![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Thursday , December 04, 2003
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Tyan Tachyon G9800Pro-M Review
Read inside for our review on Tyan’s latest graphics card based on ATI’s 9800Pro VPU. We compare it against three other cards, the 9800XT, 9600XT and 9500Pro using realworld gameplay evaluation.
Halo: Combat Evolved
(DirectX 9)
Halo supports multiple rendering paths. If the hardware detected supports Pixel Shader 2.0, Halo will run at this level. It also supports Pixel Shader 1.4, 1.1, and a Fixed Function (DX7) mode. You can force a lower Pixel Shader version than what your card supports by using the –use14 or –use11 or –useff command lines in the shortcut to Halo. Since the four cards we are testing today support the same level of Pixel Shader support (PS 2.0) we don’t have to worry about what level these cards are using.
In order to represent actual gameplay we relied on FRAPS and a manual run-through. Using FRAPS we ran through a certain path in the “Assault on the Control Room” mission. The manual run-through is done at a point in the game that focuses more on the graphics rather than the physics engine of the game. There are lots of mirrored bumped surfaces and specular over this entire level that put stress on these video cards.
Above are the in-game video settings we used for benchmarking. 1024x768 with everything in the game set to maximum. We are going to test gaming experience with each card at its highest playable settings. This means AF levels will be different among the cards depending on which modes allowed for the best performance on a given card. This gives us a real world look at what settings a gamer would use when they play these games.
The first thing we see in this graph is the difference in performance between the mainstream cards 9500Pro/9600XT and the enthusiast level cards G9800Pro-M/9800XT. The Tyan Tachyon G9800Pro-M is able to play smoothly at 8XAF and only dips down to 35FPS for the minimum. The Radeon 9800XT is able to go one notch above pulling in 16XAF and still pulling in faster numbers overall and only bottoming out at 37FPS. The difference in image quality between 8XAF and 16XAF is not noticeable in this game however when you are actually playing it. Aliasing is more prevalent in this game since it does not support Anti-Aliasing and requires such a low resolution by today’s standards just to get playable performance.
The 9600XT actually performs the slowest in our gameplay here bottoming out at 26FPS and many times dipping below the 30FPS mark; while the Radeon 9500Pro spends more time above the 30FPS mark and pulls in faster numbers overall compared to the 9600XT.
Max Payne 2
(DirectX 9)
Max Payne 2, just like Max Payne, is a narrative driven action game. The combat sequences are almost cinematic in style. The story line is that of a Film Noir love story between a cop and a female murder suspect. Bullet Time 2.0 swings into play with improved slow motion gunplay. What also makes this game fun is that it has integrated Havok’s physics engine for ragdoll character effects as well as interactive environments. The graphics system has also been beefed up with support for DirectX 9 and has effects such as realistic rain, lightning, mirror effects, explosions and high resolution textures.
These are the settings we used on all cards to test with. Note that we chose to let Max Payne 2 decide the Antialiasing mode when available. We set AF from the driver control panel for all four cards. Everything else was set to its highest setting in the game.
We used FRAPS frame counter and MP2's Part II Chapter 3 (Condemned Building cont'd) for our framerate evaluation. We used repeatable manual run-throughs in this level. Part II Chapter 3 has a lot of particle, explosion and fire effects in it making for an intense graphic experience. Just like in Halo we are going to evaluate the gameplay experience with the highest playable settings on each card.
With the Tyan Tachyon G9800Pro-M we were able to play at very high image quality settings. This card allowed us to run at 1280x1024 with 4XAA and 8XAF enabled and we only dipped once to 29FPS for a brief time. Most of the time performance was very high pulling in an average of 72FPS. The Radeon 9800XT we ran at 1280x1024 with 4XAA and 16XAF, but as you can see it actually ended up bottoming out slightly slower than the Tachyon G9800Pro with 26FPS. It did average 2FPS higher and maxed out at 6FPS higher than the G9800Pro.
Apparently just like in Halo the 9500Pro was able to edge out over the 9600XT when looking at the minimum FPS. Both cards were set at high quality settings in this game, 4XAA/8XAF but at a lower resolution 1024x768.