NVIDIA's GeForce 6200 & 6600 non-GT: Affordable Gaming

The Sims 2 Performance

A new addition to our test suite, made especially for this article, is the latest installation of the Sims series. Sims 2 isn't the type of game that requires a $600 GeForce 6800 Ultra, but it is the type of game that does require some minimum level of graphics performance and is sometimes found installed on computers on which you would otherwise not find a single game. So, what are the minimum graphics requirements for a playable Sims experience? To find out, we benchmarked the camera flyby that occurs when you select the Pleasantview neighborhood. We used FRAPS to measure the average frame rate throughout the sequence.

At 800x600, there's once again one clear winner here, the Radeon X700 by a huge margin (42%) over even the GeForce 6600. The GeForce 6600 is the distant 2^nd place performer, and there's a huge clump of cards that perform similarly to the Radeon X600, with the 64-bit X300SE coming in last. Interestingly enough, even the slowest X300SE manages to play the game reasonably well at 800x600 with the highest detail settings possible.


For more, let's look at the resolution scaling graph:

Notes from the Lab

ATI X300: The X300 offers performance very similar to that of the X600 Pro and the GeForce 6200. The game is not totally smooth, but is definitely playable at 800x600. There is a significant amount of aliasing at 800x600, but without a faster card, there's little you can do about it.

ATI X300SE: There is a noticeable performance difference between the X300 and X300SE, yet even the X300SE can play the game reasonably well at 800x600. If you turn down the detail settings, the performance improves dramatically.

ATI X600 Pro: Although the X600 Pro performs similarly to the GeForce 6200 and 6600, the frame rate is much more stable than either of those two. There's far less stuttering when scrolling around the game world.

ATI X700: The X700 continues to be much, much faster than the rest of the contenders here.

NVIDIA GeForce 6200/6600: Both the 6200 and 6600 exhibit stuttering issues under Sims 2, although the game is definitely playable using either.

Intel Integrated Graphics: Here's where performance truly matters for Intel graphics - in a game like The Sims 2. This is the type of game that will be played by people who don't come within 100 yards of Doom 3 and who, honestly, shouldn't need to spend even $100 on a video card to play a game like this. How does the 915G fair? It actually plays the Sims pretty well. There is some loss in image quality it seems (just detail), but it's actually not bad at all. If you're building a computer for someone who only plays the Sims, Intel's integrated graphics is actually all you need. 800x600 looks pretty bad, but luckily, the game is playable at 10x7. You may have to turn down the detail settings as there is a bit of stuttering at the highest settings.