Testbed and Methods

To test the performance of graphics cards in Unreal Tournament 3 we assembled the following standard test platform:

• Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor (3.0GHz, FSB 333MHz x 9);
• DFI LanParty UT ICFX3200-T2R/G mainboard (AMD RD600 chipset) for ATI Radeon graphics cards;
• Asus P5N32-E SLI mainboard (Nvidia nForce 680i SLI chipset) for Nvidia GeForce graphics cards;
• Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5 (2x1GB, 1066MHz, 5-5-5-15, 2T);
• Maxtor MaXLine III 7B250S0 HDD (250GB, Serial ATA-150, 16MB buffer);
• Enermax Galaxy DXX EGX1000EWL 1000W power supply;
• Dell 3007WFP monitor (30", 2560x1600@60Hz max display resolution);
• Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit;
• Nvidia ForceWare 163.69;
• ATI Catalyst 7.10.

We used standard driver settings for ATI Catalyst and Nvidia ForceWare drivers:

ATI Catalyst:

• Catalyst A.I.: Standard
• Mipmap Detail Level: High Quality
• Wait for vertical refresh: Always off
• Adaptive antialiasing: On
• Temporal antialiasing: Off
• High Quality AF: On
• Other settings: by default

Nvidia ForceWare:

• Texture filtering - Quality: High quality
• Texture filtering - Trilinear optimization: Off
• Texture filtering – Anisotropic sample optimization: Off
• Vertical sync: Force off
• Antialiasing - Gamma correction: On
• Antialiasing - Transparency: Multisampling
• Other settings: by default

The game was set to maximum possible graphics quality:

• Screen Mode: Fullscreen
• Post Processing: Default
• Screen Percentage: 100%
• Texture Detail: 5 (max)
• World Detail: 5 (max)

Unreal Tournament 3 demo version features built-in testing tools however there is no chance to record a demo that is why we use the one available in flyby game on Shangri La level. These data can be regarded only as an approximate reference especially since the graphics quality in Unreal Tournament 3 demo was forcefully lowered. The obtained results will at least give us an idea what solutions will suit best for UT3 when the full game version is out.

We tested the following graphics cards split in three groups depending on the provided performance level:

High-End:

• ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT 1GB
• ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT 512MB
• ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro 512MB
• Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX
• Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB
• Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB

Mainstream:

• ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro 512MB
• ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4
• Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB
• Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS

Entry Level:

• ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro
• ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT
• Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT
• Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT

Epic Games is known for their attempts to demonstrate acceptable performance on the solutions available freely at the time of game launch. That is why we decided to test Unreal Tournament 3 demo in all standard resolutions at the time of tests, including the entry-level products.