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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Anemone - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
Am one of the increasing numbers of folks who does ues 1600x1200 on everything that supports it, just fyi. Now it's lcd, but before my 19" crt happily did that res too, and that's now many years old.Just for note only. :)
bearxor - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
Yea, when are we even going to be able to buy a Ultra or "Ultra Extreme".Heck, I never even heard of "Ultra Extreme" until this preview.
I guess when ATi releases new drivers, nVidia will have to launch the long-rumored and much-hyped Geforce 6800 Ultra-Extreme Hyper Edition.
Then, during the ATi refresh,we will all be greeted the the Geforce 6900, 6900 Ultra, 6900 Turbo and 6900 Ultra Hyper Fighting Edition.
They're getting as bad as Capcom these days...
Pete - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
Whoa, some huge gains for nV. I honestly didn't expect to see such clear differences this early--props to them.ATi's AA hit may be due to an under-performing programmable memory controller, per ATi ppl. We may see them improve memory-intense AA+AF numbers with newer drivers that better utilize the controller. Dunno if that can compensate for nV's huge SM3.0 gains, though.
I'm still a little baffled by the ever-faster "Ultra Extreme" models, though, considering we haven't seen one for even presale (AFAIK) in the many weeks since the 6800U's launch.
TheSnowman - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
well Jeff, that explains why ati's peformace tanks, but it does nothing to explain why nvidia's doesn't.Jeff7181 - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
Very nice article guys.Only thing I'd like to see that I didn't was lower res benchmarks, since I think it's safe to say that most people don't have monitors that support 1600x1200 at a decent refresh rate. Hell... mine can't do 1280x1024 at a decent rate.
Oh... and gordon151... I wonder if it could be because of the large amounts of objects to be anti-aliased. Grass, trees, etc. ... combine that with the HUGE draw distances and you've got quite a task on your hands. Just my theory anyway :)
gordon151 - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
I've been wondering lately why performance tanks so much with the x800 series when AA is enabled in Farcry. It almost cuts in half when applying 4xAA, which is something you don't see in other games.