Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a fairly good example of a more recent game yielding far less performance than Quake 3. I've seen several instances in which some folks believed that a game like this would simply tank under a Surround Gaming scenario, but in reality, this is another ideal game to play on the Parhelia. Let's see how things shake out.
SETTINGS
Return to Castle Wolfenstein was tested using the following settings:
Surround Gaming - 2400x600 resolution
Normal - 1024x768 resolution
Trilinear filtering forced via driver
16X FAA enabled where noted
In-game graphics settings at maximum quality
SCREENSHOTS
Let's take a look at a comparison between a single monitor screenshot and that of Surround Gaming.
Normal
Surround
Once again, another title that shines under Surround Gaming mode. This is one of those games that, if you had completed the single player game in the past, you wouldn't mind doing all over again in Surround Gaming mode.
PERFORMANCE
Let's see how the hardware handles the task. I used the "checkpoint.dm_57" benchmark that's been floating on the net for quite some time.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein Performance
Test Mode
Average Frame Rate
Normal
116
Surround Gaming
62
Surround Gaming with FAA
48
The results are somewhat curious. A drop of nearly 50% in Surround Gaming might indicate a lack of optimizations in the drivers, but the performance is still high enough to provide a satisfactory gaming experience.
The Surround + FAA scores are good as well. I'd like to see it higher as the drop from normal to Surround Gaming is steep. It would seem that one could get better performance than 48 FPS, but this is still in that playable neighborhood.
It's safe to say that this title does not bring Surround Gaming to its knees. As I said before, it's is a feature that breathes new life into an existing game and you might even consider replaying some of your favorite games over again. In fact, I've already started a new single player game :)
This concept is a testament to the feature itself. If the feature is so compelling that you're willing to replay a game all over again, then you're talking about a very good feature.
