Gaming: FarCry, UT2K4
Now we come to the tests most of you have been waiting for. Today we are using Unreal Tournament 2004, FarCry, and the just released Doom 3 to test game performance.
How to Read the Graphs
The data below was generated from almost 20 minutes of in-game play. For each second in the game, the framerate was recorded and categorized into a framerate “bucket”. At the end of it all, we count each sample in each category bucket and plot the charts below. For example, if there were 120 samples in the 41-50 FPS bucket at the end of FarCry, this means that 120 seconds were spent in the 41-50 FPS range.
FarCry
Settings: 1024×768, medium details, “low” anti-aliasing, all effects.
FarCry after 1179 seconds (~20 minutes) of gameplay.
Here we see the Soyo Dragon 2 performing very well. Compared to the nForce 2 EPoX, the Dragon 2 has more game seconds in the 51+ FPS range. This tells us that in a typical gaming session in FarCry, you can expect to see higher framerates more frequently on the Dragon 2 than on the nForce 2. Looking back at our benchmarks on previous pages, this is the first time the Soyo Dragon 2 has decisively beat the nForce 2.
Unreal Tournament 2004
Settings: 1280×1024, high details, all effects, 12 player server.
UT2K4 after 1159 seconds (~20 minutes) of gameplay.
In UT2K4, we have results that follow the trend established by testing on the previous pages. Here the nForce 2 on the EPoX beats the Soyo Dragon 2 with more game time in higher frame rates. All things considered, the Soyo Dragon 2 does not perform poorly, it has majority of its gameplay in the 30+ FPS range so you can expect most of your game to go smoothly. However, about 7 minutes of the 20 minutes is in the 21-30 FPS range which is below what most of us consider playable.
