Fall 2003 Video Card Roundup - Part 2: High End Shootout
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on October 7, 2003 5:30 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness
So, as I'm writing this, the phrase "be careful what you wish for" comes to mind. I had my reasons for not wanting to benchmark this game, and in order for me to feel comfortable with handing out the numbers I need to touch on some of the more important issues. The inclusion of TRAOD in this benchmark suite is based on the demand of the community (as everything here always will be). But it's also our duty to try to make sure the information you get here is complete (which is a daunting task for this particular game).
Our initial thinking was that TRAOD simply isn't a very good game, nor would it be representative of future DX9 games. The graphics features are no where near as impressive as something along the lines of Half Life 2 and high dynamic range effects, and it looks more like a DX7 game running on DX9 shaders. It is our opinion that this game won't be heavily played and is more of just a synthetic benchmark people want to see in order to try to predict future performance.
Unfortunately, future performance can't be predicted until we have games from the future. No one seems to want to lend me a time machine, so I can't get those numbers yet. Looking back though, I can offer this advice: don't spend $500 on a video card until the game you want to play on it comes out. Trying to buy something now in order to be ready for games of the future only means that you won't have that money to spend on the newest best card that's out at that point. I also feel comfortable saying that TRAOD performance is a predictor of nothing but TRAOD performance.
In taking this stance, we have decided to do things a little differently than most other sites when it comes to TRAOD. We have turned this game into a sort of stress test that pushes the cards as far as they can go in order to only test the real world impact of DX9 Pixel Shaders. We did four tests at each resolution in order to see the performance differences with and without PS 2.0 and with and without AA. For each card, we use the application to set all the features and left the drivers alone. Part of the reasoning behind this was that AA in Tomb Raider only works if set by the application. Anisotropic filtering is selectable in the game, and was left off for all tests. The reason we check AA and not AF is that AF happens during texturing, but AA is implemented via shaders in TRAOD so it stresses the card in more of the way we want to test. But since we are comparing performance of each card to itself in order to see a performance delta, the actual settings shouldn't be a problem. Beyond3d has some extensive documentation of the TRAOD settings and all the options. If you'd like to learn more, I would point you to them.
For our tests, the only really important information is that we use the NVIDIA Cg compiler rather than the DX9 HLSL default compiler (there was no performance difference between the two on NVIDIA cards for the most part, only image quality improvements).
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Anonymous User - Saturday, October 11, 2003 - link
Great job with the review. I'm so happy to finally see benchmarks in more than just FPS's. I'm always curious to see what kind of benefits can be had by upping my video card in RTS games for example. Take a rest, your brain must be fried from all that benching.One question. I have an LCD monitor and I can't get Generals:Zero Hour to run at 1280x1024. How did you manage to get that resolution for your benches since it is not offered in the game menu?
Anonymous User - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link
Anadtech is a total liar. The 52.14 quality of picture sucks and so does my 5900 card sucks. Its garbage like it was before and the 52.14 drivers for sure are not helping it become better. As for the pictures i dont know how he dares even to say there is no difference in quality it for sure is a big problem the quality with all the games and programs i tried out.Anonymous User - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link
The TRYTH about the det. 52.14 driver:A) OpenGL filtering appears to be just fine.
B) D3D filtering suffers from the following "optimizations"
Application Mode:
1) True trilinear is never utilized at all...on any texture stages. It's now all "pseudotrilinear"
Control Panel Mode
1) Same pseudotrilear as above
2) Proper Aniso level selection is only applied to texture stage 0. No matter what the aniso level selected (2x-8x), only 2x is applied to stages 1-7.
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 9, 2003 - link
I'd like to know what happened to all the CPU scaling analysis? I hope there's a part 3 which includes these same cards.Anonymous User - Thursday, October 9, 2003 - link
Good to see you are reworking the Flight Sim 9 BM. Your achieved FR in part 1 were so much higher than what real simmers are getting. Many people would be happy to get a reliable 25 FPS out of the game. Once there we can worry about IQ. So you need to push the texture sliders etc to put a real load on the system in this game. A continuing argument with this game is the importance of CPU/memory relative to graphics card in achieving acceptable frame rates. Anything in your testing that could shed light on this would be invaluable.scott s.
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Pete - Thursday, October 9, 2003 - link
As long as I'm bothering you, I'd like to request Halo numbers with AF for your next review/roundup. AF really spruces up IQ, IMO, and it's a shame (almost pointless) to buy $500 cards and not run at the highest IQ possible. I'd also appreciate comparison pics with AF, as well. Thanks!Pete - Thursday, October 9, 2003 - link
Whoops, that was the URL of the inline pic, which works. This is the (broken) link to the large pic: http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/roundups...Pete - Thursday, October 9, 2003 - link
Derek, the Halo Det45.23 large pic link doesn't work: http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/roundups...Anonymous User - Thursday, October 9, 2003 - link
Might I suggest you remove the Tech part of yourSitename ? there's not much tech anymore
Anyway this is not about Nv vs Ati, it is Nv vs DX9, It still states on NVidia's site, the FX series are DX9 card which they are not!!
Inform the people as it should & not as your Nv-Paymaster is telling you!!
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 9, 2003 - link
"We still urge our readers not to buy a card until the game they want to play shows up on the street."What if we want to play DNF? Should I just wait till it's done?
Sounds like you're in nVidia's pocket more like it. Most people like games, not just one... so upgrading has immediate effects for most.