Game Testing Methods

For our game testing, we basically played the games that we used to test the card. During our play testing, we tried to find the best playable resolutions and settings for each game tested since this is essentially what you, the consumer, will be doing. It doesn't really matter if a graphics card can get 7 average frames per second at 1600x1200 resolution and max detail settings, because you can't play a game at 7 an average of 7 frames per second. After we found the maximum playable settings, we used Fraps to do a run through select levels in each game, recording the frame rates at each second to show if there are any major drops in performance.

Doom 3

Doom 3 was one of those games that everyone was waiting for, and now we've got it. I don't consider the game to be anything that special as the initial shock and awe just wears off into repetitive gameplay after a short amount of time. However, it cannot be denied that the graphical requirements of Doom 3 are quite heavy, making it a good game for use benchmarking video cards. We used the Enpro map for testing, and played just as we would normally. The plasma gun, rocket launcher, and BFG were used extensively as those are the most graphically intensive weapons.

We found that High detail, 1280x1024, and 4xAA/AF settings were the best overall settings. 1600x1200 was not playable even without AA and AF enabled as the overall frame rates just weren't high enough. Below is a graph of the performance results:

	Min	Ave	Max
No AA/AF	49	59	61
4xAA/4xAF	20	37.81	60

The graph above shows our results with AA/AF both enabled at 4x and disabled. Doom 3 is a pretty dark game anyway, so AA and AF aren't really required since it is hard to see jaggies with the dark atmosphere of the game. There were a couple instances where frames dropped down considerably when AA and AF were enabled, but that was when I shot off the BFG from a little ways away so I saw the plasma ball for a while. I couldn't feel the game slow down during those times, so it didn't seem to effect gameplay for me. However, if you take AA and AF off, the performance of the game increases quite a bit with frame rates not hardly dropping off at all and always staying playable, and the impact of the visual quality of the scene is minimal.

Medal of Honor Pacific Assault

This is a newer game that takes advantage of a lot of DirectX 9 features. I was fairly sure that it was supposed to support shader model 3, but I was only able to enable version 2 in the options. I did a run through the Gifu level. This level has lots of trees and foliage, as well as water, so it should be a pretty good test of the video card. The highest settings that I found playable were 1024x768 resolution, 2xAA and 2xAF with all details set to their highest. Below is a graph showing the performance:

	Min	Ave	Max
2xAA/2xAF	26	34	43

The game remained quite playable for me through the entire test, though as you can see in the above chart, the frame rates were jumping around quite a bit. They only went below 30 a couple of times, and remained above 30 for the majority of the run. Below is a screenshot that I decided to include to show what the game looks like at the settings used:

Half-Life 2

Along with Doom 3, Half-Life 2 was probably one of the longest standing games on most people's most anticipated list. While graphically less demanding and complex than Doom 3, the gameplay and overall immersion into the game seems to be much greater than in Doom 3. The highest settings that I found playable in Half-Life 2 were 1280x1024 with all details set to high and 2xAA/2xAF enabled. Reflection was set to reflect all. The graph below shows a run through the canals12 level. In levels where you're not looking at water all the time, I was getting these same frame rates with 4xAA and 4xAF enabled. If I tried to keep AA and AF set to 4 when there was a lot of water, my average frame rates dropped down to around 25 and though it was still playable, it was just barely so.

	Min	Ave	Max
2xAA/2xAF	27	44.87	77

Just as in the Medal of Honor test, the frame rates only dipped below 30 a couple of times, and remained high for most of the rest of the time.

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