|
 |
|
Benchmarks
With Unreal Tournament 2003 |
|
DX8
Performance |
|
|
Unreal
Tournament 2003
|
Epic's Unreal
Tournament series has consistently been one of the most popular
shooters, and by no coincidence is it also one of the
most commonly used benchmarks for video card testing.
We continued our DirectX benchmarking with a completely
patched, retail version Unreal Tournament 2003.
When testing with UT2003, we use a utility that ensures
all of the cards are being tested with the exact same
in-game settings and "High-Quality" graphical options.
We ran the UT2003 benchmarks at resolutions of 1024x768
and 1600x1200, without anti-aliasing and again with 4x
and 6x AA enabled. We kept Anisotropic filtering
disabled here because NVIDIA and ATi aren't doing the
same level of trilinear filtering when aniso and
trilinear are enabled together. |
The Unreal Tournament 2003
results were a mixed bag. Without any anti-aliasing,
each card performed at a level similar to its competition.
At 1024x768 with 4X AA enabled, the Asus 9800 and 9600 XTs
nudged past their NVIDIA based counterparts by a few frames
per second, only to fall behind by similar margins at 1600x1200. With 6X
anti-aliasing enabled, the 9800 XT led the pack by
significant amounts at both resolutions. The 9600 XT
also had a measurable advantage over the 5700 Ultra at
1024x768 with 6X AA enabled, but just barely lost out at
1600x1200.
|
|
|
Head-to-Head Performance
With
Splinter Cell |
|
Stealth Pixel Shading |
|
|
Splinter
Cell
|
Splinter Cell's version 1.2 patch includes three demos
in addition to a benchmarking feature. We used the
custom
Oil Rig demo created by the folks at Beyond 3D to test
with Splinter Cell.
This demo removes two CPU intensive routines while
increasing dependence on Pixel Shader performance.
Shaders are used to render the realistic looking ocean
water surrounding the Oil Rig in the demo, as well as simulating a
night vision effect.
As we've mentioned in the past, anti-aliasing
doesn't work with Splinter cell (at least with the
current version). Due to this fact, we do not have
any AA scores listed in the graphs below. |
ATi's 9x00 series Radeons have traditionally
performed very well in the Splinter Cell benchmark, but with
each new driver release, the GeForce FXs nudge closer.
At both resolutions, the Asus Radeon 9800 XT outpaced the
GeForce FX 5950 Ultra by about 10%. The Asus Radeon
9600 XT was also faster than the 5700 Ultra, but the
performance deltas were a bit smaller. The 9600 XT was approximately
5% faster at 1024x768 and about 4.7% faster at 1600x1200.
Final Fantasy & Gun Metal Tests
|
