Unreal Tournament 3 Beta Demo: Top to Bottom GPU Analysis
by Derek Wilson on October 18, 2007 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Bringing it all Together
With our look at the low end and mainstream markets wrapped up, it's time to take a look at how everything stacks up against everything else. Yes, it is difficult to really see what's going on here, but that's why we broke our GPU coverage down into three bite sized parts. We can pick a monitor size and look at how much graphics power we need to get the performance we want, or just see how much of an advantage one class of cards has over another. As we've already looked at 1024x768, 1280x1024, and 1920x1200 (in our previous article), here we will break out 1600x1200 and then look at scaling.
Looking at this graph, the AMD performance advantages are certainly clear. Bringing it all home is our scaling graph:
click to enlarge
There isn't much to be said here that hasn't already been covered. We do see more instances of cards scaling differently in this test than usual, and of course, there is the fact that AMD performance is quite good.
Final Words?
Well, these can't really be the final words on Unreal Tournament 3 performance, as running a flyby in the beta version of a demo for the game is more of a preview of what might come to pass. Epic still has time to refine their software, and AMD and (especially) NVIDIA will be working on prepping their drivers for the launch of the game as well.
While these tests did a good job of reproducing the numbers we saw when running around with FRAPS, a full multiplayer timedemo with character models, effects, and high resolution textures (which are not included in this beta demo) could really change what we see here. When we are able to get access to the demoplay feature of UT3, we will certainly revisit our tests with a much more brutal work load.
Hopefully this look at GPU performance under UT3 has been insightful, but our testing really leaves us with more questions than answers. Will AMD remain on top when the game launches? How will final game performance compare to this beta preview? Will the demo playback functionality change the playing field? Stay tuned, and we will answer these questions as soon as we can.
With our look at the low end and mainstream markets wrapped up, it's time to take a look at how everything stacks up against everything else. Yes, it is difficult to really see what's going on here, but that's why we broke our GPU coverage down into three bite sized parts. We can pick a monitor size and look at how much graphics power we need to get the performance we want, or just see how much of an advantage one class of cards has over another. As we've already looked at 1024x768, 1280x1024, and 1920x1200 (in our previous article), here we will break out 1600x1200 and then look at scaling.
Looking at this graph, the AMD performance advantages are certainly clear. Bringing it all home is our scaling graph:
click to enlarge
There isn't much to be said here that hasn't already been covered. We do see more instances of cards scaling differently in this test than usual, and of course, there is the fact that AMD performance is quite good.
Final Words?
Well, these can't really be the final words on Unreal Tournament 3 performance, as running a flyby in the beta version of a demo for the game is more of a preview of what might come to pass. Epic still has time to refine their software, and AMD and (especially) NVIDIA will be working on prepping their drivers for the launch of the game as well.
While these tests did a good job of reproducing the numbers we saw when running around with FRAPS, a full multiplayer timedemo with character models, effects, and high resolution textures (which are not included in this beta demo) could really change what we see here. When we are able to get access to the demoplay feature of UT3, we will certainly revisit our tests with a much more brutal work load.
Hopefully this look at GPU performance under UT3 has been insightful, but our testing really leaves us with more questions than answers. Will AMD remain on top when the game launches? How will final game performance compare to this beta preview? Will the demo playback functionality change the playing field? Stay tuned, and we will answer these questions as soon as we can.
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TSIMonster - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
Looks like UT3 is going to scale well with lower end hardware. Can't wait to see some tests with AA and AF.blckgrffn - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
GDDR3 or 4?Thanks,
Nat
Makaveli - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
"The thing that most suprises me is the 2600XT beating 1950pro"The 2600XT wins by 1 fps at 1280
Then X1950pro wins by 1 fps at 1600
I hardly call that a beating more like a tie. Generally the 1950pro is faster from most other games and benchmarks i've seen.
I want to see how the numbers shape up once the final game is out
ChronoReverse - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
Honestly that's the way it SHOULD be. A midrange card of this generation ought to at LEAST tie a high-mid card from the previous generation.xsilver - Friday, October 19, 2007 - link
Whats odd to note is how the older gen cards are finally starting to struggle compared to mid range new gen cards.What wasnt shown on the recent HL ep2 tests is that the 7900gtx is no longer holding down the 8600gts and 2600xt. In older games - it would be certain that the older gen card would beat the newer mid range card.
It will be interesting to see what the range mid spec'd cards coming out this christmas can do to the 8800gts and 2900pro
poohbear - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
great to see my x1900xt is still kicking as$ and chewing bubble gum. it`d be great to see a DX9 and DX10 comparison in the final release if possible. cheers.ratbert1 - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
The only price/performance advantage I see is the hd2600xt. With the maturation of ATI's drivers, especially for Crossfire, you can get two of these for less than 2 bills. Of course, then you need a Crossfire board, and then its 16x/4x unless you go Asus and you can get 8x/8x.
DerekWilson - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
you can get crossfire boards with 2x x16 slots.Regs - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
High Quality = 8x AF and no AA support?DerekWilson - Thursday, October 18, 2007 - link
high quality = the highest quality available in the beta demo... so you're kind of right. it's also high world geometry. And we used the -compatscale=5 command line option to make sure everything was run with the same options and highest graphical quality.