Homeworld 2
This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.
|
Homeworld
2I regret never playing the original Homeworld, however I have redeemed myself by getting Homeworld 2 and I am thoroughly enjoying it. The game is OpenGL based with some gorgeous particle and lighting effects. At times, there are literally hundreds of objects on the screen with action happening everywhere. There are a lot of details when zoomed in like emblem badges on individual units, burn marks on hulls, and raging deck fires.
The test I have chosen to run is from the 3rd mission where the player is tasked to rescue a shipyard and rebuild the fleet. The precise sequence benchmarked is when I have a fleet of 5 interceptor wings (25 units), 3 bomber wings (9 units), and 5 gunships/corvettes intercepting the Vagyr (about 22 units) at the shipyard.
Game
Configuration
|
|
| Screen Resolution | 1024×768 and 1600×1200 |
| Shadows | ON |
| Damage FX | High |
| Lighting | High |
| Hyperspace Detail | High |
| Detail Geometry | ON |
| Geometry Scaling | ON |
| Min and Max Frame Rates | FX5700U
|
FX5600U
|
Softmod
R9500
|
R9500
|
|||||
Min
|
Max
|
Min
|
Max
|
Min
|
Max
|
Min
|
Max
|
||
| 1024×768 | 0x0 |
11
|
40
|
10
|
36
|
11
|
36
|
9
|
33
|
| 0x8 | 11
|
42
|
11
|
52
|
10
|
37
|
7
|
33
|
|
| 2×0 | 8
|
36
|
9
|
34
|
9
|
36
|
7
|
31
|
|
| 2×8 | 9
|
41
|
10
|
35
|
4
|
33
|
8
|
29
|
|
| 4×0 | 10
|
40
|
8
|
35
|
10
|
35
|
9
|
30
|
|
4×8 |
10
|
39
|
9
|
34
|
10
|
33
|
9
|
30
|
|
| 1600×1200 | 0x0 |
1
|
30
|
1
|
36
|
1
|
33
|
1
|
22
|
| 0x8 | 1
|
25
|
1
|
52
|
1
|
30
|
1
|
20
|
|
| 2×0 | 1
|
23
|
1
|
34
|
1
|
33
|
1
|
21
|
|
| 2×8 | 1
|
24
|
1
|
35
|
1
|
32
|
1
|
15
|
|
| 4×0 | 1
|
24
|
1
|
35
|
1
|
32
|
1
|
13
|
|
4×8 |
1
|
23
|
1
|
34
|
1
|
32
|
1
|
13
|
|
At 1024×768, all cards perform within 10 FPS of each other and all cards are able to play the game well. The FX5700 Ultra performs very well without much of a hick-up and nets rates in the 30FPS range. However, for those of us who have played this game, you need to play at higher than 1024×768 because of the menus and the need to fit a lot of objects on the screen. However, for those of us who have played this game, you need to play at higher than 1024×768 because of the menus and the need to fit a lot of objects on the screen. So let’s take a look at 1600×1200 performance now.
Looking at the 1600×1200 results, we see the softmod Radeon 9500 come out on top again. The FX5700 Ultra performs fairly well even though the frame rates don’t look impressive. At 21 FPS, the game was still playable with 0xAA and 0xAF, but at higher settings, navigating overlaid menus was laggy making selections difficult. If you don’t care for the effects or if you don’t spend much time zoomed in, try disabling damage effects and shadows since those details you can’t really notice zoomed out anyway.
There is a quirk with the FX series worth mentioning here. It appears that anti-aliasing does not work even though enabling anti-aliasing causes the frame rates go down as you’d expect. It is as if the math is being done in the GPU, but not being drawn out onto the screen. I will be sure to let NVIDIA know about this.
