And now it’s high time for the most complicated game: Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo. All quality settings on the Details tab were set to Normal.

In the flyby mode (flight over the game map before the game is started) the systems have acceptable speed of at least 47fps (with the integrated graphics and the slowest memory involved). The scores entirely depend on the graphics cards power, and the gap between these graphics solutions is about 30-35% in all resolutions tested.

The flyby looks good but it’s not playable. In the botmatch the situation changes sharply. In this mode the physics and bots’ artificial intelligence are also calculated, that is why the graphics subsystem is of no primary importance anymore. It makes the difference between the integrated and external graphics negligible at 640x480 and at 800x600 (especially in the first case, of course). Only at 1024x768 the integrated nForce2 is noticeably slower. However, the game sometimes works slower than needed even with the add-on graphics card, though it is not that noticeable and doesn’t actually affect the playing. We can say the same things about playing at 800x600 with the integrated graphics involved. But this is my own opinion. Moreover, I am not an experienced player in Unreal Tournament 2003. We checked that on the Anubis map with the Bombing Run game type. We didn’t notice these effects on the Antalus map.

Conclusion

So, what can we say about nForce2 graphics core performance? It turned out that an undemanding user who is not crazy about games won’t notice a great difference between an external add-on graphics card based on the GeForce4 MX440 and the integrated graphics of nForce2 used with the PC2700 memory in all today’s games except Unreal Tournament 2003. In the RTCW it doesn’t matter whether the speed is 85 or 110fps. In the Serious Sam the minimal fps makes 37.4 at the average value of 47. In the Unreal Tournament the difference implies that with an add-on graphics card you can play at 1024x768, and with the integrated graphics - only at 800x600. And that’s it. It’s quite another question how comfortable you feel playing in resolutions lower than 1024x768. But this is solely up to you.

Speaking of this particular incarnation of the nForce2 IGP platform, Albatron KM18G Pro board, I think that it is a pretty successful product. The absence of overclocking friendly options can be regarded as a weak point, but it’s not dramatic for a product of this type. Some of you may be unhappy about no second monitor support, though the nForce2 IGP allows it. But it is again up to you to decided what is more important: a second monitor or a COM port that is why this peculiarity may be regarded as an advantage or a disadvantage. And if you desperately need a FireWire port, take another board modification aka Albatron KM18G Pro II, featuring FireWire support.

In conclusion, I would like to say that this board is priced at about US$100 (according to PriceWatch). It’s not that bad considering that the minimal price of GeForce4 MX440 cards, which you can do without, is about US$50. But remember that if you want to squeeze the best performance from your nForce2 IGP in games, you should get good PC2700 memory and make sure that you have enough memory for the system and the frame buffer of the integrated graphics core.