Originally, the Rage 128 had a serious issue with 16-bit rendering, causing a bit of commotion in the gaming industry. At the time, desktops were making the switch from 16-bit to 32-bit color so the 16-bit performance wasn't a big problem. With laptops, however, 16-bit color is used more often than not because of the LCD's limitation regarding pixel depth. This time around ATI has fixed the 16-bit problems, and the Mobility 128 renders 16-bit as well as any desktop solution.

In addition to superb 3D acceleration, ATI has also beefed up the video acceleration to include the same TV-out features present on the Rage Theatre multimedia chip. With a 10-bit DAC and the ability to output to 1024x768, the Mobility 128 offers the most compelling TV-out package on the market. In addition, support for dual LCDs has also been implemented to facilitate more than one UXGA flat panel screen.

With DVD drives becoming more common on laptops, hardware support for playback is becoming increasingly important. Like the Rage 128 Pro, the Mobility 128 offers full motion compensation and iDCT support in addition to alpha subpicture blending (a quality feature discussed in our DVD Benchmarking editorial). These features used in conjunction translate into 12-15 minutes of battery life during DVD playback (meaning you'll have time to save the proposal you were supposed to be typing instead of watching Armageddon). Scaling has also been improved using ATI's Smooth Scaling as opposed to traditional pixel replication.