Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends Performance
Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends is a real time strategy (RTS) game similar to Warcraft and Command and Conquer. Our test for Rise of Legends is similar to our tests for other RTS games as well. We are able to save replays of entire games and play them back. We use FRAPS to benchmark the game, though we benchmark the game while playing it back at 4x normal speed. This is simply to save time benchmarking, and the results still allow us to report on in game experience.
The benchmark is a 2v2 internet battle. The battle is just over 20 minutes long, and we start our FRAPS benchmark at 8 minutes in when the action starts and stop the benchmark just before the end of the game. Rise of Legends is sensitive to CPU speed, so gamers with less powerful platforms shouldn't rely only on this data to determine final performance with Rise of Legends.
Frame rates of about 20 fps are acceptable as we don't need the consistency and smoothness of a higher framerate to enable effective gameplay. Framerate drops and slow downs are not as noticeable in games like this where quick movements aren't what it's all about.
The only reason the 6600 GT remains playable at this resolution is because the game prohibits the selection of the highest quality options due to the lack of 256MB of RAM. The X800 GTO and X1600 XT fall just under playable range, but some people may be able to live with a little bit of jerkiness here and there with their RTS games.
*This card features only 128mb RAM, limiting it to medium quality settings
The 7900 GT scales better than the X1900 GT and so closes the gap towards the higher resolutions, but still can't make the pass. Even with equal performance, the X1900 GT would still lead in terms of value. Our 7600 GT remains playable at 1920x1440, but once again just a little higher budget will get a great benefit with the X1900 GT with about 33% higher performance and the ability to enable AA and remain playable if necessary.
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Gigahertz19 - Thursday, August 10, 2006 - link
I can't stand people who always have to correct every damn thing they read, who cares if the authors of these articles make little mistakes? As long as these articles are readable and understandable who gives a shit. I don't think anybody has the right to complain for something that is free for us to read...now if we were paying to read this material it would be a different story.I can understand correcting big mistakes like correcting the author when he uses the incorrect name for something or is wrong about a fact then that should be corrected but little grammatical errors and sentence structure should be left alone unless it's completely butchered. If you're so interested in these small mistakes go teach high school English.
And yes I know some ass on here will find an error in my above comments and correct it, go for it :).
yacoub - Thursday, August 10, 2006 - link
Actually, the authors generally appreciate it and fix it, at least in my experience. It makes for a more professional site to have solid grammar in articles. As for "who gives a s#!t", generally adults do.Netopia - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
And to support his position, take a look at the sentence now... they fixed it!Joe
JarredWalton - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
Yup.Derek was working on this late at night and so I went and made my typical corrections after the fact. There were plenty of other minor typos, and we do our best to correct them whether we spot them or someone else does. We certainly don't mind people pointing them out, as long as it's not the "OMFG you misspelled two words on the first page so I stopped reading - you guys are teh lamez0rz!?1!" type of comment. ;)
CKDragon - Thursday, August 10, 2006 - link
I have my 7900GT voltmodded & overclocked to 640/820. I know you didn't show voltmod overclocked benchmarks, but seeing that just a core bump up to 580 brings it close to or better than the X1900XT at stock is a nice reference mark to have.Frackal - Thursday, August 10, 2006 - link
I doubt that considering a 7900GTX with higher core/memory clocks than that usually gets beaten by an X1900XT at stock. (Not to mention to make that fair they'd have to OC the x1900xt too)This review was relevantly incomplete IMO because it did not show the huge difference between an x1900xt and 7900gt with AA/AF on
yacoub - Thursday, August 10, 2006 - link
Nor the huge difference in audible noise levels, for that matter. My 7900GT is practically silent except when in 3D games, and even then it's not a jet engine.yacoub - Thursday, August 10, 2006 - link
I recently upgraded from an X800XL to a 7900GT (eVGA N584 model - hsf is copper and covers the RAM chips). I run the 91.33 drivers.I am extremely pleased with this upgrade choice. The card is actually quieter than my Sapphire X800XL Ultra was (it had the Zalman hsf on it stock but the fan was ball-bearing and made a bit of noise).
My rig:
3200+ Venice
1GB DDR RAM dual-channel
A8N-SLI Premium
Games:
CS:Source
Homeworld 2
Haven't reinstalled other games yet but considering the great improvement I noticed in CS:S, I imagine FEAR, NFSMW, and the other games I own but don't currently have installed would also see a large jump in performance. Not only did I gain fps and eliminate the big dips I experienced in busy scenes with the X800XL, I'm also at max graphical settings (everything High) and anywhere from 2xAA and 4xAF up to 4xS AA and 8xAF, and this is at 1680x1050 (20" widescreen).
Very satisfied with the purchase. This cost me less than the X800XL did nine months ago and performs probably 40-60% better, if not more considering the improved graphical settings on top of the fps gain.
vailr - Thursday, August 10, 2006 - link
When are the DX 10.0 cards going to available?And, what new assortment of ATI or nVidia GPU's will be on the DX 10.0 cards?
Will there be cheap [<$150] DX 10.0 cards?
Warder45 - Thursday, August 10, 2006 - link
I don't see the 7600GT OC 600/750 listed in the charts on the page talking about the 7600GT OC. Lots of 7900GT models though.