The Mystique, while a fine 2D card, will pretty much do nothing as far as
3D acceleration goes. Sure it does work with Direct3D and gives pretty
decent framerates, but it does not use Bi-linear filtering which is a huge
negative IMHO. As far as N2 and ICR2 goes, it will do absolutely nothing,
as they both require a Rendition based card for their 3D accelerated
versions. The obvious choice (at least for the short term) would be one of
the current Rendition based cards such as the Sierra Screamin'3D, the
Intergraph Intense3D, or the Canopus Total3D. Creative Labs also has the
3D Blaster PCI, but they do not bundle ICR2 with it. The Intergraph is the
cheapest (at least here in the US) but it's bundle isn't too hot. The
Sierra card is a bit more expensive, but comes with a great bundle and
slightly better drivers. The Canopus card is the fastest card overall and
offers slightly higher resolutions and color depths thanks to it's faster
RAMDAC, but comes with some extra ***(3D stereoscopic glasses and 3D
sound) that makes it about $100 more than the other cards. I persoanlly
don't think it's worth it, as the lifespan of 3D cards doens't look to be
too long (all of these should be replaced by next Christmas by cards using
the next generation V2000 chip). If you're not concerned with immediate
results, you may want to look at the 3Dfx cards. While neither N2 or ICR2
are supported, Sierra and many other companies are committed to supporting
them in future products. They generally are faster than the Rendition
cards (mainly due to their tremendous fill rate), and also offer OpenGL
acceleration (GLQuake is absolutely breathtaking with reflections, shadows,
and trasnparent water). Initially these were 3D only cards working in
conjunction with a 2D card, the newer cards using the 3Dfx Rush chip (like
the new Hercules card) are 2D/3D.
If you have any questions or would like some more info, feel free to ask.
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