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HotHardware's Test Setup |
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Mainstream Monster |
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How We
Configured Our Test System:
To help fully
explain the scores we have listed in the following
benchmarks, it is necessary to first detail how our test
system was set up. We chose Chaintech's Zenith 7NJS
NForce2 motherboard as the platform for our tests.
We started off by manually optimizing the BIOS settings to
the most aggressive system options available to us.
This meant that the memory frequency was manually set to
DDR400 with the CAS and RAS timings set to 2-5-2-2.
Once the BIOS
options were set, the hard drive was formatted as an NTFS
partition, and Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 1
was installed. After the Windows installation
completed, we installed the latest nForce2 chipset drivers
(version 2.45) and upgraded to DirectX 9.0b. For the
AOpen FX 5600 graphics card, we installed the Detonator
52.13 drivers. For the two ATi cards we used the ATi
Catalyst 3.8 drivers. We then disabled
Auto-Updating, Hibernation, and System Restore and set up
a 768MB permanent page file. We set the visual
effects to "best performance" to limit any effects these
settings would have on the benchmarks.
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Performance Comparisons
With AquaMark3 |
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DX8
and DX9 Benchmarks |
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Aquamark 3 comes to us by the way of
Massive Development,
and is the first of our tests to be based on a real game
engine. Massive's release of the game Aquanox in
1999 was panned by critics, yet was one of the first to
implement DX8 shaders, which led to the creation of
Aquamark 2, another benchmark used by many reviewers.
Since the Aquamark benchmarks are based on a real gaming
environment, they must support old and new cards alike.
Thus, Aquamark 3 utilizes not only DirectX 9 shaders,
but DirectX 8 and 7 as well. We ran AQ3 at
1024x768x32 with no anti-aliasing, then again with 4 and
6 samples, and one last time with 4 samples but with 8x
Anisotropic Filtering enabled in the drivers as well.
As if that wasn't enough, we decided to stress the video
cards further by running the same tests, but this time
at 1600x1200. |
Finally we have some
numbers for you to look at. ATi comes away the leader
in the AquaMark 3 tests. One thing to notice is how
much the AOpen FX 5600 rebounds at the 4X AA + AF setting.
This can be attributed to the latest release of the
Detonator drivers. Obviously, NVIDIA has ironed out
some wrinkles we had seen in the past when using AA and AF
at the same time. We're not so sure the extra memory
played as much of a role here as some may think. Also
worth noting is how demanding an application AquaMark 3
really is. These frame rates are certainly not at a
playable level but this benchmark is clearly targeted at
stressing the graphics subsystem, so this is not
surprising..
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Benchmarks
With
Halo |
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Halo
- Finally on the PC, Where it Belongs |
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For many gamers out
there, the release of Halo marks the end of a long wait,
since it was originally released as an Xbox exclusive a
few years back. No additional patches or tweaks
are needed to use Halo as a benchmark, as Gearbox has
happily included all of the information needed in their
README files. The benchmark runs through four of
the cut-scenes from the game, after which the average
frame rate is displayed to the user. We ran the
Halo timedemo twice, once at 1024x768 and again at
1280x1024, which are resolutions that we feel most
players will be using for gaming. |
Again we see the dominance
of the ATi 9600 cards in the Halo benchmark. While
most of us thought the 256MB of RAM sported by the AOpen
Aeolus card would aid in the benchmarks, it doesn't quite
seem up to the task. The whole issue of 256MB versus
128MB on graphics cards is a debate in and of itself that we
will not get into right now. However, we have yet to
really see the benefits of the added memory AOpen has
configured with this card. Up next we have some
numbers from UT2003 and Splinter Cell.
Unreal Tournament 2003 & Splinter Cell Testing
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