ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 and NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5650: Taking on DX9
by Andrew Ku on September 14, 2003 11:04 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness
Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness is one of the first playable titles to use DX9’s pixel shader 2.0. The title has a built-in benchmark, but it auto detects hardware settings and selects the optimal quality settings for the best game play. In this case, the GeForce FX Go5650 was auto-detected, and the game selected lower quality settings than it did on the Mobility Radeon 9600. We ran the benchmark in four different settings to give an idea of the different code paths, and the respective ability of each graphics processors to run through each scenario. As the character [Lara Croft] ran through the pipes and waded through water, the image quality of each scenario reflected the settings we set.
As we bump up to higher and higher code paths, we see the differential between the two mobile graphic processors increase, as well. The Mobility Radeon 9600 takes a 51%, 88%, 96%, and a 181% lead, respectfully. When we hit the DX9 code path, the scores on both ends get to be extremely low and actual game play becomes unreasonable. While Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness is DX9, it is still nothing like the use of DX9 in Half-Life 2. Read on to see those benchmarks.
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Andrew Ku - Monday, September 15, 2003 - link
We are currently revising our graphics benchmark suite in the anticipation of future DX9 stuff. These two GPUs are full DX9 parts, and we are benchmarking them accordingly. UT2003 and our current line of benchmarking titles are DX8, and therefore aren't specifically appropriate for this context. Why are our choices of benchmark titles odd? The Mobility and Go mobile graphics parts are no more than mobile version of desktop processors (clocked down, better power management features and in the M10 case integrated memory package).dvinnen - Monday, September 15, 2003 - link
Where's UT2003 and other stables? Odd choice of benchmarks. I would of liked to see how it stood up to desktop varients also.Andrew Ku - Monday, September 15, 2003 - link
AgaBooga,Question 1: Actually, we were considering memory bandwidth as a possible issue. I will try and report back as soon as we sort this out.
Question 2: We tested at 1600x1200 for benchmark purposes, as it shows degrade. Additionally, the newer desknotes and mobile multimedia notebooks are capable of this resolution and higher.
Anonymous User - Monday, September 15, 2003 - link
Great review, funny too. (And it wasn't just the horrible failure of the Go5650 to perform that I found amusing!)AgaBooga - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
Wow, nice set of benchmarkings applications! That is really something you've put together! My compliments to you!Do you think it is bound by something other than the GPU at 1024x768 on Splinter Cell 2_2_1 Set 1? Also, why was it tested at 1600x1200 because laptop users usually don't use resolutions that high on a relatively small screen than what is used on a desktop.
Andrew Ku - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
I am somewhat considered a new writer. My first article was the CEO Forum - Q3/2003.AgaBooga - Sunday, September 14, 2003 - link
New article writer? Not bad, it seems pretty good!