nV News - Gainward PowerPack! Ultra/2100 Geforce 6800 Golden Sample 128MB Review

Savage: The Battle for Newerth (OpenGL circa 2003)

Features: Complex Skeletal Animation and Deformation Effects, Advanced terrain/Foliage Rendering, Cloud Shadow Casting, Per Tile Texturing, Lens Flares and Particle Effects

Tests Ran: Walkthrough of SavageGrounds Map

In-Game Settings: All details maxed, including foliage which was turned up past the "high" preset. Sound was set to low quality, and vsync was turned off

Savage: The Battle for Newerth (OpenGL circa 2003)

Comments: This highly optimized and thoroughly patched game has not garnered much attention since its release despite the fact that it combines elements of RTS and FPS games, and features an original rendering engine which created some great-looking graphics. There's not many servers up anymore (this is an online-only game), but if one can connect, the experience is enjoyable. Cranking the foliage detail up past the high setting and adding AA and AF really make this game look great. To boot, the pace of this game is more reminiscent of Unreal2 and Halo, making the 40.1 fps at 1600 x 1200 with 4xAA/16xAF completely acceptable.

Preferred Settings: 1600 x 1200, 4x AA / 16x AF

GunMetal (Cg circa 2003)

Features: Cg Support, using Proprietary Motion Blur, Water Refraction, Occlusion Query for Flare Effects, and 128 bit Floating Point buffer Support

Tests Ran: 1st Mission gameplay, 2 minutes

In-Game Settings: All graphic quality options maxed, vsync off

GunMetal (Cg circa 2003)

Comments: With nVidia's shift of focus off of Cg after following up the Geforce FX series with the 6X00 series, I had thought that performance would decrease due to removal of optimizations in the drivers. This was not the case, however, as the Gainward 6800 powered through this game with no problems. 1600 x 1200 with 4xAA/16xAF produced playable results, but the pace of the game requires a few more fps to feel completely fluid.

Preferred Settings: 1600 x 1200, 2x AA / 16x AF - OR - 1280 x 1024, 4x AA / 16x AF

Battlefield: Vietnam (DirectX circa 2003)

Features: Normal and Bump Mapping, Terrain Under/Overgrowth, Per-Pixel Lighting

Tests Ran: Quang Tri 1968 botmatch (8 players)

In-Game Settings: All graphical options maxed, Bot AI and difficulty turned all the way down, sound set to lowest quality, vsync off

Battlefield: Vietnam (DirectX circa 2003)

Comments: The successor to EA's hit BF1942, this game can still bog down even higher end systems, with 2xAA/16xAF and 4xAA/16x AF bringing fps down a little too low to be completely competitive in gameplay. The normal mapping and shadows do their part to cause performance problems for any modern video card. With an nv3X I was forced to turn shadows and dynamic lighting off to get acceptable performance. With the 6800 however, I was happy at 1600x1200, 0xAA/16xAF, very happy.

Preferred Settings: 1600 x 1200, 0x AA / 16x AF

Comments on gameplay:
Plain and simple, this is a GREAT card for gaming at 1280x1024, because you'll have the option to throw on a decent amount of AA and AF, and if that's not enough, chances are, the card will still be fairly comfy at 1600x1200. Image quality in all the games was terrific, AA looks better than the nv3x cards, AF looks like AF should, and the performance just oozed "powerful-ness". The nv40 series performs great in OpenGL, as nv cards always have, but now it seems that the direct3d performance has improved drastically, something not seen in the last generation. Temperatures also stayed where they needed to be only rising up to 56 degrees once in a while during heavy Doom 3 usage. Mind you, the card is @ 52 duing normal 2d usage.