|
 |
|
Performance Comparisons
With Final Fantasy XI v2.0 |
|
Chocobos finally make it to the big screen |
|
|
|
Final Fantasy is a title that is more well known by
console users, but it appears that Squaresoft is ready
to make the jump to the PC, with a MMORPG version of the
classic. The demo version comes bundled with a
benchmark, which displays a final score every time it
makes a full cycle. Although it was meant more for
checking a system's readiness to play the game, we found
that we could get a meaningful test by setting it to
high-res and then dividing the final score (rendered
frames) by the time elapsed, to get the frame rate. |
As benchmarks go, this was
as straightforward as it gets, and although it might not be
noticeable to the naked eye, the final score at the end of
the benchmark was 3983 for the Radeon 9600 XT, 3773 for the
Radeon 9600 Pro, and only 2804 for the GeForce FX 5600.
That means over a 1000 frames were dropped by the 5600.
Dividing these numbers by the time it took to run the test
gave us the frame rates, which are represented in the graph
above. The two Radeons were separated by only a frame
per second, with the 5600 over five frames back behind the
9600 XT.
|
|
|
Benchmarks / Comparison
With
Gun Metal |
|
With
game play like this, I can't wait to play the real
thing |
|
|
|
Yeti Studios has also released a benchmark that is based
on a real game. According to Yeti, it is designed
to push the latest DX9 based cards to the limit using
Pixel and Vertex Shaders to display a rapidly changing
battlefield. To help achieve this, anti-aliasing
and anisotropic filtering are built into the engine, and
cannot be disabled. As such, the average frame rates are
lower than one should expect with the actual game, so
don't be discouraged by the scores that you see in the
graphs below. The benchmark was run twice; once at
1024x768x32, and again at 1280x1024x32. |
Gun Metal really punished
these mainstream video cards. We could not even manage
to pull out an average of 15 frames per second on any of
them. We saw the same relative breakdown of the scores
at 1024x768, with the 9600 XT taking the lead over the 9600
Pro, and the GF FX 5600 a distant third place. That
all changed at 1280x1024, however, where the 9600 Pro and
5600 flip-flopped. The 9600 Pro took the deepest at
the higher resolution, and the 5600 the least. The
9600 XT still captured the highest score, however, and
wasn't really challenged by the other two.
Next Up: Comanche 4 & Wolfenstein
|
