This is another game that really needs no introduction so let's just cut to the
chase.
Render Elements Section
All Checked as High
Map Style
Great Lakes
Map Size
Big Huge
Game Speed
Normal
Gameplay Impressions
I basically just played through the initial tutorial for
about five minutes or so until some battles broke out. The game always looked
great and ran great. However, there were some obvious purple-line artifacts in
the menu screens and in the bottom 1/4 menu area during the game whenever AA was
turned on. I personally didn't like AA on anyway as it tended to blur everything
too much. With a game of this nature though you really don't have aliasing
issues nearly as much as you do on a FPS since this is really a 2D game and
polygons aren't used in the same way/if at all. So, my personal preference was
to play without any AA. Having AF on didn't seem to have any effect that I could
tell.
Benchmarks
As you can see there's no real difference until you get
to 8XAA/8XAF. At this setting I noticed an occasional choppiness when moving
quickly around the map.
Rise of Nations Bottom Line: AA tends to take away
from the crispness of this game and AF offers no change at all that I could
tell. Max out all in-game settings and enjoy the ride.
WARCRAFT 3
We're on a roll with this page...if you haven't heard about Warcraft III
then, well, wow...really?
Model Detail
High
Animation Quality
High
Texture Quality
High
Particles
High
Lights
High
Unit Shadows
On
Occlusion
On
Spell Detail
High
Gameplay Impressions
I was a huge fan of the first two Warcrafts and
Starcraft yet I never really got into Warcraft III all that much. Not to say
that this isn't an incredible game, just doesn't "do it" for me for some reason.
Benchmarks
The only resolution tested at was 1600x1200. This
was done simply because it's the highest resolution (available via the game's
video settings screen) that even begins to stress this card. I used a replay from
www.warcraftreplays.com (wr030717 team wr vs team kpow) that was played on
the "Swamp of Sorrows" map. Four races were involved: two Human, one Orc and one
Night Elf and the match lasted close to 30 minutes. I played it back at 8x speed
thinking that doing so would put a bit more stress on the card since this game
isn't known for putting much of a strain on most systems today. I recorded
benchmarks from running this replay two times.
I show these results to illustrate that even during a 30
minute, four race multiplayer game the average frame rates are still fairly
playable at 1600x1200 at 8XAA and 8XAF. Personally I found playing at this AA/AF
setting to be pretty useless as I couldn't tell any noticeable difference
between these settings and with both AA/AF off entirely anyway.
Warcraft III Bottom Line: This game runs really well any way you slice
it.
I concentrated on running the provided Dungeon Siege
benchmark. What little actual gameplay I did partake in was very impressive. No
slowdowns or any problems were present.
Benchmarks
Bottom Line - Dungeon Siege: Smooth, smooth,
smooth. It ran noticeably better than it did on my Ti4800SE and I was very
impressed with that previous card's performance.
