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As 3D graphics chips rapidly increase in performance and games ramp up in complexity, the actual bottleneck can occur during on-board memory transfers. With GeForce 256 cards coming in both Single Data Rate (SDR) and Double Data Rate (DDR) models, much has been made of the technical and performance differences between the two. The SDR GeForce 256 boards feature standard SDRAM/SGRAM and offer a 2.9 GB/s memory transfer rate at a 183 MHz speed. At higher resolutions and with more complex 3D game scenes, the SDR memory actually cannot supply the GeForce 256 with sufficient memory bandwidth.
Enter DDR memory, a new memory technology that increases the potential on-board memory bandwidth to 4.8 GB/s. DDR memory enables data transfers on both the rising edge and falling edge of the input clock, while SDR memory only transfers data on the rising edge of the clock. Since DDR memory enables dual data transfer in one clock cycle, it will transfer the same amount of data in one clock tick as the SDR will in two. Memory latencies lower this DDR performance advantage to slightly less than double, since latency is effectively the same between SDR and DDR memory.
Technical Specifications
Architecture Highlights
- 256-bit graphics architecture
- 32MB high-performance SDRAM (Annihilator) or DDRRAM (Annihilator Pro)
- 350 MHz Palette-DAC
- AGP 4X with Fast Writes
- Peak fill rate of 480 million bilinear filtered, multi-textured pixels and more than 3.8 gigatexels per second
- Up to 15 million triangles per second at peak rates
- Integrated transform, lighting, setup and rendering engines
- Four 32-bit 3D rendering pipeline
- 4 texture mapped, lit pixels per clock cycle
- Single pass multi-texturing support (DirectX®6.X and OpenGL® ICD)
Installing the Annihilator Pro is a very easy process. After installing it on the Intel BX, VIA Apollo Pro 133 and Athlon systems, the Annihilator Pro initialized and was recognized by the fresh Win 98SE install. Installing the Creative Labs drivers is a seamless process and one reboot later the system was up and running. The Annihilator Pro installation manual is a serviceable 18-page document, with full diagrams and driver screens included. For such a high-level 3D card, the manual does seem a bit spartan, being a black-and-white document printed on standard paper.
The drivers themselves are quite good for a name brand card and feature all the standard settings you would expect to find. In addition, Creative Labs has included a Tweaks area with specific settings for OpenGL and Direct 3D applications. Overclocking aficionados have not been forgotten and the drivers have a memory speed slider right within the tweaking section. To adjust the GeForce 256 clock speed, you need to download the Creative Labs overclocking utility. It's similar to other such utilities, sits in the taskbar and allows access to both clock and memory speeds. Another interesting application not included with the standard drivers, but available on the Creative Labs website, is the Game Launcher, which allows specific display profiles that load with each 3D game.
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