GeForce 2 GTS

The GeForce 2 was a revised and improved version of the GeForce 256. The heart of the card was a new graphics chip, the nVidia GeForce 2 GPU. The chip production technology has been changed - 0.18 micron (Coppermine processors are produced using the same technology), the graphics processor frequency has increased from 120MHz on GeForce 256 to 200MHz on GeForce 2 GTS, the frequency of DDR memory has increased from 300MHz to 333MHz. But, perhaps, the main distinguishing feature of the second GeForce was that the card could now process 8 pixels per clock, unlike the GeForce 256, which processed 4 pixels per clock. This allowed the GeForce 2 GTS cards to overcome the Fill rate of 1600 Megapixels or 1.6 Gigapixels. Another innovation was GigaTexel Shading (GTS).

The card was capable of rendering 25 million triangles per second and supported multitexturing. The 256-bit graphics core of the card remained unchanged. RAMDAC frequency - 350 MHz. Also important was the fact that the card supported DXTC and S3TC texture compression. The card pre-rendered geometry and lighting calculations thanks to its T&L, which compared to the GeForce 256 was improved by about 30%. Due to the increase in fillrate, the performance loss with FSAA turned on became much less than on the GeForce 256. The new chip architecture made it possible to observe new and quite impressive visual effects, such as pixel shaders, without compromising performance. These effects opened up new possibilities for effects such as bump mapping, blocking lighting (specular lighting). At high resolutions, the card kept at a decent level, outperforming the GeForce 256 by 20%-25%.

Features GeForce 2 GTS

The most powerful accelerator of that day, with a whole range of advantages and features. However, we can't ignore the big drawback of this accelerator - slow 166 MHz DDR memory, which was a significant drag on the GeForce2 GTS.