Level Analysis: volcano
This level starts out with some very nicely lighted floors in an indoor scene. Our screenshot reflects one of the different floors the demo runs across. The demo then moves outside to run across a lava-pitted volcano crater with some interesting heat and lava effects.
ATI volcano screenshot.
Click to enlarge.
NV SM2.0 volcano screenshot.
Click to enlarge.
NV SM3.0 volcano screenshot.
Click to enlarge.
Even though there is no difference between the two cards under the SM2.0 rendering path, its easy to see that the very center of the specular highlight is not as highly saturated under SM3.0. Again, this may or may not be by design, but hopefully we will be able to bring you that information soon. Either rendering seems equally likely to be more desired (either the reflection is supposed to be brighter than the SM3.0 path, or the the SM2.0 path's multipass lighting may over brighten the floor).
Here, we see huge performance gains with the new rendering path.
And even larger leaps with AA and AF enabled.
This is another NVIDIA supplied demo, and it shows the largest performance gains that we see in the SM3.0 render path. From the looks of our other benchmarks, these numbers are not typical, but they do happen as our own exploration of this level proved to reflect the numbers that we see in this demo.
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DerekWilson - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
Thanks Pete, we'll be setting AA and AF in the benchmark batch file from now on ... We've updated the site to reflect the fact that the first run of numbers had NV 4xAA set in the control panel (which means it was off in the game).We appologize for the problem, and these new numbers show an acurate picture of the NV vs. ATI playing field.
Again, we are very sorry for the mistake.
Bonesdad - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
Wait till you see the numbers for NV's 6800 Ultra Extreme with Cheese!!!Pete - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
Derek, was AA on for the nV cards? Apparently nV's latest drivers change behavior once again, to require AA to be set in-game, rather than via CP (which does nothing).Perhaps you could avoid this mess of ever-changing AA settings by using AA+AF for comparison screens? It'd also have the added benefit of showing the games in a more positive light. :)
joeyd - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
gordon151 - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
pio!pio! x-bit labs tested the difference between performance with the 1.2 and 1.1 patch on the NV3x (5900 Ultra) and well it wasn't pretty. NV3x actually saw a rather big performance drop using the new patch. I dunno if nVidia is gonna do anything about this since they seem to be turning a blind eye to the NV3x line with respect to future optimizations.DerekWilson - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
trilinear optimizations are onanisotripic filtering optimizations are off
AA has less noticable benefit as resolution increases, but nearly vertical and nearly horizontal lines are still obvious in games with high contrast scenes.
kmmatney - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
Do you really need AA on when running at 1600 x 1200, as in these these benchmarks? Just wondering if its much of a benefit at this high of a resolution. I never go past 1024 x 768, so I wouldn't know.pio!pio! - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
So how about just the performance jump from FarCry 1.1 to 1.2 w/o using these high end shaders? (Ie for the previous generation Geforce 5900 crowd and lower)AnnoyedGrunt - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
Does that mean trilinear optimizations on, or trilinear filtering on?Thanks,
D'oh!
DerekWilson - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
we used driver default:trilinear on
anisotropic off