Morrowind

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Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD - Graphics Cards 97 The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

The 3rd installment to the Elder Scrolls franchise is proving to be very successful. Once again, I am using Balmora as the “benchmark” town because of its large number of NPCs and buildings (great for back-face culling testing), and a large pixel-shaded river running through it.

Game Configuration
View Distance 50%
Pixel-shading Enabled
Real-time shadows Disabled

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

43
65
25
61
43
66
0x8
46
70
12
57
38
64
2×0
46
65
25
58
43
64
2×8
39
62
24
56
39
61
4×0
47
67
27
56
35
65

4×8

43
65
10
61
37
62

Here we see the Asus Radeon 9800XT leading the pack but is mirrored by the softmod Radeon 9500. This is typical of the results we’ve been seeing here on AMDMB where all ATI cards beat the silicon out of any NVIDIA card in Morrowind. The Asus card played like silk and had no problems to speak of.

Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD - Graphics Cards 99

Min and Max Frame Rates
FX5700U
FX5600U
Softmod R9500
Min
Max
Min
Max
Min
Max
1600×1200

0x0

43
65
17
58
42
64
0x8
46
70
12
57
39
62
2×0
46
65
19
55
40
61
2×8
39
62
22
54
37
63
4×0
47
67
24
56
38
63

4×8

43
65
22
52
40
58

The same story at 1600×1200, we see both Asus Radeon 9800XT and the Softmod Radeon 9500 beating the FX5950 Ultra, but by a smaller margin. The Asus radeon 9800XT performed very smoothly and the game looks gorgeous.

However, there is a strange crash I have never experienced before during my 1+ year of playing Morrowind. This happened to me twice while testing the Asus Radeon 9800XT and never occured prior to that.

Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD - Graphics Cards 100
Morrowind anyone? 😉

One occurance happened when I switched from 1024×768 to 1600×1200 during the game, and another time was booting into the game from my desktop. It would seem that the sudden change of resolution causes this problem, but I can’t say for certain. Could this problem be linked to the same resolution switching problems ATI experiences in Homeworld 2? Just some issues to be aware of in case you run into them.

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