![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Friday , March 26, 2010
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
NVIDIA Fermi - GTX 470 - GTX 480 - GTX 480 SLI Review
Fermi is finally here! We put the new GeForce GTX 470 and GeForce GTX 480 video cards through the paces in four of the latest and most demanding games recently released. We find time for GeForce GTX 480 SLI as well. We compare these to the Radeon 5850, Radeon 5870, and the Radeon 5970.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Using the Steam downloaded version of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 we played through the entire single player campaign. We settled on using "Zero Dark Thirty" as our run-through. We are playing through the entire level. We are using patched version 522174 of the game in our testing. A newer patch has been released for the game, but unfortunately it was released too late for us to use.
Bad Company 2 supports DX10/DX11 and supports a feature called "Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion" (HBAO) which was enabled on all video cards tested today. In fact, every video card tested here allowed us to run at the highest in-game settings. The only change we had to make was to resolution and AA settings. In that light, we opted to crank up the AA as high as possible using each cards special AA features such as NVIDIA’s CSAA, AMD’s CFAA, NVIDIA’s Transparency Supersampling AA and AMD’s Adaptive Supersampling AA to really improve the image quality in this game.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 SLI vs. Radeon HD 5970
With every video card well able to handle the highest in-game settings this game has to offer, we instead had to look elsewhere to really crank up the visual quality. In that regard, we used all the special AA modes that NVIDIA and AMD support. Notably, we wanted to have Supersampling AA enabled so that all the vegetation, trees and anything with alpha textures like chain link fences receive antialiasing improving image quality in the game.
We found that at 2560x1600 we could set the in-game AA option to 16X CSAA with GeForce GTX 480 SLI, and also enabled 2X Transparency Supersampling AA with that. This means we have 16X AA on object edges and 2X Supersampling AA on all alpha textures. Alternatively, we found that if you disabled 2X TR SSAA, you could then run the game at 32X CSAA at 2560x1600, and we were averaging around 58 FPS with that setting. We chose to back down to 16X CSAA and raise TR SSAA to 2X to improve image quality everywhere, because with just 32X CSAA enabled none of the vegetation or fences or other objects such as that were receiving any antialiasing.
ATI Radeon HD 5970 was also very powerful and allowed us to enable 12X CFAA in this game. Along with that, we were able to have Adaptive Supersampling AA enabled to provide antialiasing on all the vegetation and alpha textured objects in the game. The real question is what are the gameplay advantages between NVIDIA’s 16 X CSAA and AMD’s 12 X CFAA? The answer to that is nothing, we could tell no visual difference as we were playing the game between these two settings. Therefore, the gameplay experience was identical between GTX 480 SLI and Radeon HD 5970.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 vs. Radeon HD 5870
We found a slight difference when we compared the GeForce GTX 480 with the Radeon HD 5870. NVIDIA supports an AA method that isn’t exactly MSAA, and doesn’t match the quality of MSAA, but saves a bit on performance, called CSAA. We’ve explored what this is in the past. In this game, we were able to play at 2560x1600 with 8X CSAA enabled on the GeForce GTX 480.
With the Radeon HD 5870, it only supports 4X and 8X MSAA modes, and at 2560x1600 8X MSAA was too much of a performance hit on the Radeon HD 5870. Equally, 8X MSAA was too much of a performance hit on the GeForce GTX 480. It is just that there is a middle option between 4X MSAA and 8X MSAA that NVIDIA has, and that is 8X CSAA. Therefore, 4X MSAA was the highest playable setting on the Radeon HD 5870.
Now, at the resolution of 2560x1600 it can be argued if the image quality difference is noticeable in a fast moving game like this between 4X MSAA and 8X CSAA. To me, personally, I didn’t notice the difference while I was playing, but I am sure there are some out there that may pick up on some better edge antialiasing while gaming.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 vs. Radeon HD 5850
With the GeForce GTX 470 and Radeon HD 5850 we had to bump the resolution down to 1920x1200. At 2560x1600 both video cards were playable at 2560x1600, but without any AA at all, and only just barely. At 1920x1200 we could turn AA up to very high levels, creating a great gameplay experience at this level.
The GeForce GTX 470 was playable at 16X CSAA and 2X TR SSAA at 1920x1200. This is impressive, and while the average framerate looks slightly slow, the game was playable. IF this is indeed too slow for you fast action shooters out there, disabling TR SSAA and instead using Multisample AA on alpha textures will fix that right up for you. In that case, 1920x1200 with 16X CSAA, and limited alpha texture AA, will give you back that performance you desire, and is still a very respectable gameplay experience.
The Radeon HD 5850 was playable with 12X CFAA and Adaptive SSAA at 1920x1200. It seems the Radeon HD 5850 is a bit faster, or better, at handling Supersampling AA. Note that on both video cards, the large spikes into the minimum framerates are causes by mortars exploding buildings and creating a lot of dust. It seems with high AA settings, these video cards seem to bottom out pretty well when there are buildings being blown up and a lot of dust and debris being picked up.