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).
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
117 Comments
View All Comments
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 8, 2003 - link
I'm impressed. I've never seen a review that actually has the games I play most frequently in it. I've been un-interested in FPS games since Quake II.In particular, I like Neverwinter Nights, C&C Generals, SimCity 4, and to some extent WarCraft III (and by extention, their expansions). I was under the impression that SimCity 4 was CPU bound under almost all circumstances, it's useful to have that shot down.
I also like AA and AF. You can imagine the slideshows I play with my Athlon 2100+, 1GB DDR, and Radeon 64MB DDR (a.k.a. 7200)
Now I just need to see the ATI AIW 9600 Pro reach general availability.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
Thank you so much for this review... the detail is spectacular. After reading and lookig at all 60 pages... I am really tired. Thanks again for your dedication!Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
Um why are there no comparisons using two monitors with diffrent cards running . Gabe of valve said there is a set of drivers that detect when an screen shot is being taken. Or did anand just get duped by nvidiaAnonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
I would like to know:1. Why fps was left out of TRAOD
2. Why the weirdo never seen before TRAOD PS2.0 percent loss graph? How about giving us good ole fps which is what we have been seeing for years and what we are use to, at least have both if you are going to introduce new graphs.
3. How the reveiwer seems to know "Nvidia is aware of it" and never seems to know if ATI is aware of problems? I mean he would have had to talk to Nvidia to know this. Did Nvidia pre read the review and then tell him they are aware of a problem and will fix it??
4. What motiviation does the reviewers have for helping Nvidia or at least seem optimistic. What has Nvidia done to earn this tip toeing around type of review? If anyting they have dug themselves a well deserved hole. I'm talking about Nvidias horrid behaviour as a company in the past 6 months. Why would they reward a company that pulls the stunts they have lately? Do they feel sorry for them?
All I can say is the tone of this review leads me to think there is more to this than meets the eye.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
#52 yeah im sure people play games in window mode.How can u see the differences from such a small screen shots. Its well known that Nvidia hacks or shall I say "optimises" for benchmarks giving no thought to IQ. This article displays Blatant nvidia @ss kissing. There was good reason Gabe didn't want his game to be benched with det.50xx, take a guess, more hackery from nVidia. Also Anand mentions certain anomalties with the geforce fx on certain games but does not try to exlpore what those errors are and assumes nothings wrong. In homeworl the Fx isn't even doing FSSA. Geez wish the nvidia fanboys would get a clue and crawl out from under that rock the've been hiding under.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
This is the most interesting article I have ever read for sometime.. First of all, I agree with #41.. I think including this many games into benchmark prohibits Anand/Derek to make detailed analysis of the games.. But there is something more interesting..It seems that Anand and Derek tried to put an article that hides the problems with both cards.
They also deliberately try to avoid giving one company favor. In one sentence, they claim ATI is best, in the next line, they state otherwise.
As for the IQ comparison, many of screen captures are either dark or can not reflect what AF+AA intended to do.. If I just check the small pictures, I would say that the IQ are really similar. However, more detailed analysis reveals other problems. Besides, the review of the TROAD is the wrost I have ever seen.. If they post the frame rates, I am pretty sure that everybody will be shocked to see the results.. How won't they.. Think about it, the performance percentage loss of FX5950 is 77.5% for 1024x768 noAA/AF. Even if the game runs at 50 fps with PS1.1, the frame rate would drop to 10 fps when you switch to ps2.0 in this case.. However, refering to Beyond3d is interesting, because that site has a very detailed benchmarks of both 5900 and 9800 with this game ( I strongly recommend to anyone to see these articles who really wants to learn the actual performance of NV5900 and R9800 in the PS2.0 scenarios)
But I totally disagree with Anand in one thing.. TROAD performance is a real indicator for the future games that will uses PS2.0 by default. The games v49 patch also uses HLSL to compile directly to ps2_0_x which is actually the Nvidia's NV30 architecture, and the compiled code runs faster than Cg compiled code. Even in this case, 9800Pro still runs much faster that 5900 ( I am talking about 70 fps vs. 35 fps.).
I guess nobody want to see that his/her 500$ graphics card would crawl in the new games which uses ps2.0 by default just one year after he puchased the card.. And no! I am not a ATI fanboy.. Just a tech fan who does not tolerate to see how some sites really misdirects the readers because of their connections to the IHVs.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
Oh, come on, fanboys, stop yelling at Anand for not making nVidia look bad enough. His job is to benchmark, not to rant. Jesus Christ, you people annoy me. Try printing out the three images from any given test WITHOUT looking at which one's the Radeon.And no, I'm no nVidia fanboy, nor am I defending nVidia. I use a softmodded Radeon 9500 and I absolutely love it. I have never, ever put a GeForce FX in my system, and I'm happy to say this. But can't you people just let go?
Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
FIFA 2004 !!! That alone make this worth while !!!Rogodin2 - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
You should use IL-2 Forgotten Battles with "perfect" detail settings (pixel shaded water and a system knee-bringer) for a simulation benchmark.rogo
Dasterdly - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
I could see IQ differences on the dune buggy left side top. The ATI pic has better detail.Please add 3dmark benchmark.
Good review so far almost 1/2 way thru :)