HIS Radeon X850 XT and Radeon X800 XL - IceQ II Turbo

There are two words we would use to describe Star Breeze Studios' recently released Chronicles of Riddick, "great game".  The game combines elements of a First Person Shooter along with Role Playing and Strategy elements.  It's definitely R rated with it's "Mature" rating but for adults and older teens, this game has a lot more "playability" going on in our opinion than Doom 3, even though it is built on the same game engine.

Chronicles of Riddick Doom3 Engine Based Gaming

We've taken the liberty to capture a few action shots from within the frames of our custom recorded time demo.  To benchmark with Riddick, things follow the very same flow as benchmarking Doom 3.  Pull down the console (control/alt/~), type recorddemo and the name of your demo, then type timedemo demoname 1 (the "1" is to enable precaching) and let it rip.  An average frame rate score will be displayed.

Graphics within the game are somewhat more impressive in certain areas than even Doom 3 itself because the developers chose a more brightly lit palette to work with in the game's environment.  Gamers are not just feeling around in the dark waiting for something to jump up and say boo, since there is a fair amount of light in many of the rooms.  And where a flashlight is required, the effect feels more natural as in tunnel areas or a dark bulkhead for example.  The game is also a lot more immersing for the end user. The plot and story line develop more clearly early on and throughout the rest of the game.  In terms of graphics processing demands, Riddick puts a heavy load on even the most powerful modern GPUs.  We took the following benchmark scores with all details in the  game turned up to maximum.

Above we see the ATi Radeon X800 series based HIS cards trail the GeForce 6800s by a significant margin.  However, we should point out that even with 4X AA and 8X AF turned on, the game is completely playable for all cards involved.  Game play with Riddick has pockets of fast action shoot-outs coupled with stealth like maneuvering ala Splinter Cell style as you move in for the kill, so flat-out frame rate performance is not always going to make or break the action.  In any event it's clear that ATi still has some brushing up to do on their Doom 3 based gaming performance.  Finally, take note that we tossed in a score at the X800 XL's "iTurbo" clock speed settings just for good measure.  Which leads us to our next segment, overclocking these new HIS graphics cards.