S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
We carry out an identical movement and measure the framerate with fraps. The test was done in high quality, complete dynamic lighting, maximum details (anisotropic filtering 16x) and foliage shadows. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. uses an engine based on differed rendering, which is fundamentally incompatible with MSAA and makes the use of anti-aliasing impossible – or at least this is what we thought! Despite everything, Nvidia ended up finding a solution. The 1.00006 patch was used
Here, the GeForce GTX 280 is surpassed by the GeForce 9800 GX2 and places close to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 as multi-GPUs are obviously rather efficient for AMD in this game. However, the GeForce GTX 280 does 40% better than the GeForce 9800 GTX and 70% better than the GeForce 8800 Ultra. Not bad!
Once anti-aliasing is activated, cards equipped with only 512 MB are left behind. Moreover, the Radeons are not in the fight as AMD didn't make the effort to integrate its support here.
Rainbow Six : Vegas
The first PC game based on the Unreal Engine 3.0, Rainbow Six : Vegas is still a very resource heavy game. We measure performances in the introductory scene. The HDR mode is activated as it is more or less obligatory as without it banding is very noticeable. Shadows are set to “low” because a higher quality in this domain lowers performance too much in certain areas.
Originally designed for the Xbox 360, this game seems to have a natural affinity for the Radeon HD which has a similar architecture to the game console’s graphic chip. It’s therefore the HD 3870 X2 which dominates even when compared to the new GeForces – at least without anti-aliasing. With this effect activated, the Radeons suffer from a big drop in performances.
You may recall that this game does not support anti-aliasing but Nvidia and AMD have implemented it to their drivers.
