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
Aquamark3 IQ
Aquamark3 is a synthetic benchmark based on a game called Aquanox, and it uses the DX9 API. In Part 1 we included it for completeness, but our main focus this time around is image quality. There have been lots of IQ problems found around the net that have helped earn NVIDIAs 51.xx drivers the title "cheatenators". With the 52.14 drivers we have been using, we didn't notice any image quality issues on a visual inspection, which was a very good sign, Lets take a closer look at frame 4000 to point out problems:
NVIDIA 45.23
Note the ground around the explosion
NVIDIA 52.14
Note the difference between the new and old drivers
ATI Catalyst 3.7
Identical to NVIDIA
As we can see, the lighting problem that was once there no longer exists, and the image is consistent with what it should be. On top of this, the 52.14 drivers give us about a more than 50% performance improvement over the 45.23 drivers. We have to remember that this is a benchmark, and any company that wants to sell anything is going to try to fix benchmark problems first. Of course, that's just anther reason I really don't like synthetic benchmarks: I'd rather have NVIDIA and ATI hard at work on the games I'm playing rather than on something I'll never care about using.
Here we can also see a comparison of the images with the highest quality AA setting in the game and 8xAF:
NVIDIA 45.23
NVIDIA 52.14
ATI Catalyst 3.7
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Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
Wasn't Anand allowed to use ShaderMark v2.0 for det. the pixel shader performace?Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
lol read this article take me a 1/2 hour. this article is great but it can be improvedAnonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
why anand didnt review bf1942 :(Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
why is anand bashing Tomb raiderand whats up with PS 2.0 graph
why not just post the fps, makes it seem
like nvidia is beating Ati. Also why are beta drivers being tested with nvidia. Should have used
cat 3.8 for Radeon.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
im still waiting that a site post a review for an 9600 XTPete - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
Overall, a good read. Thanks, Derek and Anand.Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
im not biased towards either card. i myself own a 9800pro. what concerns me is the immaturity shown by other ATI card owners. you guys act like nvidia can never measure up to ATI (which is so untrue). there was none/little difference in the IQ and benchmark results (with few exceptions, but explanations were given for the most part). also keep in mind that the 9800xt specs are higher than the 5900/5950 and it still managed to get beat in some of the tests. anyway, good job nvidia. you guys are certainly headed in the right direction. i was a bit sad to see my card excluded though :( ... they said they'll benchmark the value cards soon...i hope to see mine there ;)ps: i could be wrong about the specs, but i do remember anand saying the XT had higher memory bandwidth (which could've accounted for some performance differences).
all in all, a good review, ill be waiting for more updates.
Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
18, he says he saw it saw it, he doesnt know why it was there, there is no reason to exclude regular fps graphs, especially since people want to know the fps of this game, since it is the ONLY truly dx9 game in the entire suiteAnonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
Hey Anand did nvidias check arrive yetAnonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link
Haha, yet again, we see fanATIcs (#10, #14) coming out of the woodworks to claim that Anandtech's review is either biased or NVIDIA is still cheating. lmao, losers!And by the way #14, you're plain dumb if you couldn't figure out that the TR:AOD graphs were showing a percentage difference. Christ, read the review.