Just like the previous NVIDIA TNT2 reference design, a similar layout and TV-Out chip has been slapped on. Those of you with Widescreen 65-inch telly's might dabble with Quake 3 (which has a Widescreen 856x480 resolution) but for the majority of gamers, it's probably not a feature that will blow your socks off. The TV-Out chip is provided by BrookTree (the Bt868KRF to be exact), which is fairly bog-standard in the industry (nothing too fancy like Matrox') and was actually used on many a TNT2/TNT2 Ultra. Support for both PAL and NTSC is there of course.
As for DVD (sorry no Matrix screenies for you sir!), this feature has been slightly improved upon since the TNT2. NVIDIA has added motion compensation (as opposed to sickness) circuitry to aid the visual quality/clarity of the MPEG-2 decoding of your Soft-DVD flicks. The on-board HDTV support for the 1080i standard should please DVD/PC enthusiasts.
Ok so when spending a hefty chunk of cash on a brand new 3D accelerator, one usually takes it for granted that the '2D' part of the architecture is also blazing quick. Since the last generation of video cards and their 300-350MHz RAMDAC's there's never been any reason to worry about 2D performance. NVIDIA has upped the RAMDAC from 300MHz on the TNT Ultra to 350MHz for all GeForce's so the 2D is even more stellar (for want of a better term) when combined with its 256-bit engine. The card benefits from the faster RAMDAC and we ran a couple of ZD High-End Graphics WinMark scores (can't tell you how much fun that was) scores for reference.
TNT2 Ultra: 510
GeForce SDRAM: 548
GeForce DDR-RAM: 572
For those with larger monitors (and eagle eyes?) and into experimenting, the max possible is 2048x1536 at a crisp 75Hz.
Throughout our time at SE (over a year) we've yet to witness new innovation that makes its way into an end users hands without the odd hiccup or two. And even though this is article is focused upon technology and not a product, we still don't give out 'perfect 10/10' ratings willy nilly. As superbly innovative as the GeForce 256 is, there are a couple of queries brought up by our readers that are worthy of note. First and foremost is the price. Some of you have already written in prior to this article having read various press releases and being gob smacked by various prices. Any GeForce 256 is expensive, especially when you can pick up a decent 3D card for around $100 these days. But there's certainly a plus side. NVIDIA's roadmap (see below) has the GeForce 256 at the high-end replacing the TNT2Ultra. What this means is that the TNT2Ultra now slips down the food chain into mid-range users hands. And as clearly shown from our benchmarks, the TNT2Ultra is still an extremely powerful and viable option for gamers. So expect to see various price wars being waged by Creative, Guillemot, Diamond etc… on various TNT2Ultra's. Prices could go as low as $120 by the start of November and for a part that is far from being 'yesteryear' that's certainly a good bang for your buck. With the advent of the cheaper .22micron process TNT2-A and TNT2-m128 chips on the horizon, NVIDIA will certainly posses a strong challenge to the low-end and mid-range sectors as well.
