I currently have a P133 ,32 MB EDO Ram, and I have an Imagine 128 4MB
video card. I was thinking about getting the Reactor card for running
NASCAR 2. Would it be possible to run the cards in parallel at the same
time? Since I'm guessing no, is it possible to switch back and forth
between cards after turning off the machine? I'm just wondering how it
would work, because I like the Imagine's Windows acceleration, but not
its DOS acceleration. Please let me know what you think
John
You'd pretty much have to physically remove the card you were not
using. For general Windows use, even with the early drivers the
Reactor is not a bad card. While not as fast as the Imagine 128 in
benchmarks, the real-world performance difference really is not that
big a deal. Unless you really need the higher refresh rates at the
higher resolutions/color depths that the Imagine offers, you might find
the Reactor to be a suitable replacement.
--
Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/
Just as an experiment I tried installing my Diamond Stealth 64 and Reactor at
the same time under Windows 95. Before I did this, I installed both cards
individually to load their respective drivers. When I installed both cards,
when Windows 95 booted up it recognized both cards. I checked this under
Control Panel-System-Device Managers-Display Adapters. I haven't tried playing
games under this configuration in dos though. Please note this was a one shot
experiment and not an indication of what is possible or not. Also, when I
killed my Reactor with a flash bios upgrade, I fixed it by having to use both
cards at the same time with the help of tech support to fix the bios on the
Reactor.
I did *exactly* this upgrade - from a 4MB Imagine 128 to a Reactor.
I really do use my PC for real work (I'm an author) and I found that
the Windows performance difference was not even noticable, even when
doing some fairly heavy-duty stuff. I also tried some video on the
Reactor, and it did just fine on it, contrary to what had concerned me
in PC Magazine's review.
My Imagine 128 is back in its bag, waiting for the day when my kids
need another PC....
