🚀 go-pugleaf

On Wed, 18 Apr 2007 18:37:00 +0200, Bruno <dont.use@this.address.ever>
wrote:

>Folk wrote:
>> Like I said, I've benchmarked both games extensively.
>> 
>I'm all ???? as to why we experience such different results. I will try 
>and dig up my old benchmark results but I do fear they went away with a 
>hard disc that died on me. Still I'm thinking we have been playing UT in 
>very different resolutions which perhaps explains why I view UT as 
>graphics limited rather than CPU limited.
>
>Fx. I upgraded from a 9700 Pro to a X1900XTX and promise you it did make 
>a difference in UT at 2048x1536.

Jesus, I guess so.  Most earthlings don't game at 2048 x 1536.  What
kind of monitor are you using?

>As you I had trouble finding data covering old and new hardware so let's 
>go with UT 2004:
>
>http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/10/04/vga_charts_iv/page7.html
>
>Note how the CPU used seems to offer aprox. 118 fps and how enabling AA 
>and AF makes a huge difference, fx. more than 100% on the 9600 card, 
>with only the fastest cards still bringing the 118 fps. Of course UT 
>will provide different figures but going high res you'll see a similar 
>effect.

The first graph is representative of the setup for a typical UT99
gamer.... 1024 x 768 with no AA or AF.  We can see that there are 16
cards that have the same framerate (given a 3% margin of error).
Obviously we are CPU bound at that resolution, since those 16 cards
represent a varying amount of pixel pushing power yet they all yield
the same results.

In order to "separate the pack" for a vid card shootout, you need to
raise the visual stakes, and they do that by using artificially high
AA/AF or resolution settings.  There's certainly nothing wrong with
that, but if you do all your gaming at "normal" resolutions and AA/AF
levels, then any one of those 16 cards are just as good as the other
in UT.  

Now look at the results from the same article when benching Doom 3....
http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/10/04/vga_charts_iv/page9.html

Now instead of 16 cards, we have only 3.  Now which game engine would
you call CPU limited?

If you're gaming at 2048 x 1536, then you could certainly be vid card
limited, but then who wouldn't be at that resolution?  I would highly
recommend an SLI solution to push that number of pixels.  For average
gamers using a 19" flat panel (1280 x 1024) and not going nuts with AA
or AF, then you're going to be CPU bound using the Unreal engine.

FWIW, UT99 is much friendlier than UT2004 when it comes to vid card
requirements.  Textures are *much* smaller.