Kyro II

[SMUAlien]

Well I am about a week away from buying a new video card (have to get paid first). I've been anxiously awaiting the Kyro II for quite some time now and it looks pretty sweet. I am kinda reluctant though because I have bought non-industry leader hardware before and been burned. Here's my example. Instead of buying a SB Live! way back when, i got an MX300, based on the Vortex 2 chip. It was pretty nice however I was unable to get good drivers, and there are still incompatibilities with some things (KT133A chipset doesn't like the Vortex too much). I don't want a repeat on the Kyro II. I have a 1 Ghz T-Bird on an MSI K7T Turbo R. I'm going to be getting a new soundcard (probally Santa Cruz or Phillips Acoustic Edge because SB Live! hates the Kt133A). Am I in for a repeat buying non-industry leader brand hardware when I get a Kyro II? What should I do? Being a college student, I'm under a budget, I'd say about $150 max. The GF2mx looks kinda weak. I don't like ATI cards..

Thanks

 

[vss1980]

Well, Kyro has the might of ST behind it (the people who helped nVidia get into the position they are today - my how things change) so its fairly unlikely support will disappear. Also there is Hercules, Videologic, Inno3D, and several other companies backing it.

Problem with Aureal was that they were a very small company so didn't really have the strength to compete against Creative when things got serious.

 

[jobberd]

well, according to your budget and your preferences, the only two things that you could get are the geforce2 GTS or the Kyro II. Although I have little knowledge of the Kyro II, Hercules is a very reliable company. But then again, so is Asus, creative, leadtek, and many other geforce producers. Personally, I would purchase the Geforce2 GTS. It provides good performance, is stable, and has good drivers. And I have heard of people having problems with their Kyro's in certain games. But Im not the best person to consult about the Kyro II. I suggest you wait until you get a more informed opinion
btw, powervr2 is a kyro II zealot, and his opinion is usually NOT informed

 

[SMUAlien]

I didn't think the Geforce2 GTS was in the $150 price range.... I'd want something with 64 M of ram. The games I usually play are Half life, CS, Elite Force, Q3, UT, Homeworld, Tribes 2. Think I'll have any problems?

Thanks

 

[powervr2]

"well, according to your budget and your preferences, the only two things that you could get are the geforce2 GTS or the Kyro II. Although I have little knowledge of the Kyro II, Hercules is a very reliable company. But then again, so is Asus, creative, leadtek, and many other geforce producers. Personally, I would purchase the Geforce2 GTS. It provides good performance, is stable, and has good drivers. And I have heard of people having problems with their Kyro's in certain games. But Im not the best person to consult about the Kyro II. I suggest you wait until you get a more informed opinion
btw, powervr2 is a kyro II zealot, and his opinion is usually NOT informed "

I am a zealot?
maybe you think that because I only praise kyro 2. Hey I have an excelent kyro 2 on my PC so I think that all praising for kyro 2 is well deserved...

BUT YOU DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT KYRO 2 AND YOU CHOOSE TO RECOMMEND GEFORCE 2 GTS ?
you look more zealot than myself ...

 

[Trevelyan]

Don't get the kyro2 if you love CS.. trust me, I made the mistake. CS has horrible performance (20fps w/ smoke) with the kyro2

 

[gygheyzeus]

Kyro II. I've got one, its a great card. 10% faster than my Voodoo5 in real-world performance.

 

[SMUAlien]

Did the new drivers fix the CS problems? CS is more of a lan party kind of game for me. I don't play it too much otherwise. I find it hard to beleive that a game based off the dated half life engine would run slow on such a powerful video card....
thanks for ya'll opinions, I need some more though, it's tough to put your hard earned down without knowing completely what you want. Impulse buys are always bad.
Thanks

 

[jobberd]

uh, powervr2, i said personally that i would recommend it, HOWEVER i did not know much about the card, so he should wait for a more informed opinion about it. I in no way stated that geforce2 GTS was better then the Kyro II. I knew you were going to have an outburst like that. And as to calling you a zealot, double check all your messages on this board. I bet 90% of them are glorifying the kyro II or bashing Nvidia. You also say uninformed things, such as "Geforce3 runs worse then Geforce2 pro in many benchmarks" or "even kyro I beats the geforce2 mx", whereas the geforce3 runs MUCH better then the geforce2 ultra in 32bit mode (which most people would play considering it is a high end card), and the kyro I only beats the geforce2 mx in 32 bit mode (which most people would not play considering they bought a low end card). Stop using half truths and rumours to glorify the Kyro II and bash competitors. I can already hear you saying that you want competition with video card manufacturers and not have nvidia monopolize the industry. So how come you made several posts stating that nvidia = evil and that nvidia must die? I rest my case

 

[SMUAlien]

Ok,

Can I ask a favor please? No bashing of anyone please. I value everyones opinions but lets try and be respectful of eachother. Apparently powervr2 is passionate about his video card, that's cool, but for everyone lets please try to keep it under control. Thanks for all the good comments so far I really appreciate it. You'll definatley know more than I do about this stuff. I just need some more info. It looks to me as if most websites reviewed this card in it's pre-production form and havent updated anything since it's been released, which bites. I would like to know what kind of issues there are with this card, and also what advantages either card has over eachother (oh great im asking for it now). Thanks, lets keep it under control.

 

[jobberd]

sorry about that
anandtech has had a review of the card done for a while, and they just need to get some final things done before they post it. So sit tight, and once the article comes out, you will have all your questions answered.
unfortunately, the review was supposed to be out quite a while ago. I estimate that with all the computex hoopla, they simply put it on the backburner. so, please have patience

 

[SkylineHKS]

Hi, maybe I can be of help, my father bought me the MX64Mg, I used it for a week and I exchanged it to see if the Kyro II was any good. I also play the same games u do, but as well I play some heavy hardcore flight sims! The MX64 mg FSAA was not good, and the 2d loaded slower, especially in 32bit. I really like the Kyro II myself, the color is great is CS and Tribes 2, plus the new drivers and directX8.1 (Comes with CD), makes it a great pair. I highly recomned a Kyro II. My machine is a 1.3 Athlon, and I am running win2k, so my machine is pretty well to handle a card that is supposable" bashed" by others as not a good card, but hey win2k can handle it and no problems, so then what else can't it handle huh?

Good luck man, I hope you come to a liking to either one soon, they are both good cards, but only one will fit your taste.

Take care!

 

[Chryseares]

Alien-

I'm a lot like you, in that I tend to support the underdog manufacturers over the big names. Like you, I owned an MX300, until it died and I replaced it with a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz instead of an SBLive. I've gone with AMD over Intel ever since I upgraded from my 486DX4/100 years ago, and I plan to buy a KyroII before the end of the month to replace my current Voodoo3 3000... for me, it hits the price/performance "sweet spot" that I am looking for. I can't afford a GeForce3 right now so I look for what is in my price range that performs well and my research led me to a KyroII.

A lot of people will say, "buy this" or "buy that," but they're all basing their opinions on their specific wants, needs and situations. If money was not an object for every enthusiast out there, there wouldn't be much of a market for low-end graphics cards. Determine your situation, research the numbers and read the reviews to come up with what suits your situation best.

 

[Zipp]

I picked up the Kyro 2 and I was quite surprised how it played Unreal. It seems to play it,beleive it or not, the same if not faster than the Geforce2 Pro 64mb at the setting I play for on-line gaming(1024x768/16bit). So I downloaded the Nascar 4 demo to see how that ran it stayed around the 60fps area while banging around the track compared to around 55 with the Geforce. Now the demo doesn't have other cars in it and I don't know how they would compare during racetime till I pick up the game. I'm not using no powerhouse either,just an o/c duron running at 900. 2D is better for sure than the Geforce and 3d picture quality,in my opinion, maybe a little better in some games but not every game.

 

[UKtaxman]

You might not want to read my post(as I have also been called a PVR zealot,hehehe ). I must say that I upgraded to the Kyro2(32mb) from a voodoo5500 and so far I love it. There were problems with CS when smoke was about, but that has been cured with the latest driver release. I play CS, HL, Q3, UT and Serious Sam and it plays all of them beautifully.
However I won't lie to you. I have found 1 game that doesn't play very well and thats GP3. Apparently it's due to the way that it was coded and there is unlikely to be a fix for it. But this is the one and only game out of about 50 that I have tried that has any problems.
BTW it really rocks in flight sims.

 

[SMUAlien]

Bump... Anyone have some more insight? Please?? PLEASE
hehe Thanks

 

[rickn]

Kyro 2 is a nice card for the price, most problems experienced are user error. It is not unproven technology nor from a manufacturer with no experience, afterall the chip itself is based off the same technology used in the Dreamcast. Of course it is 2 generations ahead of the Dreamcast. Due to the price I think it is not that risky of an investment, even if it doesnt happen to work out for the user, that's kinda the beauty of it. It is more of a shock when you buy a $350 card and can't get it to work

 

[ubik]

<< I didn't think the Geforce2 GTS was in the $150 price range.... I'd want something with 64 M of ram. The games I usually play are Half life, CS, Elite Force, Q3, UT, Homeworld, Tribes 2. Think I'll have any problems?

Thanks >>



I've got the Hercules Prophet 4500 Kyro2 card with a Athlon 1.2. I am using the PowerVR 7.103 drivers and have had no probs with Q3, UT or Tribes 2. I think this card is going for around $110 at places like newegg.

 

[dfloyd]

Whats GP3? The game you said that you could not get to work with it?

 

[mrshadow]

GP3 is Microprose Grand Prix 3 by Geoff Crammond - one of the best if not the best
Formula One racing games/simulations. (Though i believe Microprose was sold to some big publisher but i don´t remember who that was)

 

[kh]

Kyro II is a very nice card. I mostly play cs and to tell the truth I bought this card when it first came out and hated it. I got BSOD and cs sucked hard. I had tearing and very very slow smoke. Soon after I returned it and bought a Geforce 2 pro 64mb. It was a nice card but also had slow smoke in cs. So when the kyro 4500 w/ tv out came out I decided to give it one last shot because I didn't like paying $179 + tax for a vid card. I returned the nvidia and got the kyro and a dvd rom. The thing is, the colors of the kyro seem so much better than nvidia. it looks crisper as well. I did have to tweak a few things (download new drivers from hercules and then change name of hl.exe to cstrike.exe) but the tearing is gone and it looks awesome. There is still slowdown from smoke but I think I remember seeing a fix for it somewhere( through registry). Another plus is that their driver support is really good. the kyro w/ tv-out cost me $129 at mwave.com (oem version) but I must say I really like this card.

 

[powervr2]

I only praise the best product...

 

[Yonguma]

I had a Matrox G400 running my 19&quot; monitor. 2D is important to me, and thus the GF2 was out of the question. I decided to give the K2 a try because my G400 just won't cut it at 1024 with my games. After I plugged it in and installed the driver, the 2D is just as good as the Matrox card. It was even better when I was able to play Unreal in 1024 smoothly. I finished Half Life again with this card and it looked fantastic. Last night, I'd decided to install UT which I couldn't play before, and installed the 2nd cd with the pathched opengl driver. I was finally able to play it without cursing at the stuttering screen. Giants(did not play much, could not save the shorties from the cliff), Evolva looks smooth too.
I am not a tweaky or looking for the best frames per sec . I just need a card that will play games smoothly + a good 2d screen. I also do not have $300+ to burn. So, this seems like the best option if you need a card today.

 

[vss1980]

GP3 is a bit of a problem game. It was coded in a way that doesn't really take advantage of clever rendering techniques like multi-texturing or TBR.
It really relies on raw fill-rate ability and in this case, it will not look amazing on the Kyro. With the real fill-rate only a little better than a VSA-100 chip, it can only perform a little better than a Voodoo4.

The technical reasons of why this happens escapes me, but GP3 is really a pure power throughput game.

EDIT: And I agree, it is the best F1 sim around. You want an arcade game, buy one of the other POS F1 titles.

 

[PointlesS]

humm...looks like this card has lots of lovin for it...anyways...I don't have it yet (keyword - yet)...but there's a few reasons I am going to get it for...#1 it can do 8 textures/pass....gf2 can only do like 4 or something (don't flame me if I'm wrong on the gf2 part )...#2 tile-based rendering looks very promising for games that have a lot of valleys..hills...or just lots of stuff in the scene...#3 drivers can only get better...maybe you might see a 10% increase in frames or something in future driver releases (like what nvidia has done) #4 64 megs doesn't hurt for when more textures are loaded into the memory...#5 (if your going with a herc card) cool looking blue pcb and a cool looking fan...