S3's DeltaChrome S4 Pro
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 Comanche 4 |
To give you sim fans a small taste of what these cards can do, 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 a few 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 scales tipped in favor of S3 DeltaChrome S4 in the Comanche 4 benchmark when no anti-aliasing and Anisotropic filtering was used. Here, the S4 led the GeForce FX 5200 Ultra by about 10% at 1024x768 and virtually tied with the FX 5200 at 1280x1024. Turning on 2XAA and 8X Aniso, however, took its toll of the DeltaChrome S4. It was still able to outrun the underpowered Radeon 9200 SE, but the GeForce FX 5200 Ultra more than doubled the S4's performance when AA and Aniso were enabled.
