Splinter Cell: Double Agent: A Performance Analysis
by Josh Venning on December 8, 2006 2:10 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
NVIDIA AA Performance
Antialiasing was something that we wanted to look at with Double Agent, and we found there were some quirks with AA in the game. The game was released without any in-game AA options, but the 1.01 patch added the setting to the game menu. With NVIDIA hardware, Double Agent is unable to run AA with HDR effects enabled, which is something we saw in previous Splinter Cell games. ATI hardware, on the other hand, has no trouble running the game with both AA and HDR effects enabled, but unlike NVIDIA ATI cards had trouble running AA with HDR disabled. For this reason, we split up our AA tests into separate sections for NVIDIA and ATI. We aren't able to do an apples to apples comparison of how the game performs with AA between ATI and NVIDIA hardware, but we can see what kind of performance impact we will see with AA enabled for both types of cards.
We tested AA performance on the first benchmark, with Sam Fisher sliding down the zip-line at night. We saw that disabling HDR didn't make a very large performance impact on the game, and with NVIDIA hardware the game took a considerable performance hit with AA enabled. The fact that the game currently supports resolutions only up to 1600x1200 makes AA something that could be more useful, at least for those with larger displays and the GPU to handle it.
With AA enabled and HDR off, the cards see much lower frame rates, with only cards like the 7900 GTX and 7950 GT really being able to run well at 1600x1200. Also, keep in mind that since we used the less demanding benchmark of the two (the other being on the cruise ship) for AA testing, performance in other areas of the game will be even worse with this option enabled. When we compare these results to our non-AA results for the same benchmark, we see that with AA off there is upwards of a 60% performance increase for most of the cards at the same resolutions. AA might still be helpful for cleaning up the jaggies on cards like the 7900 GS or 7600 GT which will still run the game more or less smoothly at 1280x1024 with AA enabled, especially if you don't have a display that supports higher resolutions.
ATI AA Performance
As we mentioned, ATI was able to run with AA and HDR enabled, but had some trouble running AA with HDR off. We saw some graphical problems which made the game unplayable at 1600x1200 resolution on all of the cards. These problems caused improper rendering of the scene making it impossible to see unless heat vision is enabled. Some of the other cards had the same problem at other resolutions as well. Therefore we tested ATI cards with HDR and AA enabled in order to see the kind of impact AA has on performance.
As with NVIDIA, turning on AA with these ATI cards does cause a large decrease in performance. The impact on performance here is greater than we saw with NVIDIA, but keep in mind that both HDR and AA are enabled for these tests. Lower performance cards like the X1300 XT just don't have the capacity to handle AA well and we see a large impact in performance here. The X1950 XTX on the other hand handles AA better, and though it still takes a performance hit it has more than enough power to keep the game running smoothly at 1600x1200 with AA enabled.
The fact that HDR seems to cause problems for ATI hardware when disabled while AA is enabled is unfortunate, but the performance difference between HDR on and off on ATI isn't that great. It would be much better to disable high quality soft shadows and/or high detail shader if you are looking to pick up some extra performance while running AA, for ATI as well as NVIDIA hardware.
Antialiasing was something that we wanted to look at with Double Agent, and we found there were some quirks with AA in the game. The game was released without any in-game AA options, but the 1.01 patch added the setting to the game menu. With NVIDIA hardware, Double Agent is unable to run AA with HDR effects enabled, which is something we saw in previous Splinter Cell games. ATI hardware, on the other hand, has no trouble running the game with both AA and HDR effects enabled, but unlike NVIDIA ATI cards had trouble running AA with HDR disabled. For this reason, we split up our AA tests into separate sections for NVIDIA and ATI. We aren't able to do an apples to apples comparison of how the game performs with AA between ATI and NVIDIA hardware, but we can see what kind of performance impact we will see with AA enabled for both types of cards.
We tested AA performance on the first benchmark, with Sam Fisher sliding down the zip-line at night. We saw that disabling HDR didn't make a very large performance impact on the game, and with NVIDIA hardware the game took a considerable performance hit with AA enabled. The fact that the game currently supports resolutions only up to 1600x1200 makes AA something that could be more useful, at least for those with larger displays and the GPU to handle it.
| NVIDIA 4xAA Without HDR | |||||
| 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 | |
| NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS | 14.1 | 9.9 | |||
| NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT | 23.3 | 17.4 | 12 | ||
| NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS | 30.9 | 23.5 | 16.6 | 11.1 | |
| NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT | 46.6 | 35.4 | 25.2 | 17.1 | |
| NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS | 58.5 | 48 | 35.3 | 23.5 | 12.4 |
| NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT | 59.8 | 57.4 | 44.3 | 31.6 | 23.4 |
| NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX | 60.2 | 59.1 | 49.4 | 35.5 | 26.4 |
With AA enabled and HDR off, the cards see much lower frame rates, with only cards like the 7900 GTX and 7950 GT really being able to run well at 1600x1200. Also, keep in mind that since we used the less demanding benchmark of the two (the other being on the cruise ship) for AA testing, performance in other areas of the game will be even worse with this option enabled. When we compare these results to our non-AA results for the same benchmark, we see that with AA off there is upwards of a 60% performance increase for most of the cards at the same resolutions. AA might still be helpful for cleaning up the jaggies on cards like the 7900 GS or 7600 GT which will still run the game more or less smoothly at 1280x1024 with AA enabled, especially if you don't have a display that supports higher resolutions.
ATI AA Performance
As we mentioned, ATI was able to run with AA and HDR enabled, but had some trouble running AA with HDR off. We saw some graphical problems which made the game unplayable at 1600x1200 resolution on all of the cards. These problems caused improper rendering of the scene making it impossible to see unless heat vision is enabled. Some of the other cards had the same problem at other resolutions as well. Therefore we tested ATI cards with HDR and AA enabled in order to see the kind of impact AA has on performance.
| ATI 4xAA With HDR | |||||
| 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 | |
| ATI Radeon X1300 XT | 32.5 | 24 | 16.3 | 11.2 | 7.2 |
| ATI Radeon X1650 Pro | 36.1 | 25.7 | 18.6 | 12.7 | 8.4 |
| ATI Radeon X1650 XT | 51.9 | 49.4 | 43.3 | 17.2 | 12.4 |
| ATI Radeon X1900 XT 256 | 52.5 | 50.3 | 46.3 | 34.5 | 24.4 |
| ATI Radeon X1950 Pro | 53.7 | 49 | 40 | 28.3 | 21.2 |
| ATI Radeon X1950 XTX | 53.7 | 53.4 | 52.7 | 40.9 | 31.3 |
As with NVIDIA, turning on AA with these ATI cards does cause a large decrease in performance. The impact on performance here is greater than we saw with NVIDIA, but keep in mind that both HDR and AA are enabled for these tests. Lower performance cards like the X1300 XT just don't have the capacity to handle AA well and we see a large impact in performance here. The X1950 XTX on the other hand handles AA better, and though it still takes a performance hit it has more than enough power to keep the game running smoothly at 1600x1200 with AA enabled.
The fact that HDR seems to cause problems for ATI hardware when disabled while AA is enabled is unfortunate, but the performance difference between HDR on and off on ATI isn't that great. It would be much better to disable high quality soft shadows and/or high detail shader if you are looking to pick up some extra performance while running AA, for ATI as well as NVIDIA hardware.
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mpc7488 - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
Neverwinter Nights 2 would be my vote. From the reviews I've read and my experience, it's even more difficult to run than Oblivion (though it's not clear why, the graphics are not that great in most instances, though the lighting effects are phenominal).Centurin - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
Neverwinter Nights 2 has framerate problems because of the engine. I wouldn't really use it to benchmark future games. I still feel that Oblivion is the best benchmarks for graphics at this point.DukeN - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
Where are the 8800 series benchmarks?Josh Venning - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
As we mentioned in the article, the 8800 cards weren't rendering the game properly. The graphical errors with Double Agent on the 8800 GTS and GTX made the game basically impossible to play. That's why we didn't include numbers for these cards. Hopefully when a patch or driver update fixes this issue we can see how the game performs on the 8800 in the future.Jodiuh - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
97.44 on NV's site now...Splinter Cell: Double Agent Single Player has geometry corruption.
Jodiuh - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
^^ That's under issue resolved.PrinceGaz - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
The GeForce 6 series cards support SM3.0 so could you please add results for some representative cards of that generation. I would suggest a 6800GT (which usually performs in between a 7600GS and 7600GT so would probably belong in the 'mid-range' category) and a 6600GT (which I guess is somewhere around the 7300GT level or slightly higher and would therefore be considered 'low-end').I know the GF6 cards are getting on a bit now but there are a lot of people still using them as they are still capable of running most games quite well (especially the 6800s), and including them makes sense as owners of them are probably the most likely to be considering an upgrade which is what an article like this is presumably intended for.
imaheadcase - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
From the performance I'm assuming it looks better when playing, because that looks like a console game graphics. heheshabby - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
The only thing this article is missing is different cpu's, but let me fill that void. With a p4 @ 3.2 ghz + x1900xtx i get around 10-20fps avg. Luckily my e6400 just arrive and i will finally get some decent fps now since the p4 seems like a huge bottleneck.yyrkoon - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
Forcing paying customers to BETA test games, seems to be becoming a habit among developers, and is simply wrong. Anyone remember the BC 3000 A.D. days and what happened to Derrik Smart ? Anyhow, hoping that Bethesda made Oblivion into a game that would renew my days of playing Daggerfall, I purchased the game, and even stuck up for the developers when others criticized the bugs of the game. Days turned into weeks, then weeks into months, additional content was released (pay ware I might add), all before Bethesda finally released its beta patch. It soon dawned on me, that Bethesda no longer enjoyed creating games, or cared about making their customers happy, but only cared about making money, and that I couldn't help feeling ripped off.I do realize that game developers need to make money like anyone else, but they also need to realize that "anyone else" that works very hard for their money, when they do sell something, they need to provide a solid, working product. Could you imagine Ford, or another car manufacturer selling cars, as new, only to let the customer know AFTER they made the purchase, that some items still needed to be worked on, and that some assembly may be required ? We all know this wouldn't float for one second. After all, its not our fault the developer couldn't release a product on time, or needs money NOW to continue their product. Also, I find it rather strange, that a game recently released does not support new hardware, when games that have been out much longer do. Or did they ?
Companies such as this will find it very hard to get any of my money in the future, and I can only hope that other people will follow, and that perhaps someday we'll have game companies that actually release games as advertised once again. It's hard enough that we gamers have to live with games that are no longer as dynamic as they once were, and have to pay $50usd for game content that lasts about 5-8 hours, before you start reliving the game over, and over, until it finally ends.