Homeworld 2 Performance


As intricate as the gameplay is for this game, the beautiful backgrounds help immerse you in the complex gameplay. If you like space sims, you'll be delighted at the overall look of this game. The backgrounds alone are very artistic and shadows and camera flares from suns are dramatic. The ships look clean and well textured, and explosions are very nice too. This is a pretty stylish space-real-time-strategy-game.




This game seems to be CPU limited in the test we chose (with the exception of the 9700 Pro), but these differences could be due to differences in rendering paths (ATI cards use PS2.0 for shadowing, while NVIDIA cards use shadow volumes) or the fact that the NVIDIA drivers are still beta. But, yes, all the problems we've seen in previous tests with this game were fixed with the latest patch (antialiasing works correctly now on both cards).
Halo Performance EVE: The Second Genesis Performance
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  • mkruer - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link

    Well I hope this card is on par with ATi's or visa versa. ATi is planning to see their best at $500 pop and Nvidia is selling their at $400. How long to you think ATi is going to see their card for that price if the performance is virtually identical. Finally in the terms of the Power. Makes me wonder why PCI-Ex doesn’t include enough voltage from the socket? VPU's are getting to the point that they are just as powerful and complex as their CPU brethren, and will require the same power requirements as the CPU. Some one didn’t do their homework I guess. Well hears hoping that it will be in the next specification.
  • quikah - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link

    Can you post some screen shots of Far Cry? The demo at the launch event was pretty striking so I am wondering if PS 3 were actually enabled since you didn't see any difference.
  • Novaoblivion - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link

    Wow nice looking card I just hope the new ATI doesnt kick its ass lol
  • Rudee - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link

    When you factor in the upgrade price of a power supply and a top of the line CPU, this is going to be one heck of an expensive gaming experience. People will be wise to wait for ATI's newest flagship before they make any purchase decisions.
  • Pete - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link

    Nice review, Derek. Some impressive performance, but now I'm expecting more from ATi in both performance (due to higher clockspeed) and IQ (I'm curious if ATi improved their AF while nV dropped to around ATi's current level). I also have a sneaking suspicion nV may clock the 6800U higher at launch, but maybe they're just giving themselves room for 6850U and beyond (to scale with faster memory). But a $300 12-pipe 128MB 6800 should prove interesting competition to a ~$300 256MB 9800XT.

    The editor in me can't refrain from offering two corrections: I'm pretty sure you meant to say Jen Hsun (not "Jensen") and well nigh (not "neigh").
  • Mithan - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link

    Looks like a fantastic card, however I will wait for the ATI numbers first :)


    PS:
    Thanks for including the 9700 Pro. I own that and it was nice to see the difference.
  • dawurz - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link

    Derek, could you post the monitor you used (halo at 2048 rez), and any comments on the look of things at that monstrous a resolution?

    Thanks.
  • rainypickles - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link

    does the size and the power requirement basically rule out using this beast of a card in a SFF machine?
  • Damarr - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link

    It was nice to see the 9700 Pro included in the benchmarks. Hopefully we'll see the same with the X800 Pro and XT so there can be a side-by-side comparison (should make picking a new card easier for 9700 Pro owners like myself :) ).
  • DerekWilson - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link

    We are planning on testing the actual power draw, but until then, NVIDIA is the one that said we needed to go with a 480W PS ... even making that suggestion limits their target demographic.

    Though, it could simply be a limitation of the engineering sample we were all given... We'll just have to wait an see.

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