I'll admit that I'm not a big simulation guy but I do appreciate the
extremely realistic graphics that this genre offers. The demo allows you race 10
laps around the
Texas Motor Speedway. TIP: at opening movie in (with AA on)... hold ESC down until you see BRAININAJAR
page to skip potential stuttering
playback of initial intro movie that I experienced. Again, this is the demo so
you'll likely not see this in the retail version.
Skill Level
Normal
Detail
High
Gameplay Impressions
First off, this demo clearly stated that it was 70%
complete. It was the best 70% of most anything I'd ever seen though as I had no
problems with it at all. No matter what I threw at this game it never dropped
below 30 fps (with one exception that I'll cover later). The attention to detail
was impressive and I could see myself getting into more racing sims after having taken this one for a whirl. Overall, AF
seemed to have little to no affect on performance while having a positive effect
on texture quality.
Benchmarks
At 1600x1200 with 8X AA / 8X AF
an obvious plateau was reached (CPU bottleneck is my assumption) in that the
average, minimum, maximum frame rates where all basically at 30fps. The odd
exception was at 1280x960 with 8X AA / 8X AF the minimum dropped to 19fps.
However, notice that the frame rates are markedly better at
1280x960 than they were at 1024x768, so 1280x960 is some kind of sweet spot!
Again though, this is a 70% demo build so take these results with that in mind.
The test results below are from me running two laps around the Texas Motor
Speedway track with other race cars on the track with me.
Also worth noting is the dramatic drop-off in frame rate
when going from 4X AA to 8X AA. The combined percentage hit between the three
resolutions is 52%. Since I'm not a big racing sim enthusiast, I may be speaking
out of turn here. However, my opinion is that frame rate applies a bit
differently here since your perspective is basically fixed straight ahead the
majority of the time. In other words you're not strafing, jumping, or twisting
like you would be in a game like UT2003. Nevertheless, the game looked
extremely fluid at 40 fps or higher so the only real undesirable results were at
1600x1200 8X AA / 8X AF.
Bottom Line - Indy Racing: I was blown away by the performance and IQ of this game. The Asylum 5900 Ultra tore right through it.
FREEDOM FORCE
Freedom Force was highly praised by those that know games, yet it did poorly in actual sales. I picked it up the other day at Sam's Club
for $9.00. I was impressed with the game from a stylized point of view as well as overall fun factor. The comic book feel is very present in this game
down to the smallest detail.
Detail Level
High
Character Detail
High
Character Shadows
On
Ambient Objects
On
Decals
On
Low Res Textures
Off
Gameplay Impressions
I played about five minutes in the Danger Room. I roughed up some thugs in the park, picked up a few cars, and threw them at more
thugs, and wreaked havoc in general. Anyway, you're probably wondering why I
decided to test this game. The answer is to add some variety. Since it really looks and feels quite a bit different than most games, Freedom Force seemed like a
nice addition to the overall game selection.
Benchmarks
As with Warcraft III, I only benchmarked this game at
1600x1200 because the lower resolutions simply don't stress the card.
Bottom Line - Freedom Force: This game
doesn't begin to stress the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra, but looks great and plays very smoothly with everything turned on.
