NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950 Ultra Preview - Page 6 Of 8
By Mike Chambers - October 28, 2003
FIRST PERSON SHOOTER GAMEPLAY
The remaining games that were tested consisted of first person shooters, role playing, simulations, and strategy. Due to time constraints, along with underestimating the time it would take to complete the gameplay tests, I was unable to provide a detailed walkthrough of each test. However, updates to this preview will be made as required.
The first person shooter genre of games is the primary reason we invest in a high-end graphics card and as such should be covered in reviews accordingly. One of my goals in this review was to test a broad range of first person shooters including those that aren't a byproduct of the Quake 3 graphics engine. A second goal was to conduct single and multi-player tests. In single player games I followed a predetermined route, which I followed as closely as possible during each test. On the other hand, multiplayer testing was unpredictable as my reactions were based on random events that took place during gameplay.
And finally, reviewers should be testing performance at resolutions greater than 1600x1200 if they have the hardware. These high-end graphics cards can handle it.
Vietcong Screenshot
As with Call of Duty, the remaining benchmark results in this preview are based on an average of at least three tests with each test consisting of a minimum of three minutes of gameplay. In order to test a broad range of titles, most tests were limited to a resolution of 1600x1200 with AA and AF disabled and with 4X AA and 8X AF. Games that I felt were either totally or borderline unplayable in the level tested were tested again at lower resolutions.
Here are my results with AA and AF disabled.
First Person Shooter Gameplay Results - No AA - No AF
The GeForce FX 5950 Ultra dominated in these tests as it outperformed the Radeon 9800 Pro by 63% in Quake 3 at a resolution of 2048x1536 and by 24% in Battlefield 1942 at a resolution of 1920x1440. The Radeon 9800 Pro provided slightly better performance in Vietcong and mantained a higher minimum frame rate in Unreal 2.
And the results with 4X AA and 8X AF applied.
First Person Shooter Gameplay Results - 4X AA - 8X AF
I've included a few in-game screenshots that can be used to compare image quality. The player position used in the screenshots from Unreal 2 and Serious Sam: The Second Encounter were based on loading a saved game. You'll be hard pressed to find any significant differences between the GeForce FX 5950 and Radeon 9800 Pro. Both render high quality images. However, the images from Vietcong were taken from different vantage points and gives us an excellent example of the differences in lighting.
There's usually one game that stands out when I conduct this type of review and for this review it was Vietcong. I highly recommend the demo if you're into team based first person shooters.
