3D Prophet SDR and DDR comparison - Page 3 Design and Layout Hercules (Guillemot) has obtained for the Nvidia reference design when making their 3D Prophet's. The chip, the Geforce256 GPU is covered with a fan and heatsink. This will increase the stability of the card when you decide to overclock it.        The memory chips, for example the DDR version has '6 ns Infineon' modules that cover the upper-right and end of the card. They are also attached to the card on the front and back side. However, if I'm not mistaken, the 3D Prophet SDR has on the front, 6 x 2 Mb memory modules and 6 x 2 Mb on the back side where the DDR version has 4 x 4 Mb memory on the front and the same amount on its back side. Lets install it! As usual, installing one of these cards is pretty easy. Let me explain how to un-install your old and install your new card. Go into 'system properties', change your video card to "Standard VGA" and let the system reboot itself. Then after the reboot, you'll have to delete every file from your old graphic card manually. It could be that Windows didn't delete everything when changing video cards (changing to Standard VGA that is) and if your old files are not deleted, problems or conflicts could occur during installation of your new card. So delete every file of your old graphic card. Those files will be placed into your recycle bin, but DO NOT delete them there. Wait until installation of your new graphic card is complete. Then after succesfully deleting everything from your old card, delete the "Standard VGA" card from system properties and reboot. After the reboot, Windows will load again and this time, it will detect your new graphic card and ask for new drivers. At this point, give Windows the location where your new drivers are (the *.inf file) and they will be installed automatically. Then it will ask for another reboot, choose 'YES' or 'OK' and your graphic card is installed successfully. Overclockability and Stability Every video-card can be overclocked by going into the registry and hack it there or just by a simple overclocking program, for example 'Powerstrip'. There is no need to buy such programs if you want to overclock the 3D Prophet SDR or DDR because Nvidia made it possible, not through the driver because it is hidden, but through the Windows Registry to overclock the core and memory of every Nvidia card. This is the most easiest and inexpensive way to get more power out of your card. Of course, if you don't know exactly what the 'registry' stands for or is, I strongly suggest that you don't mess with it. The registry is, as we call it, 'the heart of Windows'. It contains everything ranging from hardware to all the software that is installed on your system. If you accidently disable something (by setting a "0"), enable something (by setting a "1") or just deleting a string you could be in serious trouble! So if you don't want to mess with the registry, buy a overclocking program or try to find freeware overclock programs (yes, they do exist). By entering a DWORD in the registry string of "NVTweak" called 'CoolBits' and setting its value to "3" you will have a new tab and other goodies in your display proprieties of your graphic card. The most important one for 'overclocking' is of course the "hardware tab" where Windows will show your card's clock and memory. Sliders are present so you can under- or overclock the card. When you move the slider up (don't overburn the card) you can also test those overclocked settings. Very useful if you want to know if your card will handle the overclocked settings. Please remember that if you overclock your card too high, you will get artifacts or other flashing pixels while playing games or your card will simply lock in Windows. So fellow gamers, please don't push the 3D Prophet SDR/DDR too high. However, here @ the office of PlayDevil.com we have overclocked both cards to their 'limits' and we must say we rather like the DDR card more then its little brother, the 3D Prophet SDR. The card can be overclocked very easily and its stability is also very good but remember, with standard cooling you just can't overclock it all the way up! If you want to push the card to its limits we strongly suggest that you replace its default cooling with a much higher/faster heatsink and fan that will cool the card and chip more rapidly. Next Page Up Previous Page If you want to review your favorite game, or if you work with a computer game company and want your products reviewing, mail info@playdevil.com. All contributions are welcome. Any problems and/or suggestions are always appreciated on webmaster@playdevil.com Nothing of this entire Site, animation & logo's included, may be reproduced, stored, saved, transmitted, in any form or means, electronic, written or otherwise without the prior permission of PlayDevil. Other Logos & Names are Copyrighted Material of its respectful owners. All Rights Reserved. PlayDevil Productions © 199/8-199/9 "rip your own stuff"