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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Tiamat - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
#6 that was what I was gonna ask :/also, 9800pro would be cool...
reactor - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
frallen, 6800 ultras in sli perform about the same as a single 7800, so take that as your benchmark. so either way it would be the same performance, but if you get the 7800 then you have the option to go sli later and get even better performance.nice article, hope to see it updated when ati releases their cards.
100proof - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
No X800XL benchmarks? =/Frallan - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
Since I went SLI and 1*6800 GT in the begining I would like to see how a 6800gt SLI or a 6800 U SLI setup does. The 6800U does 42.5 in 16*12 which is just about playable so how will a SLI setup do? (the question for me will be to either sell my 6800gt doing Ultra+ speeds and get a 7800 or get another 6800 gt).RobFDB - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
Think it's time for me to up the resolution. I've been playing on 4xAA and high settings @ 1024 on my rig. My 3500+ and x850 XT PE should be able to handle higher. Does anyone know how to run this time demo to benchmark their own system?Cavedweller - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
No test of Radeon 9700/9800? 8(DigitalDivine - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
i'm playing bf2 fine on my 1.6ghz duron and 512 mb of ram, with a 9200 non pro at low settings 800x600.at low settings, that game is still very damn playable. kudos to them.
btw, for those wanting their 9200s to run with bf2, set your agp speed to 4x. for some odd reason that works. *game freezing after the bink videos.
now back to playing with my also antiquated 2.8 p4 with 9800pro *sigh, only at medium settings.
R3MF - Thursday, July 7, 2005 - link
i could play the demo ok on my rig at 1164x896 (or some such random number), which is the highest resolution it permitted.however i understand the retail game still won't ship with support for 1680x1050, so i won't be buying it.