Gaming Tests
The heart and soul of figuring out game play. These are the true
tests of and video card setup.
Doom 3 (OpenGL) - This test was run with the version 1.1
patch.
I ran the time demos first to see where I could play the game
at in terms of performance vs. visual quality. These were used
to get a ball park area of where the cards perform. Check out
the in game graphs to see the bottom line.
| NX6600GT Single |
No AA/16xAF
|
2xAA/16xAF
|
4x AA/16xAF
|
| 1024x768 |
77.9
|
60.5
|
63.1
|
| 1280x1024 |
56.3
|
40.8
|
N/A
|
| 1600x1200 |
41.4
|
27.1
|
N/A
|
| NX6600GT SLI |
No AA/16xAF
|
2xAA/16xAF
|
4x AA/16xAF
|
| 1024x768 |
95.7
|
87.8
|
67.2
|
| 1280x1024 |
84.4
|
69.0
|
43.8
|
| 1600x1200 |
68.4
|
48.7
|
28.7
|
Doom 3 Timedemo, no AA, 16x Aniso. - These speeds
are scorching. In both single and dual configurations all of these
resolutions are easily playable.
Doom 3 Timedemo, 2x AA, 16x Aniso. - It scales pretty well right
here as well. The 1600x1200 score on the single setup is starting
to dip into unplayable however.
Doom 3 Timedemo, 4x AA, 16x Aniso. - Even in SLI form the 6600GT's
really start to choke out when running 4xfsaa.
After running through with the Timedemo, I played the game myself
and used FRAPS to monitor the action. Using the information I
gathered earlier it opened up some secrets to how the card(s)
will perform while actually playing. I decided to choose the best
looking settings possible at each individual level to show what
the cards were comfortable playing at. I played the same level
for each run-through and attempted to play it as close to the
same as possible each time. Something to note is that I did not
use a custom .cfg file. All play settings are at the maximum values
as they are in the options, and no additional tweaking was performed.
| NX6600GT Single |
Min
|
Max
|
Ave.
|
| 1024x768 (4xAA/16xAF) |
24
|
63
|
47.3
|
| 1280x1024 (2xAA/16xAF) |
22
|
63
|
48.4
|
| 1600x1200 (NoAA/16xAF) |
21
|
62
|
47.4
|
With a single card Doom 3 performed well at the
settings show in the graph. It was very rare for the card to dip
below the 30fps mark and all times it did that was momentary during
a scripted event. It's impressive to see that even at 1600x1200
a single 6600GT can perform well. Also it is noted that this game
doesn't improve very much graphically from having AA on as in
other titles but improves much more from running a higher resolution.
| NX6600GT SLI |
Min
|
Max
|
Ave.
|
| 1024x768 (4xAA/16xAF) |
34
|
63
|
58.2
|
| 1280x1024 (2xAA/16xAF) |
37
|
64
|
58.3
|
| 1600x1200 (NoAA/16xAF) |
32
|
62
|
55.3
|
You'll notice with SLI while running at the same
resolutions and AA settings (for 1024 and the 1280 tests respectively,
the 1600x1200 test was run at 2xAA) the framerate never even gets
to 30fps, and runs near the 60fps frame cap for most of the duration
of the test, even the budget 6600GT when put into pairs can be
an impressive powerhouse. Look at the minimum and average FPS
in the table and the improvement is very obvious.
FarCry (DirectX 9.0) - This was run with
the version 1.1 patch.
| NX6600GT Single |
No AA/16xAF
|
2xAA/16xAF
|
| 1024x768 |
51.18
|
44.8
|
| 1280x1024 |
36.56
|
31.27
|
| 1600x1200 |
26.75
|
22.89
|
| NX6600GT SLI |
No AA/16xAF
|
2xAA/16xAF
|
| 1024x768 |
59.86
|
58.06
|
| 1280x1024 |
52.47
|
43.74
|
| 1600x1200 |
39.53
|
31.95
|
FarCry Timedemo, No AA, 16x Aniso. - In FarCry this
setup peters out really quick especially when moving to higher
resolutions. It just goes to show that still NVIDIA doesn't have
a good handle on Direct X based games compared to ATI.
FarCry Timedemo, 2x AA, 16x Aniso. - Something interesting to
note is that the performance hit from running fsaa isn't as bad
as it could be in other games. However the performance of the
single card at these settings is virtually unplayable.
Then I moved on to actual play. I played the level "Fort"
and recorded game play for 120 seconds trying to make sure each
run-though was as close to one another as possible. For this I
used God mode with no other special settings.
| NX6600GT Single |
Min
|
Max
|
Ave.
|
| 1024x768 (NoAA/16xAF) |
7
|
55
|
34.4
|
You'll notice that I only got through playing FarCry
at 1024x768 with no fsaa on. This is because I found anything
above this resolution or setting unplayable. I experienced a lot
of mouse lag and even with God mode on could waste many magazines
of ammo trying to kill single enemies. 1024x768 ran well enough
though. You'll notice that the Minimum FPS shown here is "7".
I would ignore that as that was only at the very beginning of
the test while the level was fading in. Something to note however
is the average which is above 30, and for the most part the graph
which shows that through most of the test it was above 25. For
some these play settings might also be considered "unplayable"
settings but all things considered the mouse moved smoothly and
aiming and firing even while moving was still easy to do accurately,
even with the sniper rifle.
| NX6600GT SLI |
Min
|
Max
|
Ave.
|
| 1024x768 (NoAA/16xAF) |
6
|
72
|
37.8
|
| 1280x1024 (NoAA/16xAF) |
0
|
57
|
25.9
|
Once again don't pay attention to the minimum fps
because that was taken from the beginning of the test while the
game was fading in. You'll notice that the FPS on the 1024x768
is still low even though improved and the 1280x1024 test is absolutely
terrible. I struggled through that test at almost an unplayable
framerate. I think it's sad to think that even in a SLI configuration
that this pair of cards performs so poorly on this test. I've
noticed that around the web that many people compare 2 6600 GT's
as being at around the same speed as a single 6800GT in this case,
that might hold true.
NEXT
