Devil May Cry: (DirectX 10)

Devil May Cry is a Hack and Slash Action game using the MT Framework Engine. The graphics are intense and work a mid-tier card fairly well. We have a nice benchmarking tool that gives us the lowdown on how these cards fair.

3850 8xAA 1920x1080

MSI N260GTX 8xAA 1920x1080

The MSI N260GTX does well to paint the action at 1680x1050, even with AA set to 8x. Move on to 1920x1200 (as the graphs above show) and the increased canvas takes its toll; while still playable, there are noticeable hiccups during the testing. The HD3850... well, anyone have any Alieve?

Left4Dead: (DirectX 10)

An action game that has become very popular on Steam, while it uses the source engine, it has been tweaked to a current generation expectations. We used Fraps to record FPS during the final scene of Dead Air, where the plane comes crashing down.

1680x1050

1920x1080

The MSI N260GTX is more then enough to paint L4D on 1680x1050, moving it up to 1920x1200 does little to the performance curve, even so, if you want the larger canvas, you are going to need to step back from Cx16Q for sustained gameplay. The HD3850 does a fair job at 1680x1050, but at 1920x1200 is almost unplayable.