Fall 2003 Video Card Roundup Part I - ATI's Radeon 9800 XT
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on October 1, 2003 3:02 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Homeworld 2
This game is a space based RTS with plenty of particle effects and eye candy. Framerates can jump wildly from hundreds down to the teens depending on how close you want to get to the action. We decided to run two benchmarks (both with FRAPS), one on an in game cut scene (benchmark 1), and the second on a brief skirmish (benchmark 2) that was easily repeatable (the AI responded consistently to my inaction after the cut scene, so we could easily watch the same destruction occur over and over). These two measurements seemed to reflect the different aspects of gameplay well.
NVIDIA takes this test hands down. The ships of homeworld have some really nice textures, and there are some beautiful particle effects that can be seen just flying around in space watching things blow up. This first test is mostly just watching one big ship fly up past the camera.
We see that the trends remain the same with AA/AF enabled. The 9800XT gained some ground on the NVIDIA cards, but not enough to make a real difference in this test. This is another test where it was not apparent that NVIDIA's AA was doing as much as needed for the scene, so we will take a closer look at this benchmark when we do our image quality comparison.
In this battle scene (with more ships, more textures, and lots of missiles and laser fire), NVIDIA's lead is even more pronounced, could also be due to the cards memory bandwidth as there are more textures that need to be moved in and out of video RAM.
Again, we are not sure about the quality of the AA and filtering in this benchmark, but we will be looking into the matter very promptly. For now though, NVIDIA wears the Homeworld 2 crown.
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Anonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
you're all idiotsAnonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
I think everyone knows that those FS2004 results wereAnonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
Bishot Mgdbottled here,I just wanna say Anad did a great Job!
Those FS2004 results are the truth, I get 100FPS no problem with my 9700P! while All the NV boys get is 20-30! Hah!
Thats why Anad will always be my top techie site!
ATI Rocks NVidia sucks! End of story! I here that Nvidia got dropped by Microsoft from any DX10 development participation!
Woohoo! Even MS knows what we all know, NV sucks!
Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
I would like to see a comparison with a game that uses the "meant to be played optimizations".That could be a real hoot.
Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
I still trust Anand more than HardOCP, I won't even give the H my hits anymore I detest them so much.This is definately one of the lowest quality and only review I can remember with such low integrety for Anandtech.
Sorry guys, please use don't insult our intellegence by posting articles like this.
Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
ATi is currently deciding who gets 9600XT samples while they wait for them to ship...Curley - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
Take a stand. No matter how many games you include or how long you make the reviews, the educated reader knows what you are doing.Intestinal fortitude is a hard thing to come by.
That is why HARD OCP is now my home page.
Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
Those Fs2004 results are great!What the H**l were you guys smoken?
Didn't you even think when you got those funny results?
No, I guess you did not.
Anad, I'm sorry but yer site has lost all credence.
So long.
Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
Stupid moron!Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
Mgdbottled here again,I see non of you NV dwarfs can speakup in behalf of your beloved nvidia! HA! Your card sucks so go home!
ATI 2xAA is better than anything FX cards can do! HA! AND THEY don't cheat!!!!
I swithched my trilien filter on by selecting performance mode and at 16anison this card just screams!
ATI F***ing rocks man!!!
OK, me an Bigshot are the same, I had to do that because someone was using my nick.