eVGA e-GeForce 4 MX440 Review

Vulpine and GL Excess

This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.

GLmark is a benchmarking program that is intended to test the performance and visual quality delivered by modern 3D accelerators in a “real world” setting. It is important to point out that GLmark is based entirely on the OpenGL graphics API. Given the fact that both performance and compatibility of many graphics cards´ OpenGL drivers differ significantly from their Direct3D counterparts, we consider it necessary to determine OpenGL and Direct3D performance independently from one another.

Vulpine® GLmark is a comprehensive benchmark platform, based on a commercially sold, freely licensable high-performance 3D engine that will be used in a number of forthcoming games. It takes full advantage of an extremely wide variety of features provided by the graphics card, including support for the latest extensions to the OpenGL standard, like Texture Shaders and Vertex Programs. Multiple compatibility modes make it possible to compare multiple generations of 3D accelerators under identical conditions, and a stylish demo mode with sound track provides a truly stunning audio-visual experience.

The first thing you notice is that the GeForce 2 MX actually completes all the tests, unlike the Direct 3D tests in the 3d Mark benchmarks, this is due to the nature of OpenGL applications in that the system as a whole is tested more; rather than the pushing of just the video card.

At 1024X768 the eVGA GeForce 4 MX achieved 45.8 fps and the images were fluid and didn’t stutter at all and to the naked eye it was hard to tell the difference between the top two cards; this is not the case when we bump the resolution up to 1600×1024, at this resolution the difference is quite obvious, but was still watchable, but I would turn the detail down to make it easier on the eyes.

Again we see that the GeForce 4 MX 440 outperforms the GeForce 2 MX by nearly 100% and I have a feeling that this will continue throughout the benchmarks.

GL Excess

GL Excess is a multi-scene OpenGL benchmark put together by a young Italian programmer called Paolo Martella; it’s a very nice tool that gives you allot of information rather than just frame rate.

With the exception of the CPU FPU tests we see that trend starting to appear, here we see the GeForce 4 MX is just thrashing the GeForce 2 MX; the reason that the CPU FPU tests are so close is because as the name says it’s a system test rather than just a video card test. Also as with the previous benchmarks we see that the GeForce 4 MX 440 is far closer to the GeForce 3, than the GeForce 2 MX is to the eVGA card, this is good news for the consumer because now someone on a budget can get a quality video card that performs very well without breaking the bank.