![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Wednesday, December 15, 2004
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
ATI Radeon X800XL Preview
We evaluate the $300 ATI Radeon X800XL video card finding what kind of gaming experience it will provide for you on a PCI-Express platform. We compare it to the X800Pro, 6800OC, and 6800GT.
DOOM 3
(OpenGL)
We are using the full retail version of DOOM 3 and leaving each video cards driver control panel to “Application Preference” for AA and AF. We set the DOOM 3 in-game quality setting and resolution that played the best on each card. We utilized the in-game DOOM 3 AA setting to change AA level.
For our manual run-through we chose the “Enpro” level and used FRAPS to capture the framerate every second and started our run-through from the beginning to half way through the mission. We played the game in a normal fashion, which means each run-through on each card will be a little different, but still represents the same course through the level.
In the graph above take note of the highest settings we found playable on each card at the top of the graph before looking at the table of results below.
As you can see the GeForce 6800GT and BFGTech GeForce 6800OC seem to offer a better gaming experience in DOOM 3 compared to the Radeon X800XL and X800Pro. We were able to run both the GeForce 6 series cards at 1600x1200, where the Radeon cards were a resolution lower at 1280x1024.
Performance with the Radeon X800XL was quite interesting in comparison to the Radeon X800Pro. With the Radeon X800Pro there was no question that 1280x1024 noaa/8xaf was the highest we could play at in DOOM 3. However, when we tried this setting on the Radeon X800XL we found that performance was so fast that there was room to spare, meaning we could increase quality settings higher than the X800Pro. We tried 1600x1200 noaa/8xaf on the Radeon X800XL and found that it was playable in some levels, but then there were some levels and areas where performance dropped to unplayable levels, but it was very close to playable at 1600x1200. We found that using 1280x1024 with 2XAA and 8XAF actually gave us faster performance than 1600x1200, and filled in the room we had to spare at just 1280x1024 with NoAA and also gave us increased image quality thanks to AA being enabled. We have a graph below that shows all three quality settings.
Here we have the Radeon X800XL graphed at 1280x1024 with NoAA, 1280x1024 with 2XAA and 1600x1200 with NoAA. As you can see performance at 1280x1024 NoAA/8XAF is very fast. Moving to 1600x1200 is playable for the most part in our test level, but there were other areas in other levels in the game where performance did drop down. Therefore we found our happy medium to be 1280x1024 2XAA/8XAF which played through smoothly, and made up for not being able to run at 1600x1200 thanks to 2XAA.
Image Quality:
The above screenshot shows you how being able to run at 2XAA at 1280x1024 can in some situations actually look better than 1600x1200 with NoAA. Aliasing is noticeably reduced on the railings and around the edges of the floors.
In the above screenshot we have taken a slice of this screen to compare the image quality between the Radeon X800XL and the GeForce 6800GT. Save for the differences due to AA being enabled both cards render the graphics in DOOM 3 very much the same.