by Alexey Stepin , Yaroslav Lyssenko, Anton Shilov
10/26/2007 | 02:20 PM
In our previous report we talked about low popularity of DirectX 10 among game developers, although that API had been around for a while. Things have been improving step by step since then. There have been at least two remarkable releases one of which claims to be regarded as a masterpiece, and a few new projects with support of DirectX 10 have been announced.
<%BANNER[article]%>We still think that the user who’s planning to buy a new DirectX 10 compliant graphics card has the right to know what to expect from the purchase in terms of gameplay realism as well as performance. After all, however interesting a game may be and however optimized its engine is, the game is practically useless if the gamer has a slideshow instead of a smooth gameplay on the graphics card he has.
You should be aware that this depends not only on game engine optimizations and even not on the technical characteristics of the graphics card. Modern GPUs have a very complex architecture. Particularly, the latest products from the former ATI Technologies, currently the graphics department of Advanced Micro Devices, are based on the VLIW principle (Very Long Instruction Word). And it depends on the driver, especially when it comes to advanced DirectX 10 capabilities, how efficiently the computing resources of such GPUs are utilized. In other words, performance of such graphics cards in games depends heavily on the driver and may be improved with newer driver versions, making results of earlier tests inadequate. Moreover, the speed of a card in the final version of a game may differ greatly from what it did in the demo version while gamers are interested in the final version of each game, of course.
Considering the release of new drivers and new applications that make use of Microsoft’s new graphics API, and that there have appeared final versions of the games we used in our earlier tests, we now want to return to the problem of performance of modern graphics cards in DirectX 10 applications.
We added two demo versions of PT Boats: Knights of the Sea and World in Conflict to the Call of Juarez DX10 demo we used earlier. And besides a full version of Company of Heroes we tested full versions of shooters BioShock and Lost Planet: Extreme Condition . We’ll dwell upon the two latter games in the next sections.
Released on August 21, 2007, the first-person 3D shooter BioShock is often viewed as following in the footsteps of System Shock . There is a reason for that, yet we think the combination of a linear plot and atmospheric gameplay you find in BioShock is more reminiscent of Painkiller .
Running on Unreal Engine 3, the game features superb visuals, but being a multi-platform project for both the PC and Xbox 360, it is not a DirectX 10 application in the full sense. The minimum system requirement is a graphics card that supports Shader Model 3.0, i.e. DirectX 9c, but the PC version of the game can also use some DirectX 10 capabilities to render more spectacular special effects such as realistic waves and shadows and effects that involve particle systems (smoke, fire).
The action goes on in the underwater city of Rapture, so it is no wonder that the quality of the water surface is so important in creating the gloomy, depressing atmosphere of the declining utopia. The game developers thought it such an essential part of gameplay that they hired an artist and a programmer who dedicated themselves to the water alone. Indeed, water in BioShock is splendid in every form and shape including such traditionally complex objects for 3D rendering as waterfalls, but all this beauty can only be seen in the DirectX 10 mode.
DirectX 10
| DirectX 9
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If you start the game on a graphics card that doesn’t support DirectX 10, you’ll see a muddy white texture instead of realistic waves and circles on the water. In the current version of BioShock the option that disables DirectX 10 capabilities doesn’t work correctly on the ATI Radeon HD 2000 and Nvidia GeForce 8x00 series: the water is still rendered using some DirectX 10 features. In order to disable DirectX 10 support completely, you should add the –dx9 option into the game’s launch icon.
DirectX 10
| DirectX 9
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Shadows are definitely more neat and detailed in the DirectX 10 mode. This must be achieved using shadow maps of a higher resolution. But the difference is not as obvious as with the water.
DirectX 10
| DirectX 9
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Besides that, one of the main advantages of using DirectX 10 is the more accurate blending of such effects as smoke, mist and fire with object models. In the DX10 mode there is no sharp borderline between an effect and an object that is often conspicuous in the DX9 mode. This doesn’t affect the immersion into the game much, yet can be visible at times.
So, it makes sense to use the DirectX 10 capabilities implemented in BioShock if your graphics card can ensure an acceptable speed in that mode. The image quality doesn’t degenerate much as concerns smoke and shadows, but the reduction in the quality of water in the DX9 mode makes the game less fun to play.
As we told you in our previous report, the Call of Juarez DX10 demo features a number of visual improvements implemented by means of DirectX 10.
The difference in the level of detail and image quality between the DX9 and DX10 modes is easily perceptible with a naked eye, but we’ll only see if the latter mode is indeed useful when we test the final version of the game. So far we can only give you preliminary data on performance of modern graphics cards in Call of Juarez DX10 . You shouldn’t base your shopping choice on these data since we tested only a demo version of the game.
We used Company of Heroes in our previous test of DirectX 10 compatible graphics cards. We have noticed some improvements in the game visuals from the introduction of DirectX 10 in the latest patches, but they are accompanied with a considerable performance hit.
Today, we’ll check out the Opposing Fronts add-on that was officially announced on September, 24. This add-on features new graphics effects and capabilities such as weather conditions and the change of day and night but the developer says these are available in both rendering modes. In other words, the improvements achieved by means of DirectX 10 shaders are similar to those we could see in the original Company of Heroes .
Again, the improvements are in fact just a nice trifle rather than a serious revision of the gameplay. They were accompanied with a considerable performance hit in the original game, and now we can check out if it’s the same with Opposing Fronts .
This time we have a full version of Lost Planet: Extreme Condition . Although it is a multi-platform project like the mentioned BioShock , it looks almost the same in its DirectX 9 and 10 modes. In the latter case there is only a better-looking motion blur effect and sharper shadows.
The other differences are so insignificant that you even cannot see them unless you are looking for them on purpose. The gameplay is highly dynamic in Lost Planet , constantly driving the player forward with the ticking T-ENG counter, so you will hardly have time to look for the negligible difference between DX10 and DX9 effects.
However, the game does offer rather good visuals and can serve as a benchmarking tool. Unfortunately, the full version doesn’t have integrated benchmarking options, so we had to test the cards manually with the Fraps utility. Besides that, the full version, as opposed to the demo, allows playing at a frame rate below 25fps, although it can hardly be called a normal play.
This is a rare representative of the simulator genre. PT Boat means a patrol torpedo boat, so we’re dealing with sea warfare here.
This project is being developed by the Russia-based Akella and the developer claims to be very meticulous about the realism of the gameplay. It is largely achieved by implementing DirectX 10 capabilities into the modified Storm 2.5 engine. Particularly, the game will use:
No wonder the rendering of water calls for more developer’s attention here than in BioShock considering the genre. Even though we’re talking about a demo version, PT Boats looks very promising visually.
The recently released demo is not interactive, but offers integrated benchmarking options, so we can test modern graphics card with more accuracy than if we used Fraps. Unfortunately, the results of tests in a non-interactive demo can hardly be indicative of the graphics cards’ performance in the final version of the game.
World in Conflict is not a classic real-time strategy. It is rather real-time tactics game. It doesn’t have such integral elements of every modern RTS as economy and management. There is no construction of a base or gathering of resources. Instead, the player is given points for calling up war units. And there are rather small groups of units under the player’s control. The game plot unfolds in an alternative history, telling you about World War 3 between the Soviet Union and the NATO.
Like all other games we’ve tested, excepting BioShock , World in Conflict doesn’t gain much from using DirectX 10 capabilities. The difference is in fact even less visible than in Company of Heroes . You can hardly notice it unless you are specifically looking for it. Vegetation looks somewhat better in the DirectX 10 mode. The same is true for clouds and overall lighting quality.
More differences can be found if you examine the shell-holes, but the DX9 version of the effect looks just somewhat more detailed than the DX10 version.
Anyway, World in Conflict features high-quality and very detailed visuals. The demo version of the game offers handy benchmarking options that provide information about both average and minimum speed.
To test the performance of ATI Radeon HD 2000 and Nvidia GeForce 8 graphics card families in DirectX 10 games we assembled the following standard test platforms:
Since we believe that the use of texture filtering optimizations is not justified in this case, the AMD and Nvidia graphics card drivers were set up to provide the highest possible quality of tri-linear and anisotropic texture filtering. We have also enabled transparent texture filtering to achieve best image quality by selecting Adaptive antialiasing for AMD Catalyst and Transparency antialiasing (multisampling) for Nvidia ForceWare. As a result, our settings looked as follows:
ATI Catalyst:
Nvidia ForceWare:
Although the new DirectX 10 API introduced in the latest games should first of all improve the image quality and level of realism, we decided to test all graphics cards in every game only with maximum level of detail setting. We used only official settings available through the game menu. The games configuration files weren’t modified in any way as well as the Windows registry. Performance was measured with the games’ own tools or, if not available, manually with Fraps utility version 2.9.1. We also measured the minimum speed of the cards where possible. We tested 12 graphics cards split in three groups depending on the provided performance level and cost.
High-End:
Mainstream:
Entry Level:
Since the technical specifications of ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro and Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB are very close to high-end solutions and their price point is more mainstream, they were included in both categories.
The tests were performed in two modes: with enabled 16x anisotropic filtering and in a more resource-hungry mode where MSAA 4x was also activated. The second test mode that we usually refer to as “eye candy” and 1920x1200 resolution were used only for graphics cards from the high-end category, while less powerful accelerators were tested only in 1280x1024/960 and 1600x1200.
This category includes the following solutions:
Formally, ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro and Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB with the price-point below $300 should be included into the mainstream category. However since they are built on the same GPUs and boast serious technical specs that are comparable with those of more powerful solutions, we decided to also include them into the High-End group.
BioShock is the only game in this review that doesn’t support full-screen antialiasing in DirectX 10 mode. That’s why we performed the test with anisotropic filtering only.
Despite using some advanced special effects, particularly water with a dynamic physical model, BioShock is as demanding an application as some other DirectX 10 games. Thus, the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX easily ensures a comfortable level of performance at every resolution including 1920x1200 at the maximum level of detail. The minimum speed of any version of GeForce 8800 GTS is no lower than 25fps at the highest resolution.
The products from the former ATI Technologies are somewhat less successful. Excepting the ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro, they are limited to 1600x1200. The double amount and higher frequency of memory of the Radeon HD 2900 XT 1GB is not in fact called for as it is less than 2fps ahead of the Radeon HD 2900 XT. The Radeon HD 2900 Pro, which differs from the Radeon HD 2900 XT in the frequencies only, can ensure a comfortable speed at 1280x1024. It is 11-12% behind the senior model at 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 and about 16-17% behind it at 1920x1200.
The results of the ATI Radeon HD 2900 are similar to those of the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS although the latter looks somewhat better as concerns the minimum of speed. Considering that the minimum speed of the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT is below 25fps at 1920x1200, this graphics card is less appealing to owners of 23-24” monitors whereas the GeForce 8800 GTS and Radeon HD 2900 XT are roughly equals for playing at 1280x1024, 1600x1200 and 1680x1050.
The ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro deserves a special word as it delivers superb results for its official price of $249.
There are changes since we last tested DirectX 10 games: the GeForce 8800 GTX used to be just a little faster than the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT with the older driver, but now the ATI card has become slower, not challenging Nvidia’s first place.
The GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB has become slower, too, while the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB, which used to pass the test even though with a low result, refused to do that with the new ForceWare. This must have something to do with changes in the graphics memory manager.
The overall picture has remained the same, though. Like in the previous review, none of modern graphics cards, including the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX, can achieve an average frame rate of 30fps even. It’s worse about the minimum speed: the best result is only 15fps. This is not enough for comfortable play at the highest graphics quality settings.
The numbers are even lower when we enable full-screen antialiasing. The average speed is 23fps at best.
The results being so low, it is hard give any recommendation on purchasing a particular graphics card. The gamer still has to choose between high-quality visuals at a low speed or a lower level of detail and smooth gameplay.
The ATI Radeon HD 2900 series is about as fast as in the original game while Nvidia’s products have got faster. The GeForce 8800 GTX gains the lead now.
Anyway, the problem of low minimum performance of every graphics card persists and has even become worse. Having good average speeds none of the cards can keep the minimum of speed even at 20fps.
Of course, there is no playing comfort when you have slowdowns from 30-40fps to 6-10fps, but all the tested graphics cards had a more or less acceptable average speed at 1280x1024.
When we enable full-screen antialiasing, every card slows down heavily. The GeForce 8800 GTX and the GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB are the only cards to keep above 30fps. The reserve of speed is much lower now than if you use only anisotropic filtering.
So, the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX seems to be the best choice for playing Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts in DirectX 10 mode but the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT 1GB doesn’t look much worse. It’s hard to find the best one among the cheaper cards: the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT and the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB are equals. The GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB is definitely preferable to the Radeon HD 2900 Pro unless you overclock them.
The Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX is in the lead, just like it was in the demo version, which is not surprising since this game is part of Nvidia’s The Way It’s Meant to Be Played program. The two models of the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT and the GeForce 8800 GTX 640MB share the second place.
Alas, although the game visual aren’t exceptional, none of the existing high-end graphics cards can ensure a normal speed at the highest graphics quality settings. You may want to switch some settings from High into Medium position as it doesn’t affect the visual impression from the game much.
FSAA doesn’t affect the speed of the game. It is obviously not a limiting factor. The Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX remains the only graphics card in this review to provide a near-comfortable speed.
The game is going to be a very demanding application, and its predilection towards Nvidia’s solutions is clear as well (this game takes part in Nvidia’s The Way It’s Meant to Be Played program). The GeForce 8800 GTX offers acceptable performance in every resolution while the GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB is only good for 1280x1024 due to its very low minimum of speed in the higher display modes. The ATI Radeon HD 2900 series looks rather deplorable in this test, the senior model not being able to keep the frame rate at 30fps even. Perhaps there’ll be improvements with newer versions of Catalyst or in the full version of the game.
PT Boats wouldn’t start up on the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB just like the Call of Juarez DX10 demo had done. The system would hang up, show a BSOD, etc.
You have to pay a high price for enabling FSAA in PT Boats: even the GeForce 8800 GTX cannot cope with the task, its minimum speed sinking below the allowable 25fps. The other cards lose more speed, especially the ATI Radeon HD 2900 solutions. It’s clear that enabling 4x FSAA in this game won’t be a good idea even in the full version of the game.
As it is the case with every other demo version, it’s too early to make a final verdict on PT Boats since everything can change with the release of the final version of the game. So far, Nvidia’s solutions look better than ATI’s Radeons.
The World in Conflict demo participates in Nvidia’s The Way It’s Meant to Be Played program and prefers Nvidia’s GeForce hardware. Anyway, even the results of the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX are far from ideal since the minimum of speed is as low as 14fps, so occasional slowdowns are unavoidable. This may be critical in the heat of a battle, so we can’t view this result as acceptable.
In the higher-quality modes we can see an effect from the double amount of graphics memory on board the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT 1GB (in comparison with the ordinary model) but each card from ATI, and the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB too, are very slow. Moreover, the latter card couldn’t pass the test at 1920x1200 issuing the same error as in the previous games.
Everything we said about the results of the test without antialiasing is true here as well. None of the single graphics cards can provide a really comfortable speed, so it’s hard to name a winner.
This category contains products priced within $149-$299.
We didn’t test such graphics cards with FSAA and at 1920x1200 as they wouldn’t have had an acceptable speed at such settings.
The mainstream category splits into two subcategories according to the test results. The senior group includes the ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro and Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB. These have a good speed at both 1280x1024 and 1600x1200. The ATI card’s frame rate is barely playable at the latter resolution, though.
The junior group includes graphics cards with a 128-bit memory bus. It doesn’t provide comfortable performance even at 1280x1024. The GeForce 8600 GTS is ahead of the Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4 in this resolution but the two are equals in the gamer’s eyes. You have to lower the game settings, perhaps disable DirectX 10 effects, to have a normal speed on one of these cards.
The DirectX 10 version of Call of Juarez makes use of mathematic-heavy special effects, it is natural to see the ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro in the lead. Alas, this has little practical worth since the frame rate is below playable level. This is true for every representative of the mainstream category.
Oddly enough, the Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS passed the test having only 256MB of memory as opposed to 320MB installed on the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB, which failed. The problems with the new driver from Nvidia may have something to do with the mechanism of graphics memory virtualization in Windows Vista.
The ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro is slower than the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB by about 20% at 1280x1024. Both cards might be considered good in this test if it were not for the low minimum of speed. As for the “junior” group, their average speed is lower than 25fps, so you can’t play Opposing Fronts on them with enabled DirectX 10 effects.
None of the graphics cards from the mainstream category can give you a comfortable frame rate at the maximum level of detail. The cards based on the top-performance ATI R600 and Nvidia G80 chips are closer to doing that, of course. The Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB enjoys a small lead over the ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro. The latter thing suggests that Lost Planet doesn’t use really advanced special effects.
Here, the problem we had with the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB affects the GeForce 8600 GTS. The ForceWare 163.69 driver needs to be polished off better. The ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro is the only card to pass the test successfully, having a good enough result at 1280x1024. It doesn’t mean the speed is playable, though, especially considering the behavior of the faster Radeon HD 2900 models. Perhaps there’ll be improvements in the next version of ATI Catalyst.
The results of the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4 speak for themselves – the card won’t suit for playing PT Boat.
The ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro enjoys a small lead, yet neither it nor the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB, let alone the graphics card based on mainstream GPUs, offer an acceptable speed World in Conflict at the maximum graphics quality settings.
This group includes graphics cards priced at below $150.
We tested such solutions at 1280x1024 without 4x FSAA.
Being the most expensive product in the entry-level sector, the GeForce 8600 GT reached an average frame rate of 20fps. The others cannot do the same. Anyway, none of the cards, not even the GeForce 8600 GT, can provide a minimum of comfort in BioShock.
The average frame rate being below 10fps, the entry-level cards cannot be used for playing Call of Juarez in DirectX 10 mode. We can only note that the GeForce 8600 GT looks better than the others thanks to its 16 TMUs.
Just like in Call of Juarez the GeForce 8600 GT takes first place and is followed by the Radeon HD 2600 Pro. And the results are similar, too, indicating that you cannot really use $89-149 graphics cards to play Opposing Forces with DirectX 10 effects enabled.
As one could expect, none of the entry-level graphics cards can provide an acceptable speed at the maximum level of detail. Like in the other tests the Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT looks better than the others due to its 16 TMUs and rather fast memory.
The PT Boats: Knights of the Sea looks like a slideshow, too, and the comfortable level of average performance is much higher for simulators than for strategy games. Entry-level cards can only be used to showcase the capabilities of DirectX 10, but not for normal play.
It’s clear that graphics cards cheaper than $149 are out of play once again. Their offer formal support for DirectX 10 but cannot be really used for playing DirectX 10 games due to too low performance.
Our opinion about hardware and software support of the new API has changed somewhat since the previous test session. We used to talk about formal support of DirectX 10, but releases of such games as PT Boats: Knights of the Sea and, especially, BioShock change the situation considerably. In the latter game the DirectX 10 mode indeed raises the quality of such a traditionally complex scene element as a water surface to a whole new level. Hopefully, DirectX 10 based special effects will be used widely in upcoming games. Otherwise the promotion of the new API makes no sense at all.
There are also certain changes concerning performance of modern DirectX 10 compatibles. High-end solutions have delivered acceptable performance in BioShock and PT Boats at the maximum level of detail. Graphics cards priced at $299-599 also did well in the add-on to the popular strategy Company of Heroes.
Concerning the problem of choice when buying a modern graphics card today, the absolute leader among single high-end solutions is Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX but purchasing it may be a serious hit on your financial situation.
Soon we’ll see a number of new graphics cards with support for DirectX 10, but we don’t expect any revelations from them since they will hardly differ from the current generation of DirectX 10 compatibles architecturally. As for image quality and realism, these parameters are all in the game developer’s hands now.
