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Not surprisingly, each one takes progressively more memory to implement. Perhaps, somewhat surprising, or at least not intuitive, is that as soon as the memory requirement for any mode exceeds the available memory, I believe, there is no FSAA performed.

Table 1. Click to Enlarge

If this is true then lets consider what might be happening at different resolutions and FSAA settings with the two boards that I have tested to date, the NVIDIA 32mb reference board and the 3D Prophet II 64mb board. It takes a 32mb board just to run 1600x1200 with 32bit color depth. The 64mb board can run 32 bit resolutions but the maximum is at 1024x768 in the 2x supersampling mode.

In the 16 bit color modes, like Falcon 4.0, 1024x768 is possible using any of the 4x sampling modes. This can be demonstrated empirically by switching to any higher sampling mode that will look worse than the 4x modes. When NVIDIA releases their 128mb board then we will have access to higher FSAA settings and higher resolutions.

The video memory is used for other processes than just storing and manipulating MIPmaps and backbuffers. It is likely that a memory requirement very close to the on-board memory would not fit even though the above chart indicates it should. Even though NVIDIA boards have access to system memory via the AGP bus, it is not fast enough to perform FSAA.

This theory explains why several respectable ezines have reported that NVIDIA's FSAA does not work. I have read their reviews and they are indicating that they have the FSAA slider set to full! Even at 640x480 with a 64mb card, FSAA is disabled because of insufficient memory. Many would ask, "Why does NVIDIA have a FSAA codec that only functions for slightly more than one third of the settings, for most common resolutions." Since you asked , my opinion is that NVIDIA is designing for future generations of video cards.

Their driver sets are generally compatible with previous generation video cards (the latest .530 drivers work great with my obsolete TNT2 Ultra). This is different from 3dfx who changes drivers with each successive new generation (try to run your Voodoo1, Voodoo2, or Banshee with the latest Voodoo5 drivers). NVIDIA has announced a 128mb card for workstations based on GTS technology. I hope that larger capacity DDR memory chips are in the pipeline and that the price of 200mHz DDR memory comes down to earth.

Conclusions

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The 3D Prophet II 64mb is a display case for Guillemot and NVIDIA. Unshackled by the addition of 64mb of DDR RAM this card really shows what this new technology is capable of. Is it worth the US$400+ MSRP? It is for me. All my favorite simulations have had a level of realism breathed into them that I would not have believed possible. With the level of detail possible with this card, I can't help but wonder, what the next generation will bring.

Kurt 'Froglips' Giesselman
European Bureau Chief

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