VQuake

## Verite Quake

##

> This is my review of the VQuake experience with the Intergraph Reactor, now renamed the Intense 3D 100. Overall, the Reactor has been a worthwhile investment. The card enhances the graphics and frame rates of all the supported games I've tried by a great deal. This is not a highly technical review, but one from a strictly game oriented perspective. The card is worth buying just for the VQuake experience, not to mention Indycar II, which has awesome graphics as well. The new Tomb Raiders patch is out as well and has perhaps, THE best 3D graphics I've seen yet. I know it doesn't stack up in 2D or VGA performance, but I can't tell the difference in my normal everyday apps. Anyway, here's the tech stuff:

> Hardware: P166 with 512 pipeline burst and 32megs EDO, running Windows95

> Baseline Test: Registered Quake 1.06, Startmap, full screen (no menu/status bar), no cd audio

> > - Stealth 3D 2000 with ver 4.0 drivers and VESA 2 support via UniVibe 5.3

> > - Intergraph Reactor with bios ver 74 and 1113 drivers (on board VESA 2 support), with and without optional anti-aliasing.

> Resolution 320x200 320x240 400x300 640x480 | Stealth 3D 2000 29.4 fps 27.1 fps 21.8 fps 12.5 fps | Intergraph Reactor 30.6 fps 29.8 fps 27.8 fps 19.8 fps | Reactor with anti-aliasing 26.5 fps 26.0 fps 24.2 fps 17.2 fps

> The performance of the Reactor seems to get better as resolution increases. Frame rates were basically the same at 320x200 with a 7.3 fps increase over the Stealth at 640x480 (anti-aliasing off). The framerates, while not a drastic improvement, are noticeable. Note that with the status bar displayed, you will gain a couple more frames per second, which is what most of play with anyway. But most of all, the graphics are stunning with VQuake. Anti-aliasing drops the framerate a couple of frames, but eliminates the jagged edges on everything. Other noticeable differences are the underwater effects. VQuake gives you a warped view underwater, which looks fairly realistic except your weapon is totally tweaked looking (Shouldn't warp as much with objects that close). Another thing that I noticed is when you are in very dark places, it almost looks as if you are looking through a screen door. Some sort of filtering effect I guess. But the smooth non-pixeled graphics are hard to beat, making regular Quake look like crap after getting used to VQuake. One more thing. The framerates may seem low, but while connected to a dedicated Quake server (180 ping) on the net, I was getting 30 to 50 frames per second at 400x300 with anti-aliasing on. This was in all areas of the map. The smaller the room, the higher the framerate.