Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13



STB has often been considered a power competitor in the video industry, with their high speed PCI accelerators dominating the low end desktop market as well as the gaming industry.  However, STB faced their biggest challenge when equipped with nVIDIA's powerful Riva 128 chipset...the challenge?  To produce a card whose main competitor would be Diamond's outstanding Viper V330.  Did STB succeed in surpassing Diamond's mark of excellence with their Velocity 128 or were their efforts made towards a lost cause?


Video Card Specifications

Interface: AGP 1x / PCI 2.1
Chipset: nVIDIA Riva 128
RAM: 4MB 100MHz SGRAM
Data Path: 128-bit
Horizontal Sync Signals: 31.5kHz - 108.5kHz
Vertical Refresh: 43.5Hz - 200Hz
RAMDAC: 230MHz
TV Output: Yes (640 x 480)
Video Playback: MPEG-1, Indeo, & Cinepak Supported
Supported Resolutions: 640 x 480 - 1600 x 1200
Supported Refresh Rates: 60 - 200 Hz

The Good

We can automatically rule out the performance factor in the comparison of the STB Velocity 128 and the Diamond Viper V330...why?  Because the raw performance of both cards is virtually identical.  However the real world performance of the STB Velocity differs from the Diamond Viper mainly due to the quality of STB's drivers in comparison to those of Diamond for use with the Viper V330. 

Like the V330, the Velocity 128's power extends from nVIDIA's Riva 128 Chipset which provides the user with outstanding 2D performance in addition to 3D performance second only to 3Dfx's own Voodoo chipset.  Upon installing the Velocity 128 Windows 95 detects the card as a Standard VGA Adapter, and since you most likely don't want to run your new $200 investment in 640 x 480 x 16 colors you will want to pop in STB's installation CD.  The AGP version of the Velocity 128 is currently only available in an OEM version with no software bundle (like the Viper V330 - AGP), however the PCI version is offered in a retail flavor for an added cost.  The test system used an OEM AGP Velocity 128 which came with a single CD placed in a tri-fold quick installation guide.  The guide completely documents the software installation of the STB Velocity 128 drivers, however the hardware portion of the installation is left up to the user.  Although the installation is simple enough, it would have been nice to have a quick reference card for first time upgraders to use for added safety.   Nevertheless, the installation process of the Velocity 128 carries on fairly quickly, it is highly recommended to remove all previous graphics card drivers before installing the V128 in order to avoid any possible conflicts.  Attempting to install the V128 over a previous installation of a Matrox Millennium II on the test system proved this theory when the card would not properly configure itself, requiring a quick boot into safe mode and the tweaking of some color depth/resolution settings.  A 30 second removal of previous graphics drivers can save you hours of debugging and hassle with the Velocity 128 or any graphics card for that matter.

The Velocity 128 itself features a standard PC monitor connector along with an optional Composite Video Output connector and a S-Video Output for using your TV as a monitor.  That doesn't mean, however, that you can buy a 21" TV and use it as your monitor, because chances are, you won't want to.  The quality of the Composite or even the S-Video outputs on any graphics card doesn't even come close to the crisp images you will see on a standard VGA/SVGA monitor simply because NTSC TV's are limited to 525 horizontal scan lines which isn't even remotely close to the resolutions you can achieve on an economically priced monitor.  The AGP Velocity 128's interface connector is split into three sections, while only two of them make contact with the AGP slot, the third one merely hangs down over the slot.  Normally this won't pose a problem, however some motherboards have placed transistors or other obstructions in that very spot, so before purchasing the V128 be sure to double check your AGP slot and make certain that there are no obstructions that would be in the way of the installation of the V128 (the Diamond Viper V330 AGP also suffers from this design, so for those of you interested in the V330 AGP card be careful as well). 

STB included a fairly standard drive utility package with the Velocity 128 - their own STB Vision Desktop Utility which allows the user to switch desktop resolutions/color depths on the fly without having to restart the computer.   If you wish to take advantage of the OpenGL support of the Riva 128 chipset then you must use nVIDIA's Alpha drivers in place of your video card manufacturer's custom drivers, you can obtain the Alpha OpenGL drivers from RIVA Extreme on their drivers page among other places.  The performance of games such as GLQuake/2 using these drivers on the Velocity 128 is well above average, much higher than one would expect from drivers not even in the beta stage of production.



The Bad

If not installed with the utmost attention paid to removing previous video drivers and maintaining a clean installation, the initial setup of the Velocity 128 can turn into any user's worst nightmare.  The test system the Velocity 128 was installed in was purposely equipped with a Matrox Millennium II beforehand to simulate a real world upgrade (although an upgrade from a Millennium II to a Velocity 128 would be a questionable one ;)...).  The first time the Velocity 128 was installed none of the Millennium II drivers were removed, an honest mistake most users make when upgrading a peripheral such as a video card.  However the V128 didn't react as expected, instead of being an obedient little video card and installing over the Millennium II, the V128 insisted that there was something wrong with the V128 adapter itself and would not properly install over the Millennium II.  The Velocity 128 managed to keep itself in the horrid 640 x 480 x 16 color setting which was its default until the system was restarted into safe mode and the Millennium II drivers were removed.   Upon rebooting the Velocity 128 drivers were re-installed without much hassle.  

The above scenario can be expected from some video cards, however it usually isn't too common of most graphics accelerators I've dealt with that seamlessly install over previous drivers even though it is a bad practice to clutter your system with un-used drivers.  While installing nVIDIA's Alpha drivers the same situation reappeared, something which quickly became an annoying factor in the overall "ease of use" of the STB Velocity 128.  Configuring the drivers took a few boots into safe mode and a bit of tweaking to get the adapter to properly configure itself (gotta love that Plug 'n Play) at the test resolution of 1024 x 768, and for the first couple of resolution switches afterwards corrections and alterations had to be made in Safe Mode in order to ensure that the Velocity 128 would work with the new drivers.

The Velocity 128 isn't the world's most friendly video accelerator, but in real life most users don't switch constantly through ten or twenty resolution/color depth settings on the fly so the operation of the V128 shouldn't be that big of a problem.  STB's drivers aren't as fast as Diamond's new V330 drivers in 2D Windows acceleration, making the STB take a back seat to the Diamond V330 in the Graphics Winbench tests.  For the most part STB did a fine job with the Velocity 128...we'll just have to wait for the retail AGP version to be released to make the final judgement on the product.


Drivers & Bundled Software

STB Vision 98 Desktop Configuration utility (OEM - no games bundle)


Incompatibilities

  • The STB Velocity 128's drivers seem to have problems installing over previous video card drivers, be sure to remove any and all instances of 3rd party video adapter drivers before installing the STB Velocity 128.

  • The STB Velocity 128 doesn't seem to have problems coping with the 75, 83, and 100MHz bus speeds like Diamond's Viper V330...no problems here.


The Test

Test Configuration

Processor(s): Intel Pentium II 300 (512KB ECC)
Motherboard: AOpen AX6L LX Based Pentium II Motherboard
RAM: 1 x 64MB Corsair SDRAM DIMM (w/ Serial Presence Detect)
Hard Drive(s): Western Digital Caviar AC21600H
Video Card(s): STB Velocity 128 (4MB SGRAM - AGP)

 

WinBench 98 Version 1.1 Direct Draw Results in Million Pixels/Sec
Test STB Velocity 128 (AGP)
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 640 x 480 239
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 800 x 600 232
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1024 x 768 243
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1152 x 864 227
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1280 x 1024 233
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1600 x 1200 No Result
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 8 bit 239
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 16 bit 194
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 24 bit No Result
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 32 bit 98
DirectDraw/Animate BltFast 239
DirectDraw/Animate Blt 239
DirectDraw/Animate Solid 258
DirectDraw/Animate Transparent 258
DirectDraw/Animate Full Screen 243
DirectDraw/Animate Windowed 14.6
DirectDraw/Animate Clipped 15.5
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in video, Work area in video 239
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in system, Work area in video 41.7
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in video, Work area in system 84.6
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in system, Work area in system 84.8
DirectDraw/Animate Blt size, 256 pixels 53.2
DirectDraw/Animate Blt size, 1024 pixels 118
DirectDraw/Animate Blt size, 4096 pixels 238
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 2.0x, 8 bit 52.9
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 8 bit 47.3
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, Transparent, 1.7x, 8 bit 46.6
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 16 bit 71.3
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 24 bit No Result
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 32 bit 47.8
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 8 bit color 1420
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 16 bit color 679
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 24 bit color No Result
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 32 bit color 262

The Direct Draw performance of the STB Velocity 128, for the most part is on par with Diamond's Viper V330, no real performance difference here.



The Direct Draw performance of the STB Velocity 128, for the most part is on par with Diamond's Viper V330, no real performance difference here.

Accelerated GL Quake 2 Performance
Video Card STB Velocity 128 (AGP)
Frame Rate (higher is better)
Processor DEMO1
(640 x 480)
DEMO2
(640 x 480)
Pentium II - 300 18.5 16.6
Pentium MMX - 233 13.7 11.8
K6 - 233 12.0 10.5
6x86MX-PR2/200+ (166/66) 9.0 7.3

 

Supported 3D Features
Feature Capable?
3D Quality/Fog Vertex Capable
3D Quality/Fog Table Not Capable
3D Quality/Specular Highlights Capable
3D Quality/Color Key Transparency Capable
3D Quality/Alpha Transparency Capable
3D Quality/Linear Capable
3D Quality/Mipmap Linear Capable
3D Quality/Dithering Capable
3D Quality/Perspective Correction Capable
3D Quality/Fog Vertex and Color Key Capable
3D Quality/Fog Vertex and Alpha Capable

The Final Decision

The STB Velocity 128 is nothing more than a Diamond Viper V330 with a few more capacitors and a different display driver, you don't really notice any performance increase over the Viper with the Velocity 128, so until the Viper V330 AGP and STB Velocity 128 AGP are available in retail versions the final decision really comes down to personal preference: Who do YOU prefer?  STB or Diamond?

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