Homeworld 2, Jedi Academy

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Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD - Graphics Cards 97 Homeworld 2

Homeworld 2 is a gorgeous OpenGL based game with some awesome 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
(i.e. All the bells-and-whistles)

Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD - Graphics Cards 98

Min and Max Frame Rates
Asus Radeon 9800XT
NVIDIA FX5950 Ultra
Softmod R9500
Min
Max
Min
Max
Min
Max
1024×768

0x0

12
41
15
56
11
36
0x8
12
42
17
54
10
37
2×0
12
40
14
54
9
36
2×8
12
45
16
51
4
33
4×0
6
36
14
53
10
35

4×8

6
36
13
59
10
33

Here we see something that has been the general belief amoung videocard enthusiasts for a long time. Here we see NVIDIA FX5950 Ultra coming out on top in OpenGL performance similarly how ATI comes out on top on Freelancer and in Morrowind. The Asus card performs decently at all settings but at 4×0 and higher, performance drops drastically and things get a little slow when you’re zoomed in trying to coordinate a fight. I’ve been reading some threads in the Relic forums and it appears this may be another driver problem.

However, this game is best played at resolutions higher than 1024×768 because of the number of menus that need to be navigated during play.

Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD - Graphics Cards 99

Min and Max Frame Rates
Asus Radeon 9800XT
NVIDIA FX5950 Ultra
Softmod R9500
Min
Max
Min
Max
Min
Max
1600×1200

0x0

1
41
1
39
1
33
0x8
1
39
1
39
1
30
2×0
1
40
1
44
1
33
2×8
1
39
1
40
1
32
4×0
1
35
1
35
1
32

4×8

1
35
1
37
1
32

At 1600×1200, we see the FX5950 Ultra drop in performance dramatically to the point where the Asus Radeon 9800XT matches it in performance. Comparing the results at 1024×768 and 1600×1200, we can see that the Radeon 9800XT only drops performance marginally (3-4 FPS) whereas the NVIDIA FX5950 Ultra sheds more than 15 FPS! The Asus Radeon 9800XT performs perfectly well at 1600×1200 and I personally don’t see any need to play at anything higher than 0x0 in this game.

There is a bit of a bug with Radeon-based cards and Homeworld 2 however. It would appear that switching resolutions in-game or launching the game would sometimes crash the program. I’ve run into this problem about 60% of the times I run the game and it’s pretty annoying. At times I try for about 5 minutes before it launches properly. Relic forums report that switching back to Catalyst 3.7 drivers may fix the problem. NVIDIA cards have no such problems, except for the fact Anti-aliasing doesn’t seem to work for those cards in this game.

 

Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD - Graphics Cards 100 Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

Jedi Academy is Raven’s next installment of their successful Star Wars license. The game uses the Quake 3 engine and is OpenGL based. This particular test occurs at the very beginning of the game where the character fights some “rats” (typical starter-level creatures) along a pixel-shaded waterfall and the fallen shuttle craft. I noticed this section of the game performed very poorly, so it makes for a good test. I will refine my testing of this game as I play more. Incidentally, if you are playing this game and you have a saved game you think would be a good test, please email me the details!

Game Configuration
Screen Resolution 1024×768 and 1600×1200
Geometric Detail High
Texture Detail High
Texture Quality 32 bit
Texture Filter Trilinear
Detailed Shaders ON
Shadows Volumetric
Dynamic Lights ON
Dynamic Glow ON
Light Flares ON
Wall marks ON

Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD - Graphics Cards 101

As we’ve seen previously in Homeworld 2, the Asus Radeon 9800XT does not perform very strongly with OpenGL and I’m certain the pixel-shaded river is causing all cards to perform poorly. I personally would have liked to have seen a better showing from the 9800XT as compared to the FX5950. Hopefully as we refine the testing in this game, we can give numbers that are a bit more reasonable as the setting I’m using may not be a good indicator.

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