Performance in 2D applications is now considered, by many folks, pretty much a non-issue with the last few generations of video chips, since fairly snappy performance can be had with just about every solution. Still, the speed at which a PC draws windows, pushes text around, and the like is critical to one's subjective impressions of the machine's overall performance. On this front, the TNT doesn't disappoint. Performance, especially in 32-bit color, is subjectively quite a bit snappier than the Riva 128.
Here are the 2D scores:
The subjective difference between 16- and 32-bit color modes isn't nearly as marked as the numbers above indicate. I'm not sure how much of this discrepancy is due to the Wintune benchmark accenting some elements of 2D performance that aren't used commonly and how much of it is due to limitations of my own perception. I imagine it's some mix of the two. Regardless, 2D performance is excellent, even in Windows NT in 32-bit color, where the numbers are lowest. (NT's video is always a bit slower than Win95/98, since NT4, though faster than NT 3.51, doesn't allow the same direct hardware access Win98 does.) Although the TNT lacks a 24-bit packed-pixel video mode, even the most demanding users will have a hard time faulting it on this point, since 32-bit mode is plenty fast.