StarTrek Elite Force 2

We see a similar picture in this 3D shooter. GeCube card shows its best in 1280x1024 resolution, but lacks power for 1600x1200 (if you don’t resort to overclocking). This highest resolution is for graphics cards with a wide memory bus (RADEON 9800 PRO) or with an ultra-fast memory (GeForce FX 5700 Ultra).

The VPU frequency affects the performance, too. As you see, our overclocked RADEON 9600 XT “Extreme” won two first resolutions against RADEON 9800 PRO! In fact there is nothing to be surprised with: the game is pretty simple, there are a lot of textures and nice geometry, but it doesn’t practically involve any exclusive features of modern VPUs. Well, the Quake 3 engine, which runs Elite Force 2, is a few years old already.

In Elite Force 2 the use of CATALYST 4.1 driver on the contrary resulted into a slight performance growth. Here you can also see the effect made by faster memory, though it is not so evident.