Videologic Kyro II or Guillemot?

[Steve23094]

Hi All,

I am looking to buy a new video card soon. Here in the UK prices of the Kyro II and Geforce MX are very similair, so I figure for the money the Kyro is a much better buy.

My problem is this... concern about drivers.

I am considering a Hercules Prophet 4500 (£93.99) or a Videologic Vivid!XS. Looking at the specs, they seem identical, with the exception that the Prophet has 64Mb RAM vs 32Mb. Am I right in thinking this will not be worth paying for?

But... I would trust Guillemot over Videologic to release drivers with greater frequency. Will Guillemot drivers work on the Videologic card? Does Kyro release reference drivers (a la Nvidia)?

I got stuck with a Diamond Monster MX300, and nothing frustrates me more than drivers which could do with a bit more work. From what I have read, more performance can still be squeezed from the Kyro II with better drivers.

Thanks.

 

[uknemesis]

Hi

I have a videologic vivid xs kyro 2 with 32mb, the drivers are very stable and it comes with tv out. I've never had any problems with it, it's much faster than my old geforce mx. The only time a gf mx will be faster is if you play games at 640x480x16bit due to it's t&l engine. If you like your games to look their best then there's no comparison, the gf2 just doesn't cut it anymore, it's old.

If you can get a 64mb Hercules Prophet 4500 for the same price as the 32mb videologic kyro 2 then go for it.

As far as drivers are concerned both hercules and videologic are very quick with new driver releases so you don't need to use reference drivers.

The driver support for Nvidia cards is a complete mess with untested leaked drivers everywhere, I'm glad the kyro 2 doesn't suffer from stuff like that, ask any Nvidia owner what's the best driver to use and you'll get about 100 different replies. With Nvidia if you stick with the official reference drivers you'll be waiting about a year between releases, they recently went from v6.50 (12/04/2000) to v12.41 which was released recently.

Nemesis

 

[UKtaxman]

You'll find the Videologic make the reference board for the Kyro2. Any driver releases between VL and Hercules have been identical, but have been released by VL first.
Other than the extra 32mb, the only difference between the 2 is that the Vivid!XS comes with TVout as standard.

BTW you can get a GF2mx(with TVout) from www.tinyaccessories.com for £49 delivered. After frying my Kyro2 I went with this option as I didn't want to spend too much-saving for GF3/K3/R2(whichever is best).

 

[uknemesis]

You fried your Kyro 2, you should be ashamed of yourself, isn't it fast enough already for ya!

There is no really point in overclocking the Kyro 2, the gains are quite small and it can cause problems with tearing etc!

Nemesis