Wolfenstein: ET is a fairly popular online FPS for a couple of reasons. 1-
It's a great game to play when players actually play as a team to achieve
objectives and overcome obstacles. 2 - It's free. The second fact pretty much
entails that any FPS enthusiast has given the game a try, at least for a few
games before deciding whether it can honour the space it occupies on your hard
drive or if ET gets the boot. The game makes use of a modified Q3A engine where
a number of the modifications lie in various graphical enhancements.
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory Settings
The above settings were used for all tests.
Wolfenstein: ET Results
Wolfenstein's frantic pace combined with some sweet OpenGl visuals begins to
take a toll on the 5950 Ultra at 1280x1024 with AA set at 2X and AF set at 4X.
The settings were selected to truly stress out the card.
Need for Speed: Underground
I've been waiting for this game for quite a while. While the demo and the
previous game have displayed that the Need for Speed series has unfortunately
shifted from the light-simulation feel of the great NFS: Porsche Unleashed to an
arcade atmosphere, that doesn't necessarily make it a truly horrible game. The
screenshot above displays the rather bright and detailed environments of the
game. EA has added a number of graphical goodies to make the game shine on beefy
machines.
NFS: Underground Settings
The detail setting was maxed out on the first display settings screen, with
the above settings selected in the customized display settings screen. Testing
was composed of running the car though 12-15 drag races with FRAPS being enabled
at the start and ending when the run completed (either after having passed the
finish line, or immediately after a crash). The maximum and minimum FPS of all
the runs were posted here, with the average of the averages of all the runs
displayed.
Need for Speed: Underground Demo Results
As every other EA motor sport game that I've tested, the performance isn't
anything to write home about... even in very powerful systems. The lackluster PC
performance seems to be a by-product of multiplatform support. In any case, once
again we see that the in-game performance isn't limited by the video card as
increasing the image quality enhancing features and increasing the resolution
barely affects the performance. 1280x1024 @ 2X FSAA is the sweet spot for the
eVGA e-GeForce 5950 Ultra. Gaming at anything lower is just wasting the 5950's
horsepower.
