Performance in Simulators

IL-2 Sturmovik: Aces in the Sky

The latest version of IL-2 Sturmovik needs a wide and high-frequency memory bus as well as a high pixel shader speed. The game renders water surfaces with the help of 2.0 pixel shaders at the maximum graphics quality settings – this looks quite pretty and realistically, but puts a bog load on the graphics card. All the participating graphics cards have bad results at the maximum graphics quality settings. Even the RADEON X600 PRO, the fastest of the tested devices, cannot offer a comfortable play here, not mentioning weaker devices.

Lock On

This flight sim is even more demanding than Aces in the Sky in some respects. Lock On seems to have simpler graphics, but it’s not quite so: the game engine can create and display impressive effects like realistic compound clouds and weather effects. So, although there are practically no complex pixel shaders, the game requires a fast graphics card. The memory subsystem bandwidth is of much value here as the diagram suggests: the PowerColor X300 SE is slower than the X300, not mentioning the RADEON X600 PRO.

Colin McRae Rally 04

We’ve got strange results in Colin McRae Rally 04: the PowerColor X300 SE is far behind the RADEON X300 in the lowest resolution, but the gap diminishes in higher resolutions, although the load on the memory bus is growing up in them. Usually, we see an opposite picture, of course, but we must make allowances on our testing this game in the manual mode, too.