ATI Radeon HD 4890 vs. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on April 2, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Unreal Tournament 3 PhysX Mod Pack: Finally, a Major Title
Unreal Tournament 3. Metacritic gives it an 83 for “Generally favorable reviews” and NVIDIA released a PhysX mod pack for it last year. Now we’re getting somewhere.
The mod pack consists of three levels that use GPU accelerated PhysX. The rest of the game is left unchanged. You can run these levels without GPU acceleration, but they’re much slower.
The three levels are HeatRay, Lighthouse and Tornado. Guess what the PhysX does in Tornado?
Ben and I played HeatRay together (aw, cute). First the PhysX enabled level with GPU acceleration turned off, then with it turned on and then the standard level that doesn’t use any GPU accelerated PhysX at all.
Turning the PhysX acceleration on made a huge difference, we both agreed. The game was much faster, much more playable. The most noticeable PhysX effect was hail falling from the sky, and lots of it. You could blow up signs in the level but the hail was by far the most noticeable part. Note that I said noticeable, not desirable.
See all of the white pellets? Yeah, that's what PhysX got us in UT3.
Playing the normal version of the HeatRay map was far more fun for both of us. The hail was distracting. Each of the hundreds of pellets hit the ground and bounced off in a physically accurate manner, but in doing so it sounded like I was running through a tunnel full of bead curtains suspended from the ceiling. Not to mention the visual distraction of tons of pellets hitting the ground all of the time. Ben and I both liked the level without the hail. The point of the hail? Not to make the level cooler, but rather to truly stress the PPU/GPU - particles are one of the most difficult things to do on the CPU thanks but work very well on the GPU. This wasn’t a fun level, this was a benchmark.
Tornado was the turning point for us. As the name implies, there’s a giant tornado flying through this capture the flag level. The tornado is physically accurate, if you shoot rockets at it, they fly around and get sucked into the funnel or redirected depending on their angle of incidence. It’s neat.
The tornado sucks up everything around it but if you’re looking to relive Wizard of Oz fantasies I’ve got bad news: you are immune from its sucking power. You just stay on the ground and lose health. Great.
Ben’s take on the tornado level? “It was neat”. I agreed. Not compelling enough for me to tattoo PhysX on my roided up mousing-arm, but the most impressive thing we’d seen thus far.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
294 Comments
View All Comments
tamalero - Thursday, April 9, 2009 - link
the 270 is a 285 nerf, so what?your point is?
SiliconDoc - Thursday, April 23, 2009 - link
The other point is, when you've been whining about nvidia having a giant brute force core that costs too much to make, and how that gives ati a huge price and profit advantage ( even though ati has been losing a billion a year) , that when ati make a larger core and moer expensive breadboard and cooler setup standard for their rebrand, you point out the greater expense, in order to at least appear fair, and not be a red raging rooster rooter.Got it there bub ?
Sure hope so.
Next time I'll have to start charging you for tutoring and reading comprehension lessens.
SiliconDoc - Thursday, April 23, 2009 - link
Uh, for you, the mentally handicapped, the point is since ati made a rebrand, call it a rebrand, especially when you've been screeching like a 2 year old about nvidia rebrands, otherwise you're a lying sack of red rooster crap, which you apparently are.Welcome to the club, dumb dumb.
I hope that helps with your mental problem, your absolute inability to comprehend the simplest of points. I would like to give you credit and just claim you're being a smart aleck, but it appears you are serious and haven't got clue one. I do feel sorry for you. Must be tough being that stupid.
Griswold - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Just that one "rebadge" comes with 3 million extra transistors; deal with it.SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link
" Because they’re so similar, the Radeon 4870 and 4890 can be combined together for mix-and-match CrossFire, just like the 4850 and 4870."Yep, that non rebadge. LOL
jtleon - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Visit:http://chhosting.org/index.php?topic=24.0">http://chhosting.org/index.php?topic=24.0
To see AO applied to FEAR. Boris Vorontsov developed the directx mod long ago!
SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link
Oh sorry, forgot forced SLI profiles, and I don't want to fail to mention something like EVGA's early release NVidia game drivers for games on DAY ONE. lolAww, red rover red rover send the crying red rooster right over.
Did I mention ati lost a billion bucks two years in a row for amd ?
No ?
I guess Dewreck and anand forgot to mention the larger die, and more expensive components on the 790 ati boards will knock down "the profits" for ati. LOL Yeah, awww... we just won't mention cost when ati's goes up - another red rooster sin by omission.
I ought to face it, there are so many, I can't even keep up anymore.
They should get ready for NVidia stiffing them again, they certainly deserve it - although it is funny watching anand wince in text as he got addicted to Mirror's Edge - then declared "meh" for nvidia.
lol - it's so PATHETIC.
tamalero - Thursday, April 9, 2009 - link
what the hell are you talking about?SiliconDoc - Thursday, April 23, 2009 - link
You proved you can't read and comprehend properly on the former page, where I had to correct you in your attempt to whine at me - so forget it - since you can't read properly ok nummy ?SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link
Ahh, thank you very much. lolNVIDIA wins again !
rofl
I'm sure the ati card buyers will just hate it...but of course they are so happy with their pathetic "only does framerates, formerly in 2560 for wins, now in lesser resolutions for the win"
It just never ends - Cuda, PhySx, Ambient Occlusion, bababoom, the vReveal, the game presets INCLUDED in the driver, the ability to use your old 8 or 9 Nvidia card for PhysX or Cuda in a xfire board with another NVidia card for main gaming ...
I know, NONE OF IT MATTERS !
The red rooster fanbois hate all of that ! They prefer a few extra frames at way above playable framerates in certain resolutions depending on their fanboy perspective of the card release (formerly 2560 now just lower resolutions)- LOL that they cannot even notice unless they are gawking at the yellow fraps number while they get buzzed down in cold blood in the game.
Ahhh, the sweet taste of victory at every turn.