Budget Performance Tests
For these tests, we ran only 800x600 and 1024x768. These are the only two resolutions that make any sense to run with Battlefield 2. 640x480 is all but unplayable as the text is mangled and layout gets broken. At 800x600, both cards do well, but the NVIDIA 6200 TurboCache maintains a performance lead here both with and without AA (though, the ATI card does close the gap when AA/AF are cranked up).
When we move up to 1024x768, the TurboCache card shows a little more capability than the HyperMemory part. Of course, both low end cards have very choppy performance at parts here. Tests with AA on at this resolution would have been a waste of time, and we strongly recommend playing the game at 800x600 without AA and Low Texture Filtering settings. In fact, turning down some of the options may help, but the player is at a disadvantage with less than maximal settings on view distance and shadows. Also, at this low resolution, we can see that an upgrade would offer playable frame rates at more than twice the performance. On high end parts, we are very CPU limited, and the SLI configuration is hampered because of added driver overhead.
Serious gamers will not want to play with these cards, but the casual gaming experience can be quite enjoyable. For a budget system, the ability to play current generation games without sacrificing shader effects will become more and more important as time goes on. As games rely more heavily on shading rather than simple textures and geometry to paint the experience, budget users will be glad that both ATI and NVIDIA offer options like these.
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crazyeddie - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
I would like to add that I don't understand omitting X800XL from comparisons. It's ATI's most popular mid-range video solution.yacoub - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
Add me to the list of people looking forward to a more complete article with CPU scaling and a 9800 Pro and an 800XL included in the tests.formulav8 - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
I just bought a Regular 6800 Vanilla AGP and thought/hoping that should/would be included.I am happy that mine unlocks the pipes and shader just fine! (Well, so far anyways)
I ran 3DMark03 and got 8086 with stock pipes and got 8778 with 16x6x pipes. Not to bad with a fairly slow cpu. Thats a 8% increase with no oc or anything, and with a fairly slow cpu that is bottlenecking most likely.
I will try ocing it next week when I get a cpu/mobo that will push it alittle more.
I am running a Athlon XP with 128KB L1 and 128KB L2 Cache at 2ghz. And yes, that IS the right L2 Cache numbers on this cpu :)
Are there any instructions that I can find to run my own benchmark numbers for BattleField2?? Anyone know???
Jason
pcfountain - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
And while I'm on the subject of price/performance, how about a graph of street price vs. FPS for each card, so we can see the "value" of each card visually? The more I think about what information this article *should have* presented, I come to realize that it is just fluff. The basic conclusion is that higher-priced cards get better FPS. No duh?pcfountain - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
I agree with many others, leaving the X800XL out of this roundup (and in fact EVERY X800-series card) is a HUGE oversight. The X800XL a very popular card and probably the best price/performance ratio for the high-end right now. IMO the article is useless without this comparison.dornick - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
Only the X700 and the X850XT tested in the high-end!? What about the half-dozen other cards in between?Killrose - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
Can we get off this FX-55 addiction and use a lower RANGE of CPU's to see how the game scales with a lower class CPU?A 6200 or X300 GPU being crappy is really a no-brainer. And pairing it with a world class FX-55 CPU is senceless.
L3p3rM355i4h - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
9600 and 8500 are 4 pipes.My winnie @ 2.5 1GB of RAM and 9800@ 480/375 runs 10x7 everything on high very well. No lag what so ever. Granted, I have a sign. advantage over a x700pro and a 6600gt.
Questar - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
My bad, I thought the 9800 was a four pipe card.drizek - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
i have a 6600gt, gig of ram @360, amd 3200+ and i can play it at 1600x1200 with 2xAA and medium everything else(around 40fps).from all the guides ive seen, there is a very small difference in graphics by moving to High settings from medium, but you see a big performance hit. You should tested the low/midrange cards using medium, because i doubt many people are going to crank it up to high and then play at 1024x768.
here are some screenshots comparing low/medium/high settings
http://www.tweakguides.com/BF2_5.html