Our testing methods
The dialog below shows the settings we used in testing, with the exception of the water detail problem noted above. For the benchmarks done with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering, we used this in-game settings tool to change AA and aniso modes.
Both the ATI and NVIDIA cards were left at their driver default settings for image quality, with the exception that we turned off vertical refresh sync on all cards.
Our test system was configured like so:
| Processor | Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4GHz |
| System bus | HT 16-bit/800MHz downstream HT 16-bit/800MHz upstream |
| Motherboard | Asus A8V |
| BIOS revision | 1006 |
| North bridge | K8T800 Pro |
| South bridge | VT8237 |
| Chipset drivers | 4-in-1 v.4.51 ATA 5.1.2600.220 |
| Memory size | 1GB (2 DIMMs) |
| Memory type | Kingston HyperX DDR SDRAM at 400MHz |
| CAS latency | 2 |
| Cycle time | 5 |
| RAS to CAS delay | 2 |
| RAS precharge | 2 |
| Hard drive | Seagate Barracuda V ATA/100 120GB |
| Audio | Integrated |
| Graphics | Radeon 9600 XT 128MB AGP Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB AGP Radeon 9800 XT 256MB AGP Radeon X800 Pro 256MB AGP Radeon X800 XT 256MB AGP GeForce FX 5700 Ultra 128MB AGP GeForce FX 5800 Ultra 128MB AGP GeForce FX 5900 128MB AGP GeForce FX 5950 Ultra 256MB AGP GeForce 6800 128MB AGP GeForce 6800 GT 256MB AGP GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB AGP GeForce 6800 Ultra "Overclocked" 256MB AGP |
| OS | Microsoft Windows XP Professional |
| OS updates | Service Pack 2 RC2, DirectX 9.0c |
We used NVIDIA's ForceWare 61.77 drivers for all of the GeForce cards, and we used ATI's CATALYST 4.8 drivers with all the Radeon cards.
The test systems' Windows desktop was set at 1152x864 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.
If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.
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