VisionTek GeForce3 Video Card

Company: VisionTek
Products: GeForce3 Video Card
Street Price: ~$280
Date Reviewed: September 23, 2001
Reviewed By: Jason

Quake 3 Arena:

While Quake 3 Arena isn't a game tailored to the GeForce 3, its graphics engine is still top of the line and definitely can put some stress on a video card with lots of textures and objects moving around rapidly (trying to kill you nonetheless). As everyone knows in Quake, the smoother your video is, the better you can move around, aim, and have a more enjoyable gaming experience. While I doubt anyone using a GeForce card uses the "Fastest" setting, it is still included as a baseline number. "High Quality" is the regular High Quality setting, while the last 3 columns use the base High Quality settings but manipulating the settings as described. The numbers came from Demo001

Again the VisionTek GeForce3 comes out on top with about 40% more FPS than the GF2GTS. Realistically you could play Q3A with either video card just fine, it all just boils down the how many FPS you want and how high you want to crank up the graphics.

Conclusions & Final Thoughts:

The GeForce3 is definitely a product that has advanced leaps and bounds and is leading the way in 3D graphics for gamers and graphic artists alike. I remember from one trade show I went to where NVIDIA was presenting, the speaker stated that the GeForce3 could render Pixar quality-level graphics in real-time. If you don't know who Pixar is, they have made movies such as Toy Story and A Bugs Life. When he said "real-time" it took a moment to set in because I have seen many of the Pixar movies and how they were made and it is just such an astonishing feat in such a short amount of time that GPU technology has advanced. What once took a cluster of SGI machines has now been miniaturized into a desktop PC graphics card available to any consumer at a reasonable cost.

While on the older mainstream games (like Q3A and HL-mod games) the GeForce3 doesn't add any special features to the games, however it does increase the FPS and allow you to run at a higher resolution, combine that with Quincunx AA mode and it might make games seem a little more livelier. It's the newer games that are starting to come out and future games that will really take full advantage of the GF3 and have graphics optimized for it which will blow your socks off. I can only dream what a GeForce4 would do.

The question always arises, "Should I upgrade or keep what I have?", and that is definitely a tough decision, especially when you try to set a fixed budget for your PC. If you only occasionally get to play games, and / or you don't play first person shooters or simulators, then this might be an upgrade to hold off on till the price drops some more. If you are a die hard gamer with an already decent system (around 1GHz CPU or so) then this upgrade is definitely the pièce de résistance to your system. This video card isn't limited to gamers though, any 3D content creator will get a supercharged boost with this bad boy. NVIDIA makes a special Quadro DDC video card for these people. According to NVIDIA, "The Quadro DCC is the only professional graphics solution that can take advantage of every new feature incorporated into leading DCC applications, and is certified for Discreet's 3ds max™ 4."

Pros:
  Faster Performance
  Many New Features
  Technology For The Future
  Excellent Drives & Support

Cons:
  Still Pricy For Most People
  Faster Video Cards Always Coming Out

Rating:
  For The Average User: 5 / 10
  For The Hardcore Gamer: 10 / 10
  For The Extreme Overclocker: 10 / 10

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