GeForce2 GTS

The GeForce2 GTS, codenamed the NV15 during development, was the top-of-the-line offering from graphics chip vendor NVIDIA in 2000.

The major 3D features of the GeForce2 GTS include:

• Second generation transform and lighting engines
• Hardware full-scene anti-aliasing (FSAA)
• NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer (NSR) - multi-operation per-pixel rendering engine
• Integrated TMDS transmitter supporting flat panels up to 1280x1024
• Up to 128MB of high-speed double data rate frame buffer memory
• AGP 4X and PCI support
• Full support forMicrosoft® DirectX® and SGI OpenGL®
• Optimal performance for current and future CPUs from Intel and AMD

(above features listed from the official press release)

The GTS stands for Gigatexel Shader, which indicates two major improvements over the original GeForce: The new card has a 1.6Gtexels per second fill rate, whereas the original GeForce had a 480 Mtexels/s fill rate. The other new addition is a per-pixel shading system. The effect of this is really to be seen to be truly appreciated. The GF2 also includes S3TC support and FSAA capabilities. The latter incurs a heavy performance hit however, when compared to 3dfx's Voodoo5, which supports FSAA directly in the hardware. In any case, the Voodoo5's image quality is considerably better according to reports. The famed transform and lighting engine has also been optimised to offer a speed boost, and as it is produced at a 0.18 micron process, the chip has been clocked higher (200Mhz, from the current 120Mhz of the GeForce).

NVIDIA website: www.nvidia.com