ATi All In Wonder Radeon 9600 XT

Name: ATi All In Wonder Radeon 9600 XT - Page 7
Brand: ATi

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, April 27, 2004, 12:00 AM EDT

Performances Comparisons With Novalogic's Comanche 4

Combat Helicopter Sim

Comanche 4

We used Novalogic's combat helicopter simulator Comanche 4 for our next batch of DirectX tests. Comanche 4 uses DX8 class pixel and vertex shaders to produce some of the realistic visuals used throughout the game. Unlike some of the previous tests though, this benchmark is heavily influenced by CPU and system memory performance, especially at lower resolutions. However, when the resolution is raised and anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering are enabled, the current crop of 3D accelerators tend to slow down quite a bit.

The lead in the Comanche 4 benchmark changed hands quite a few times. We ran this test at two different resolutions with three different AA and Aniso configurations, for a total of 6 scores. The All-In-Wonder 9600 XT finished in first place in three of the tests, while the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra won the remaining three. We'd give a slight edge to the GeForce in this benchmark, however, as two of the tests that the AIW finished in first place didn't have AA or aniso enabled. When these image enhancing features were turned on, the NVIDIA powered card performed better, especially at 1600x1200.

Head-to-Head Performance With Tomb Raider: AOD

Lara is Back! As Crappy as Ever!

Tomb Raider: AOD

Although Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness won't be winning any "Game of the Year" awards, it is one of the more advanced DirectX games currently available. We've recorded a custom demo of Lara jogging through an indoor garden area in the "Prague3" map. When using the Pixel Shader 2.0 code path, this area of the game utilizes a DOF (depth of field) blurring effect to enhance the sense of depth and size. We ran our custom demo at a resolution of 1024x768 and then again at 1600x1200, using both the Pixel Shader 1.4 and 2.0 code paths (with and without 4x anti-aliasing in the PS 2.0 tests).

If you've been following the video card scene for the past year or so, you have no doubt heard of NVIDIA's performance issues when running DX9 class games. Our custom Tomb Raider benchmark exposes this weakness by running a portion of the Prague map that utilizes PS 2.0 shaders to produce one of the effects in the scene. Here the All-In-Wonder 9600 XT dominated the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra at both resolutions, regardless of which class of shaders were used, or whether or not AA was enabled.

Tags: ATI, Radeon, XT

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com