Elsa Gladiac 511 AGP & PCI

Author : Martyn : 10th September 2001

3DVelocity would like to thank ELSA UK and especially Kim at Edge PR for their help and courtesy in providing these cards for review.

For some, the current price of high end graphical solutions still leaves a sour taste in the mouth (and an empty feeling in the wallet) so what can one do when gaming is a high priority but value is just as important? ELSA attempts to come to the rescue with their range of Nvidia MX Based chipset's in the guise of the Gladiac 511. How will these budget solutions stand up to today's strenuous benchmarks? Read on as 3DVelocity reviews two cards of PCI & AGP-type configurations.

 

Part One: The Need For Variety...

'PCI, PCI?' I hear you cry, 'Why do I need to know about that archaic graphics card?' As you may or may not know, we are based in the UK and believe it or not, the number one selling card last year here was a PCI card. We could hypothesize that the main reasons for this are people's lack of AGP slots on older motherboards or a high level of salesmanship on the part of the outlet, whatever the reason, there is certainly still a need for cards that will work without an AGP slot. So with that in mind, as I briefly mentioned earlier, we have decided to review both the AGP and PCI versions of this card.

 

Part Two: The Specs'

Here are the Specifications of both the AGP and PCI versions of this Nvidia based card.

(Firstly the ELSA Gladiac 511 PCI Tv-out. (32meg))

Equipment
Graphics processor NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 400
Memory equipment 32 MB SDRAM
RAMDAC/pixel cycle 350 MHz
BIOS VESA BIOS 3.0 Support
Bus-System PCI

Graphics standards DirectX8, DirectX7, Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectShow, OpenGL® API, supports the 3D shutter glasses ELSA 3D REVELATOR
2D features 256-bit 2D acceleration, optimised for 32, 16, and 8-bit colour depths, hardware cursor in TrueColor, multi-buffering (double, triple and quadruple for fluid movements and video playback)
3D Features NVIDIA Shading Rasteriser (NSR) with two 3D pipelines and per pixel shading for unbelievably realistic representation;
2nd generation Transform&Lighting engine:
256-bit engine with HyperTexel architecture, optimised Direct3D and OpenGL API acceleration, comprehensive for DirectX8 support, 32-bit Z and stencil buffer, single pass multi texturing, anti-aliasing, high-quality texture filtering, including anisotropic filtering; advanced per-pixel texturing for perspective correction, fog and depth cueing, texture compression, DVD/HDTV playback, extended motion compensation for full screen video playback in all DVD and HDTV resolutions, video acceleration for MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and Indeo

Standards DPMS, DDC2B, Plug&Play
Connectors Monitor: 1-2x VGA D-shell (15 pin) and DVI-I depending on the model
TV-out: S-VHS mini-DIN depending on model

Operating Systems Windows ® 98, Windows 2000 ® , Windows NT ® 4.0, Windows ® ME

Software ELSAmovie 2000 and an up-to-date games package

Documentation Manual: German, English, French, Italian, Spanish and Swedish (on CD)
Installation guide: German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese and Swedish (in print)
Warranty 3 years
Support via hotline and web site

 

(And now the ELSA Gladiac 511 AGP Tv-out (64Meg))

Equipment
Graphics processor NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 400
Memory equipment 64 MB SDRAM
RAMDAC/pixel cycle 350 MHz
BIOS VESA BIOS 3.0 Support
Bus-System AGP 4x

Graphics standards DirectX8, DirectX7, Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectShow, OpenGL® API, supports the 3D shutter glasses ELSA 3D REVELATOR
2D features 256-bit 2D acceleration, optimised for 32, 16, and 8-bit colour depths, hardware cursor in TrueColor, multi-buffering (double, triple and quadruple for fluid movements and video playback)
3D Features NVIDIA Shading Rasteriser (NSR) with two 3D pipelines and per pixel shading for unbelievably realistic representation;
2nd generation Transform&Lighting engine:
256-bit engine with HyperTexel architecture, optimised Direct3D and OpenGL API acceleration, comprehensive for DirectX8 support, 32-bit Z and stencil buffer, single pass multi texturing, anti-aliasing, high-quality texture filtering, including anisotropic filtering; advanced per-pixel texturing for perspective correction, fog and depth cueing, texture compression, DVD/HDTV playback, extended motion compensation for full screen video playback in all DVD and HDTV resolutions, video acceleration for MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and Indeo

Standards DPMS, DDC2B, Plug&Play
Connectors Monitor: 1-2x VGA D-shell (15 pin) and DVI-I depending on the model
TV-out: S-VHS mini-DIN depending on model

Operating Systems Windows ® 98, Windows 2000 ® , Windows NT ® 4.0, Windows ® ME

Software ELSAmovie 2000 and an up-to-date games package
Documentation Manual: German, English, French, Italian, Spanish and Swedish (on CD)
Installation guide: German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese and Swedish (in print)
Warranty 3 years
Support via hotline and web site
Product No. 60371 - ELSA GLADIAC 511 64MB AGP GeForce2 MX

Page Two : First Impressions

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