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.
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Anemone - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
Am one of the increasing numbers of folks who does ues 1600x1200 on everything that supports it, just fyi. Now it's lcd, but before my 19" crt happily did that res too, and that's now many years old.Just for note only. :)
bearxor - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
Yea, when are we even going to be able to buy a Ultra or "Ultra Extreme".Heck, I never even heard of "Ultra Extreme" until this preview.
I guess when ATi releases new drivers, nVidia will have to launch the long-rumored and much-hyped Geforce 6800 Ultra-Extreme Hyper Edition.
Then, during the ATi refresh,we will all be greeted the the Geforce 6900, 6900 Ultra, 6900 Turbo and 6900 Ultra Hyper Fighting Edition.
They're getting as bad as Capcom these days...
Pete - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
Whoa, some huge gains for nV. I honestly didn't expect to see such clear differences this early--props to them.ATi's AA hit may be due to an under-performing programmable memory controller, per ATi ppl. We may see them improve memory-intense AA+AF numbers with newer drivers that better utilize the controller. Dunno if that can compensate for nV's huge SM3.0 gains, though.
I'm still a little baffled by the ever-faster "Ultra Extreme" models, though, considering we haven't seen one for even presale (AFAIK) in the many weeks since the 6800U's launch.
TheSnowman - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
well Jeff, that explains why ati's peformace tanks, but it does nothing to explain why nvidia's doesn't.Jeff7181 - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
Very nice article guys.Only thing I'd like to see that I didn't was lower res benchmarks, since I think it's safe to say that most people don't have monitors that support 1600x1200 at a decent refresh rate. Hell... mine can't do 1280x1024 at a decent rate.
Oh... and gordon151... I wonder if it could be because of the large amounts of objects to be anti-aliased. Grass, trees, etc. ... combine that with the HUGE draw distances and you've got quite a task on your hands. Just my theory anyway :)
gordon151 - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
I've been wondering lately why performance tanks so much with the x800 series when AA is enabled in Farcry. It almost cuts in half when applying 4xAA, which is something you don't see in other games.