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OpenGL First Person Shooters -

Previously, the ATi cards were not the strongest performers in either Call of Duty nor in Jedi Knight- Jedi Academy. ATi spoke of their optimization strategy- when a game performs well enough, it does not matter whether it is 115 or 150 frames per second and that is not the case they want to optimize for. Optimization is important for games that are running marginally well and is most beneficial in the cases where the game is on the cusp of being unplayable.

Call of Duty

At 1024 without AA / AF we see that the X800 Pro and XT are at nearly the same score meaning that the benchmark is CPU bound at that point. When increasing the resolution, the drop off is linear for the 9800XT and the 9600XT but for the X800 series the framerates drop a lot slower. Amazingly enough, the X800 XT is roughly the same speed at 1600x1200 as the 9800XT is at in 1024x768.

The power of the X800 series is illustrated succicently when AA and AF is turned on. Again We see framerates in the 60 FPS range with the X800 XT at 1600x1200 while the 9800XT just manages to hit that mark itself at 1024.

Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy

As with Call of Duty we see the X800 XT pull out numbers at 1600 roughly equivalent to the 9800XT at 1024. Notice the very small hit (~15%) with AA/AF on on the X800 XT. The X800 Pro has a drop off that is more similiar to that of the 9800XT. The 9600XT is just simply an academic exercise with AA/AF on- it is unplayable at that resolution with AA/AF