HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED Pixel Shader 2.0 is supported by 6600 series cards and the 2.0 code path was
forced for this benchmark. Resolutions used remain the same as those used in Far
Cry with anisotropic filtering settings of No AF, 4xAF, 8xAF, and the addition
of 16xAF as activated with 'Coolbits2' in the NVIDIA GeForce 6600 control panel.
I have not played this game in sometime so right off the use of Pixel Shader
2.0 made the grass look better, noticeably enhanced water effects, and provided
reflective metal with a shinier look. Again, the Gigabyte 6600 provided
enjoyable game play using a 1024x768 resolution and proved playable with all
applications of AF. I did not notice any significant visual improvement at 16x
over 8x. In fact, my preference were settings of 4xAF at 1024x768 with either
default or overclocked timing frequencies. Overclocking provided an additional
9-10 FPS with AF applied at 1024x768. Although I played the game only for a
brief period at 1280x1024, with the card overclocked, it performed flawlessly
with 4xAF applied. My suggested minimum average frame rate for this game would
be around 40 FPS.
DOOM III The most advanced current OpenGL game at the time of this review, DoomIII
pushes the capabilities of current video cards to the limits. Frame rates are
locked at 60 FPS in the game so higher results are insignificant to the game.
Settings used were: High Quality Special Effects On, Enable Shadows On, Enable
Specular On, Enable Bump Map On, Vertical Sync Off. Resolutions of 800x600,
1024x768, 1280x1024, and 1600x1200 were tested along with AA/AF as identified in
the results table.
DOOM III Results
Intel 3.4E - Demo1
Overclocked results highlighted below
While no result exceeded an average of 60 FPS, this game feature was unlocked
in benching this game as maximum FPS does at times exceed 60 FPS and by not
unlocking would skew the results to some degree. It is evident that applications
of antialiasing heavily stresses the card and so results from anything above
2xAA were omitted. Still, actual game performance was very favorable with any of
the settings that reflect around 25-30 FPS average minimum. At less FPS the game
becomes more like a slide presentation. With all of that said the Gigabyte 6600
proved to be an excellent card fully capable of playing this game with all its
features.
