Fall 2003 Video Card Roundup Part I - ATI's Radeon 9800 XT
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on October 1, 2003 3:02 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Homeworld 2
This game is a space based RTS with plenty of particle effects and eye candy. Framerates can jump wildly from hundreds down to the teens depending on how close you want to get to the action. We decided to run two benchmarks (both with FRAPS), one on an in game cut scene (benchmark 1), and the second on a brief skirmish (benchmark 2) that was easily repeatable (the AI responded consistently to my inaction after the cut scene, so we could easily watch the same destruction occur over and over). These two measurements seemed to reflect the different aspects of gameplay well.
NVIDIA takes this test hands down. The ships of homeworld have some really nice textures, and there are some beautiful particle effects that can be seen just flying around in space watching things blow up. This first test is mostly just watching one big ship fly up past the camera.
We see that the trends remain the same with AA/AF enabled. The 9800XT gained some ground on the NVIDIA cards, but not enough to make a real difference in this test. This is another test where it was not apparent that NVIDIA's AA was doing as much as needed for the scene, so we will take a closer look at this benchmark when we do our image quality comparison.
In this battle scene (with more ships, more textures, and lots of missiles and laser fire), NVIDIA's lead is even more pronounced, could also be due to the cards memory bandwidth as there are more textures that need to be moved in and out of video RAM.
Again, we are not sure about the quality of the AA and filtering in this benchmark, but we will be looking into the matter very promptly. For now though, NVIDIA wears the Homeworld 2 crown.
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Pete - Friday, October 3, 2003 - link
Why should they test at a higher res when the fastest cards have trouble breaking 60fps on most of these benchmarks?!Anonymous User - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link
Who the hell is playing games at 1024 x 768 these days?!!! Go higher and see how all ATI cards kick butt!!!!!!Anonymous User - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link
Anand is testing a card that is not out, with drivers that are not released (52.xx) , on a CPU that is not available ????At least he could benchmark DX9, wich is available.
Tomb Raider AOD.
Maybe not, because Nvidia sucks at DX9,
Maybe Nvidia had a clause( you get to test our new card and new (cheat) drivers, but you can not use any DX9 titles ???
We all know Nvidia sucks at DX9, but it should be included in the tests.
We all know Nvidia is good at UT and Quake, but you still had those games to the Bench suit ???
I have been reading Anand for years, this is the first time I have been really deceived.!
It is amazing what MONEY will make you do or say..
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link
everyone can now rest peacefully not that bigshot has spoken! all hail the mighty bigshot and his useless rambling!!!we should all bow down to his infinite wisdom and wonderful use of childish phrases
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link
#197, you mean the 9500 Pro, and it's not a third of the price, it's currently two thirds and was never less than a half.Anonymous User - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link
I would've liked to see a Radeon 9500 and/or an OCSystems 9500 Radeon in the mix with these benchmarks. Even though the 9500 is discontinued it still performs on par with a 9700 card. Overclock it or flash new Bios onto it and it might perform right up with these cards; for a third of the price to.Anonymous User - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link
I'd like to see my testicles running 2xAA. I have no doubt in my mind that ATi is even beter than Nvidia's best! I've noticed the lag on my genitals when playing multiplayer games, such as BF1952 & TF2. I personally cannot wait for Dx9.How about that HL2 source code leak? I have a good feelin about it. :-)
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link
Sorry Bigshot here... I posted twice. I posted number #192 and number #193.I just wanted to say ATI Kicks NVida Butts!!!
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link
Idiot!Anonymous User - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link
Bigsot here again as I remembered what i forgot to say...The 2xAA of the ATI is even beter than nvidias best!
ATI cards are the bestest!
Nvidia card owners must be crying!
Not me! Cause I got me an ATI!!!