Splinter Cell: Double Agent: A Performance Analysis
by Josh Venning on December 8, 2006 2:10 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
NVIDIA AA Performance
Antialiasing was something that we wanted to look at with Double Agent, and we found there were some quirks with AA in the game. The game was released without any in-game AA options, but the 1.01 patch added the setting to the game menu. With NVIDIA hardware, Double Agent is unable to run AA with HDR effects enabled, which is something we saw in previous Splinter Cell games. ATI hardware, on the other hand, has no trouble running the game with both AA and HDR effects enabled, but unlike NVIDIA ATI cards had trouble running AA with HDR disabled. For this reason, we split up our AA tests into separate sections for NVIDIA and ATI. We aren't able to do an apples to apples comparison of how the game performs with AA between ATI and NVIDIA hardware, but we can see what kind of performance impact we will see with AA enabled for both types of cards.
We tested AA performance on the first benchmark, with Sam Fisher sliding down the zip-line at night. We saw that disabling HDR didn't make a very large performance impact on the game, and with NVIDIA hardware the game took a considerable performance hit with AA enabled. The fact that the game currently supports resolutions only up to 1600x1200 makes AA something that could be more useful, at least for those with larger displays and the GPU to handle it.
With AA enabled and HDR off, the cards see much lower frame rates, with only cards like the 7900 GTX and 7950 GT really being able to run well at 1600x1200. Also, keep in mind that since we used the less demanding benchmark of the two (the other being on the cruise ship) for AA testing, performance in other areas of the game will be even worse with this option enabled. When we compare these results to our non-AA results for the same benchmark, we see that with AA off there is upwards of a 60% performance increase for most of the cards at the same resolutions. AA might still be helpful for cleaning up the jaggies on cards like the 7900 GS or 7600 GT which will still run the game more or less smoothly at 1280x1024 with AA enabled, especially if you don't have a display that supports higher resolutions.
ATI AA Performance
As we mentioned, ATI was able to run with AA and HDR enabled, but had some trouble running AA with HDR off. We saw some graphical problems which made the game unplayable at 1600x1200 resolution on all of the cards. These problems caused improper rendering of the scene making it impossible to see unless heat vision is enabled. Some of the other cards had the same problem at other resolutions as well. Therefore we tested ATI cards with HDR and AA enabled in order to see the kind of impact AA has on performance.
As with NVIDIA, turning on AA with these ATI cards does cause a large decrease in performance. The impact on performance here is greater than we saw with NVIDIA, but keep in mind that both HDR and AA are enabled for these tests. Lower performance cards like the X1300 XT just don't have the capacity to handle AA well and we see a large impact in performance here. The X1950 XTX on the other hand handles AA better, and though it still takes a performance hit it has more than enough power to keep the game running smoothly at 1600x1200 with AA enabled.
The fact that HDR seems to cause problems for ATI hardware when disabled while AA is enabled is unfortunate, but the performance difference between HDR on and off on ATI isn't that great. It would be much better to disable high quality soft shadows and/or high detail shader if you are looking to pick up some extra performance while running AA, for ATI as well as NVIDIA hardware.
Antialiasing was something that we wanted to look at with Double Agent, and we found there were some quirks with AA in the game. The game was released without any in-game AA options, but the 1.01 patch added the setting to the game menu. With NVIDIA hardware, Double Agent is unable to run AA with HDR effects enabled, which is something we saw in previous Splinter Cell games. ATI hardware, on the other hand, has no trouble running the game with both AA and HDR effects enabled, but unlike NVIDIA ATI cards had trouble running AA with HDR disabled. For this reason, we split up our AA tests into separate sections for NVIDIA and ATI. We aren't able to do an apples to apples comparison of how the game performs with AA between ATI and NVIDIA hardware, but we can see what kind of performance impact we will see with AA enabled for both types of cards.
We tested AA performance on the first benchmark, with Sam Fisher sliding down the zip-line at night. We saw that disabling HDR didn't make a very large performance impact on the game, and with NVIDIA hardware the game took a considerable performance hit with AA enabled. The fact that the game currently supports resolutions only up to 1600x1200 makes AA something that could be more useful, at least for those with larger displays and the GPU to handle it.
| NVIDIA 4xAA Without HDR | |||||
| 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 | |
| NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS | 14.1 | 9.9 | |||
| NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT | 23.3 | 17.4 | 12 | ||
| NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS | 30.9 | 23.5 | 16.6 | 11.1 | |
| NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT | 46.6 | 35.4 | 25.2 | 17.1 | |
| NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS | 58.5 | 48 | 35.3 | 23.5 | 12.4 |
| NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT | 59.8 | 57.4 | 44.3 | 31.6 | 23.4 |
| NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX | 60.2 | 59.1 | 49.4 | 35.5 | 26.4 |
With AA enabled and HDR off, the cards see much lower frame rates, with only cards like the 7900 GTX and 7950 GT really being able to run well at 1600x1200. Also, keep in mind that since we used the less demanding benchmark of the two (the other being on the cruise ship) for AA testing, performance in other areas of the game will be even worse with this option enabled. When we compare these results to our non-AA results for the same benchmark, we see that with AA off there is upwards of a 60% performance increase for most of the cards at the same resolutions. AA might still be helpful for cleaning up the jaggies on cards like the 7900 GS or 7600 GT which will still run the game more or less smoothly at 1280x1024 with AA enabled, especially if you don't have a display that supports higher resolutions.
ATI AA Performance
As we mentioned, ATI was able to run with AA and HDR enabled, but had some trouble running AA with HDR off. We saw some graphical problems which made the game unplayable at 1600x1200 resolution on all of the cards. These problems caused improper rendering of the scene making it impossible to see unless heat vision is enabled. Some of the other cards had the same problem at other resolutions as well. Therefore we tested ATI cards with HDR and AA enabled in order to see the kind of impact AA has on performance.
| ATI 4xAA With HDR | |||||
| 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 | |
| ATI Radeon X1300 XT | 32.5 | 24 | 16.3 | 11.2 | 7.2 |
| ATI Radeon X1650 Pro | 36.1 | 25.7 | 18.6 | 12.7 | 8.4 |
| ATI Radeon X1650 XT | 51.9 | 49.4 | 43.3 | 17.2 | 12.4 |
| ATI Radeon X1900 XT 256 | 52.5 | 50.3 | 46.3 | 34.5 | 24.4 |
| ATI Radeon X1950 Pro | 53.7 | 49 | 40 | 28.3 | 21.2 |
| ATI Radeon X1950 XTX | 53.7 | 53.4 | 52.7 | 40.9 | 31.3 |
As with NVIDIA, turning on AA with these ATI cards does cause a large decrease in performance. The impact on performance here is greater than we saw with NVIDIA, but keep in mind that both HDR and AA are enabled for these tests. Lower performance cards like the X1300 XT just don't have the capacity to handle AA well and we see a large impact in performance here. The X1950 XTX on the other hand handles AA better, and though it still takes a performance hit it has more than enough power to keep the game running smoothly at 1600x1200 with AA enabled.
The fact that HDR seems to cause problems for ATI hardware when disabled while AA is enabled is unfortunate, but the performance difference between HDR on and off on ATI isn't that great. It would be much better to disable high quality soft shadows and/or high detail shader if you are looking to pick up some extra performance while running AA, for ATI as well as NVIDIA hardware.
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sdedward - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
Have you ever gotten a recall letter in the mail? Thats basically what it says.
shabby - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
But every car doesnt have a recall. Today it seems like every game gets patched before it even hits stores.Josh Venning - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
It is very frustrating when a game is released that seems as unfinished as this. The problem is that unlike with other types of products, it's not very easy to pin down who/what exactly is responsible for the problems. Regardless of this, the consumer is the one who ends up suffering, and that's just unacceptable. Thanks for your comments.Jodiuh - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
Printing now! Thanks for continuing to provide that button. Quite a few sites have removed it and they wind up not getting their arty's read. My notebook gets hot, so I prefer to read these on paper in a comfy chair, couch, bed, etc. :DSomewhat OT, should I be playing the SC series in order? I played through about 25% of the first one and maybe 10 minutes of Chaos Theory. Are they good enough to play through? Should I just play Double Agent?
Le Québécois - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
Yes I think playing all the SC series in order would be a good thing since every one of them was(still is) a very good game(if you like the stealth/assassin kind of game of course).The older ones should be pretty cheap to buy IF you manage to find them.
Years after years I am pretty amaze that Ubisoft can come with a pretty good game franchise with so little time between the release of each games.
Jodiuh - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
Buddy's gonna let me borrow the first one. I'll hit it up after HL2.Josh Venning - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
I personally only played Chaos Theory and Double Agent, but I found them both to be very enjoyable. I think the storyline of Chaos Theory might have been a little better than Double Agent, especially towards the end, but Double Agent had some more interesting gameplay scenarios. I highly recommend playing them both through though, if you can.Jodiuh - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
Just got through the article...I guess I'll start w/ a SC game that'll run on my card then, lol. This has to be the worst evidence yet of console porting. Normally, it's the interface that sucks. But DA screams port in a hardware way!! And it makes me hate the consoles even more...