Level Analysis: research
This level is completely in doors in a dark room with a large machine in the center. There is plenty of lighting all around, and this should give us a good idea of the impact of the new lighting model implimentation.
ATI research screenshot.
Click to enlarge.
NV SM2.0 research screenshot.
Click to enlarge.
NV SM3.0 research screenshot.
Click to enlarge.
By some miracle the two SM2.0 rendering path screenshots are just about perfectly lined up, but the SM3.0 shot was a little early. There isn't a discernable IQ difference in looking at these images that we can tell, but please have a look at the full versions.
In this benchmark, we see performance go from fairly evenly spread out over the range of cards tested to three of the four NVIDIA cards leading in performance under the SM3.0 rendering path. The 12-pipe NVIDIA card almost catches up to the 12-pipe ATI card.
Unlike our previous benchmark, the top of the line NVIDIA card even leads in AA/AF when SM3.0 is enabled. This is a fairly impressive performance gain, with the 6800UE leaping over two ATI cards, and the 6800U becoming competitive with the X800 XT.
Remember, this is an NVIDIA provided demo and highlights the performance benefits of the new rendering path. At the same time, if we had benchmarked this level, we would have done the same thing by following the path on which the game takes the player. This kind of benefit does exist in the game, but so do times when (as we have shown) no real improvement can be seen.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
36 Comments
View All Comments
misnad - Monday, December 20, 2004 - link
Hey guys, when playing an adrenaline pumping game like far cry or doom 3, how on earth does one take the time to notice the minute details??? True enough you need decent quality, but what's required the most is a decent framerate!!! Or else, we'll end up with a slideshow of hi-res pictures! My 2 cents.misnad - Monday, December 20, 2004 - link
KJ1a - Thursday, July 8, 2004 - link
I noticed a difference in the comparison pictures.I lloks like Nvidia is rendering less and in lot of the areas the quality is lower and bumpmapping is a little less pronounced as well.
I have owned ATI and Nvidia cards and I can honestly say my games allways look better on the ATI cards.
Look at the detials in the pictures.
Thats my 2 cents.
bangbilo - Saturday, July 3, 2004 - link
I once was a really happy ATI customer, until i bought my 9600 ( this was before the XT ) and i liked the card at the time it was kicking the crap out of any game out there. Then one day i decided to have some fun with a thing called Linux. I started out with the Suse 9.0 distro and i quickly noticed i did not have 3D support. After a week of my life slaved over forums and people saying that this works and ATI's drivers not i decided my next card was going to be a NVidia. Ati has always had crappy support issues with there drivers in my opinion and if they would just get that fixed i would be buying me a X800 XT not a 6800 Ultra (Ordered that baby today) I love ati they have allowed me to be a somewhat descent gamer for 4 years not its time to try out the other guy. If i'm not satisfied with them and ati figures out a few things that the customers have been wanting for years. Then i might be buying me an XI800 XT ULTRA PLATNUM EDITION with CHROME HUBCAPS.... yes i said it HUBCAPS... :) thats my 2 cents-Bangbilo
"pain is weakness leaving the body"
Bangbilo@dynxweb.com
www.dynxweb.com/sort
Staples - Saturday, July 3, 2004 - link
In some of those first few screens, you may want to fix the gamma in an image editor. They are dark in the game but not that dark, at least they shouldn't be unless you are playing at default settings.DerekWilson - Saturday, July 3, 2004 - link
I could use those burgers ...Thanks again, Pete :-)
Pete - Saturday, July 3, 2004 - link
Craziness! Nice to see that you're on top of things, Derek. Now that you've averted an aliased crisis, head out to the grill and set some burgers to medium. :)Dasterdly - Saturday, July 3, 2004 - link
Then you gotta get the Ultra Hyper (Kung Fu) Fighting Edition.Or dont forget the Ultra Extreme XT Platinum Edition or the GT2 Pro Turbo Extra-Special Edition.
.
bearxor - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
Wow, that little change with the AA really changed the look of those benchmarks.The ATi X800 XT PE Alpha 3 Pro Turbo doesn't look so bad now.
nordlaw - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
9800 Pro's referred to as 'Older' video cards - Moore's Law is being smashed open, lately by GPUs.CPUs, not so, of course.
I need a slightly better CPU so I can keep up with GPUs. ;)