Unfortunately there's not that much software to take advantage of GeForce2's huge performance numbers. Another disappointment is GeForce2's lack of 32-bit performance at high resolutions, which is clearly the result of its too low memory bandwidth.
Lighting is just as transforming a pretty FP-calculation intensive task.
Both tasks used to be executed by the CPU, putting rather heavy strain on it. At the same time the CPU can dedicate itself to a more complex game AI or more realistic game physics. So far there's not too much to see of that performance advantage, neither on Intel based platforms, nor on VIA based ones. I even found in late January 2000 that the still official GeForce driver 3.68 runs slower with 'Fast Writes' enabled, but this problem has been remedied with the latest 5.xx drivers. This way textured structures that run from close to distant can look more realistic, because it avoids the 'mipmap jump' between two polygons.