HALO

HALO is a real masterpiece, at least in graphics. This is truly a representative of the new generation of computer games. After being ported from Microsoft’s Xbox to the PC, the game didn’t lose any of its charm, but gained a lot. Its engine was redesigned to use the DirectX 9.0 API, particularly, version 2.0 pixel shaders. We ran the test in this mode.

Unfortunately, the game refused to work correctly with full-screen anti-aliasing, providing inadequate results with the RADEON 9600 XT. When we tried to run it on the GeForce FX, it just messaged us that the FSAA mode is incompatible with those GPUs. Problems with FSAA may occur because the game was originally developed for XBOX console that cannot use FSAA patterns supported by the GeForce FX or the RADEON graphics processors.

NVIDIA explained that it had asked game developer to forbid FSAA for its hardware, which is why there is no way to enable it.

As you see, the RADEON 9600 XT suits most of all for playing HALO, although the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra is doing well enough thanks to its new drivers.

Tron 2.0

This game features a heavily enhanced engine, Lithtech, and supports DirectX 9.0 API. If you didn’t play it, here’s the story in brief. The game takes you into the setting of the world’s first computer animation, Tron. The player is to get inside of a computer system and live a full and happy life of a… computer program! The game is rather naïve, but sends you back to those happy times when computers were so much easier. The game world of Tron 2.0 doesn’t use complex textures, but does employ shader effects. Thus, it makes a good modern benchmark.

The game doesn’t support 1280x1024 resolution, offering you the not very common 1280x960 resolution instead.

In the pure speed mode, the RADEON 9600 XT and GeForce FX 5700 Ultra strike up a fight. The RADEON 9600 PRO looks good enough, while the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra falls far behind other participants. FSAA+AF bring what they should: the GPUs from ATI Technologies handle this mode much better. The GeForce FX 5700 Ultra can only reach the RADEON 9600 XT in 1600x1200 resolution, but this victory is practically useless since 17 frames per second are too low anyway. The RADEON 9800 PRO only provides an acceptable gaming performance in this mode.