Leadtek WinFast 3D S600DX lets you work comfortably

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): Some months ago in this column I reviewed Cardex Genesis Pro, a graphics card based on the S3 Trio 64 graphics accelerator chip.

This card, which handles the video signals between the motherboard and the display monitor, has an acceptable performance for its very low price.

You normally can buy one for under Rp 100,000. However, the card is a little bit too slow for speedier machines, such as ones using the Pentium 166 MHz processor.

In addition, the display tends to be much darker than usual. Perhaps the voltage of the signals it sends to the monitor is not as high as other graphics cards, such as Matrox Millennium.

I usually had to turn up the brightness of my Sony monitor each time I used the Cardex Genesis. I used it only on my backup PC.

Another fault that I've found with Cardex Genesis is that you have to turn on the monitor before you turn on the CPU. If you forget to switch on the monitor first, Cardex will detect no monitor and balk to monochrome display.

While Win 95 can usually force it to display color, you'll get black and white when you run a DOS program. This is no big deal when your monitor draws power from your CPU and is therefore powered up the moment you switch on the CPU. In my case, I use one monitor connected to a switch box. If I forgot to turn the switch, I'd end up having a black-and-white display.

Because of these rather trivial shortcomings, I decided to buy a more expensive graphics card for my second PC. I specifically looked for WinFast S600, which a friend from Intel Corp., once recommended to me.

In fact, I had bought one previously for a PC that I was assembling for a relative. It was a great graphics card, but it was still quite expensive then.

But last week I had a pleasant surprise at Computer City in Glodok. This graphics card, which used to cost Rp 350,000, can now be bought for Rp 200,000.

Its new version, the 3D S600DX, was only Rp 210,000. At that price it was just too irresistible for me. When I got home and installed it on my backup PC, I got even more pleasant surprises.

Lots of memory

The new version, WinFast S600DX, came standard with 2 MB of fast, 35 ns EDO RAM.

The speed of this graphics accelerator card was immediately noticeable, particularly because my backup PC runs on a 90 MHz Pentium.

Leadtek, the Taiwanese company that makes this card, claims that 3-D rendering with the 3D S600DX is 40 percent to 60 percent faster than the original S600.

There were four empty sockets on the card that you can fill up to make the total memory 4 MB.

Two MB is more than enough for regular business applications, even when your display resolution is set at 1024 by 768. With 2 MB of video memory, you'll still be able to have what is called Hi-color, or 16-bit (65,536) colors, at this resolution level.

The card came with three CD-ROMs and a manual. One of the CD- ROMs contained the necessary software drivers for DOS, Windows 3.1, Win 95, Win NT 3.5 and 4.0, and OS/2. Leadtek uses a Virge/DX/GX Version 8.0 chip for WinFast 3D S600DX.

Despite the CD-ROM, installation of the driver was not done automatically. First I had to call the Display Property, click on Settings and then on Change Display Settings.

Then I had to specify the subdirectory on the CD-ROM where the driver was located. Fortunately the manual gives clear guidance on how we should install the driver. It even provides alternative steps to properly install it.

One of the greatest features I found right away was the sliding control for display brightness. This feature will be very useful if you work near a window. During the day, when the ambient light is strong, you may need to increase the display brightness.

In the evening, when there's no more light coming in through the window, you might want to decrease the brightness to reduce glare.

To adjust the brightness of the display, all you have to do is go to the Display Property dialog box, and click on the WinFast Color tab. The dialog box will then look like the one on the right in the accompanying picture. With the mouse you can move the control button to the left to reduce the brightness or to the right to increase it. It's really neat.

Changing the display resolution is also easy. Just click on WinFast icon found in the system tray--next to the time and date on Win 95's Task Bar, and you'll have a menu like the one shown on the bottom left-hand corner of the accompanying picture.

Resolutions can be changed on-the-fly without restarting Windows.

Other features

The refresh-rate capability of this card is also above average. Leadtek claims that it is capable of producing 200 Hz vertical scanning rate. This means that the electron guns in your monitor have to go up and down 200 times per second.

Certainly not many display monitors would be capable of handling such a high speed of vertical scanning yet.

XingMPEG playback software was also provided, both Version 3.01 and Version 3.12. In my test, the playback was surprisingly good despite the low clock cycle of my Pentium 90 MHz.

I was able to get about 20 frames per second at full screen. If you wish, you could buy the hardware MPEG add-on card. It's a daughter card that can be connected directly to WinFast S600 DX to enable you to enjoy high quality MPEG playback.

The video card already has a sound port for MPEG playback. There is a feature-connector that will allow you to connect a TV tuner, a CATV or a video camera to your system.

The other two CD-ROMs contain demos from Asymetrix, RealiMation and others. The first contains three related programs for creating 3-D titles, capturing video stream and editing video clips.

The latter is a virtual reality software that lets you play with 3-D virtual reality. I tried the demos, and I was wondering how real it would look if my PC had run on a Pentium with MMX Technology. There were also plug-ins for 32-bit Internet browsers.

Like other high end video graphics cards, WinFast S600 DX also lets us have a desktop area larger than the monitor itself. So, for instance, if the monitor resolution is 1024 by 768 pixels, we can set the desktop to be 1600 by 1200 pixels.

We can pan the 'viewer' around, as if we are looking at the computer desktop through a looking glass. This might be confusing for those who work with it for the first time, though, and I have never bothered to use this feature.

Small problem

Strangely, at first I had an annoying problem when running Photoshop 4.0 and opening more than one TIFF image in it.

Each time I opened a second TIFF image, the colors of the first one -- which would now be at the back of the newly opened one -- would turn really ugly. When I clicked on the first one to bring it up to the foreground again, its colors might not get refreshed completely. Sometimes parts of the image remained unsightly.

Just accidentally I found the remedy. I set the level of display resolution to 800 by 600 and told the system to change it without reloading Windows.

Now I don't have a problem with the TIFF files, but to my surprise native Photoshop files (PSD) became complete messes. I finally reloaded Windows and started Photoshop again. Bingo! Everything worked fine afterwards.

So, for such a reasonable price, there's no more reason you should still buy a mediocre graphics card. From now on, if you have a new PC assembled for your own use, insist on having at least the WinFast 3D S600DX as its graphics accelerator card.