X-bit labs

The Fastest Graphics Cards of Summer 2005: Ultimate Testing of 17 GPUs in 30 Games (page 29)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin , Yaroslav Lyssenko

[ 09/09/2005 | 12:37 AM ]

Pacific Fighters

This flight simulator comes from 1C: Maddox Games, the creators of the famous IL-2 Sturmovik series. Pacific Fighters uses the same engine as Aces in the Sky and the visual quality is similar in both games, but Pacific Fighters carries the action over from the USSR territory to the Pacific. You can play either the U.S. Air Force or the military aviation of Japan.

Like IL-2 Sturmovik, Pacific Fighters uses OpenGL by default, so NVIDIA based solutions are overall superior to the RADEON X850/X800, having a better driver for that API. You can just note the GeForce 6600 outperforming the RADEON X700 PRO and almost overtaking the RADEON X800 XL! Judging by the results of the GeForce 6600 GT SLI and GeForce 6800 SLI platforms, the multi-GPU technology from NVIDIA works correctly in this game, but our test record depends rather heavily on the CPU performance, making impossible to evaluate the SLI effect for more advanced configurations. Note also that all solutions from NVIDIA, with the sole exception of the GeForce 6600, allow playing this game comfortably in 1600x1200 at the “pure speed” settings.

With enabled full-screen antialiasing and anisotropic filtering we can better see the value of the SLI effect with some configurations. It is about 15% for the GeForce 7800 GTX SLI in 1600x1200 – these two graphics cards reach the performance ceiling. The GeForce 6800 Ultra SLI is 30% faster than a single card, which is far from the theoretical maximum but makes that resolution playable nonetheless. As for ATI based cards, they are still rather far behind the GeForce 6 and 7 solutions, so RADEON X850/X800-based devices won’t suit you if Pacific Fighters is among your favorite games.