A GeForce to be reckoned with!! (Sparkle SP 7100M4SE)

Member Name: Gary_2312

Product:	Sparkle SP 7100M4SE
Date:	19/07/04 (267 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cost, Features, Power

Disadvantages: Maybe considered old

Up to this point I had been playing most of my games with a built in 4MB graphics card, and it had done surprisingly well coping with all except the most modern games around. However I soon found myself being drawn into the online role-playing games market ? and bought myself a copy of Sony?s Star Wars Galaxies. The requirements for this game were like nothing had I seen before, and I stupidly bought the game before checking I had what was needed. Luckily everything met the minimum specs except the graphics card which needed 64MB.

The best part about this graphics card is its price, I paid only £34 for my graphics card and that was a few months ago. However this does not mean the card doesn?t come without all the latest features you would expect from a modern graphics card. Some of the best features are

>Second Generation Transform and Lighting ? this is a great feature and one of the main reasons I bought this card. It enables both transform and lighting to be processed by the cards hardware; this is a lot faster and creates a clearer picture. Some of the more modern game requires this feature ? including Star Wars Galaxies.

>nView ? A great desktop program that comes with the card, enables the user to set up multiple desktops as well as multiple monitors. It enables a new level of flexibility with multiple options and the ability to add hot keys. Often I run a full screen program in one desktop and chat to friends on a messenger program in another, very useful!

>TV out function ? Enables the card to be connected to a TV through a TV out S video cable. This supports a resolution up to 1024 x 768. I can?t say I have ever tried this feature on any video card but it?s nice to know it is there.

>Lightspeed Memory Architecture
2 ? Increases the memory bandwidth and efficiency, this enables this card to render high resolutions smoothly with no loss of performance.

>Accuview Antialiasing ? A great feature that has been around for a while, it smoothes any jagged edges to create a clearer picture, however up to now this has reduced the frame rate dramatically. This new version of antialiasing will create a clearer picture than ever before with none to very little decrease in frame rate.

Chipset - NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440
Core Clock - 270 MHz
Memory Type - 64 MB DDR
Memory Clock - 400 MHz DDR
Memory Interface - 128 bit
RAMDAC - 350 MHz
Bus Type - AGP 4X / 2X
Driver Support ? Windows 98 / ME / XP /2000

>> INSTALLATI ON <<
The card came with the obligatory one page manual that all new products come with now days, the one that tells you to put the disk in, click install and follow the onscreen instructions. A complete waste of time. However the SmartInstall disk worked very well, and did all the handwork for me. It took on restart and the card was ready to use.

>> PICTURE <<
The picture from this card is unbeatable in this price range. An extended display resolution of up to 2048 x 1536 at 75Hz is achievable; however a monitor of at least 21? would be needed to get the full effect. Once I had installed this card this card and started some of my older games the difference was noticeable if not a huge improvement in some cases and in many games the graphics options could be turned all the way up. However this was expected when upgrading to a 64MB card from an i
ntegrated 4MB graphics chip. Almost all the games work well with this card ? except maybe some of the newest games out in the last few months.

>> GENERAL USE <<
The card itself is very quite and so far it hasn?t over heated, even after many hours of gruelling game play pushing the technology to its limits. Another ?problem? is that the card only supports DirectX 8.1 and lower, many people have pointed it out as a problem but I run direct x 9 and have had no problems.

This card is one of the best purchases I have ever made, improving every game I had and enabling me to play many more, and for the price this card is unbeatable. If you want better graphics but don?t? want to fork out loads for a top of the range graphics card I highly suggest you buy this.

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