cebit.