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• The second benchmark that we use from the game Bioshock shows the Plasmid intro. This sequence, which is basically a cut-scene using the game's 3D engine, makes heavy use of shader effects. The results here are slightly higher across the board than in Test 1 (Rapture intro). None of the cards had any trouble running this benchmark. This time around, the ATI cards don't freeze. On Nvidia's side, the sequence plays smoothly starting with the 8600 GT. ATI's 2600 XT does well in this benchmark, while the 2600 Pro produces only 22.5 fps. Again, we didn't see any meaningful performance difference between cards with 256 MB and 512 MB or 320 MB and 640 MB of video memory. We attribute this to the fact that FSAA was not available in this game. We did notice that the load times were extremely short on the Geforce 8800 Ultra. The slower graphics chips such as the Geforce 8400 and 8500 produce identical results in Test 1 and Test 2. This is a good indication that they have reached their limit. To play at smooth frame rates on these cards, you will need to drop the detail level down a notch or two. The same thing probably applies to the Radeon HD 2400 Pro and 2400 XT.

• Bioshock is set in the underwater city of Rapture. 2K games successfully weave a gripping FPS-story around narrow tunnels and flooded rooms. As the unwitting hero, you use either weapons or Plasmid-abilities with very beautiful visual effects. The graphics quality seems very similar under DirectX 9 and DirectX 10. One obvious exception is the way water is rendered, which has real waves in DirectX 10. If you'd like to learn more about Bioshock, take a look at our full review. We benchmarked Bioshock without FSAA, since the standard drivers don't allow us to enable it and the in-game menu lacks AA settings. It seems we will just have to get used to the fact that games that are released both for consoles and PCs don't offer HDR-R and FSAA simultaneously (Oblivion, Bioshock). ATI's cards have severe problems with Bioshock. The HD 2400 and HD 2600 series crash the game reproducibly. While the scene depicting your arrival in Rapture freezes repeatedly, the Plasmid intro completes without any problems. However, continue playing a little further, and the game will freeze once again. Sadly, this costs the mainstream Radeon cards several frames in the overall performance rating. According to several forums, an ATI hotfix solves several texture-related problems. The crashes remain, though. The Radeon HD 2900 XT is plagued by no such problems, running the game smoothly at the same settings using the Catalyst 7.9 driver suite. The first benchmark scene shows the main character's arrival in Rapture. A Geforce 8600 GT allows you to play the game at full quality settings. Starting with the Radeon 2900 XT and the Geforce 8800 GTS, the game is completely smooth even at higher resolutions. Since FSAA is not supported by the game, additional video memory offers no advantage here. We saw no speed differences between 320 MB and 640 MB or 256 MB and 512 MB. The results for the Radeon HD 2400 and HD 2600 series of cards are missing here, since the game freezes immediately and then proceeds to crash. Our recommendation: Play the game in DX9 by starting it with the -dx9 switch.

• Turbo Cache (Nvidia) and Hyper Memory (ATI) are features that allow the graphics cards to borrow some RAM from system memory. This minimizes the performance impact of enabling FSAA at higher resolutions on cards with less on-board memory. Under XP, video memory can be expanded from 128 MB or 256 MB to 512 MB. Vista always displays an augmented video memory of 1022 MB. Nvidia Graphics Cards Graphics Chip Code Name Memory HDR-R Vertexshader/Pixelshader GPU Frequency Memory Frequency Geforce 8800 Ultra OC G80 768 MB GDDR3 yes 4.0 660 MHz 2300 MHz Geforce 8800 Ultra G80 768 MB GDDR3 yes 4.0 612 MHz 2160 MHz Geforce 8800 GTX G80 768 MB GDDR3 yes 4.0 576 MHz 1800 MHz Geforce 8800 GTS G80 640 MB GDDR3 yes 4.0 500 MHz 1600 MHz Geforce 8800 GTS OC G80 320 MB GDDR3 yes 4.0 575 MHz 1700 MHz Geforce 8800 GTS G80 320 MB GDDR3 yes 4.0 500 MHz 1600 MHz Geforce 8600 GTS G84 512 MB GDDR3 yes 4.0 675 MHz 2016 MHz Geforce 8600 GTS G84 256 MB GDDR3 yes 4.0 675 MHz 2016 MHz Geforce 8600 GT OC G84 256 MB GDDR3 yes 4.0 580 MHz 1600 MHz Geforce 8500 GT TC G86 256/1022 MB DDR2 yes 4.0 459 MHz 800 MHz Geforce 8400 GS TC G86 256/1022 MB DDR2 yes 4.0 459 MHz 800 MHz ATI Graphics Cards Graphics Chip Code Name Memory HDR-R Vertexshader/Pixelshader GPU Frequency Memory Frequency Radeon HD2900 XT R600 512 MB GDDR3 yes 4.0 743 MHz 1656 MHz Radeon HD2600 XT RV630 512 MB GDDR3 yes 4.0 800 MHz 1400 MHz Radeon HD2600 XT RV630 256 MB GDDR4 yes 4.0 800 MHz 2200 MHz Radeon HD2600 Pro RV630 256 MB DDR3 yes 4.0 600 MHz 1400 MHz Radeon HD2400 XT HM RV610 128/1022 MB DDR2 yes 4.0 700 MHz 800 MHz Radeon HD2400 Pro HM RV610 256/1022 MB DDR2 yes 4.0 525 MHz 800 MHz HDR-R=High Dynamic Range Rendering SM=Shader Model Memory Frequency=physical frequency is half of DDR TC=Turbo Cache HM=Hyper Memory OC=Overclocked Test Setup Nvidia Single Graphics Cards, ATI Single and Crossfire Graphics Cards CPU Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800, 2.93 GHz FSB 1066 MHz Motherboard Intel D975XBX2 Chipset Intel 975X Memory 2x1 GByte, Vitesta DDR2 800 4-4-4-12 533 MHz Hard Drive Hitachi 2 x 120 GByte S-ATA, 8 MB Cache DVD Gigabyte GO-D1600C LAN Intel 1000 Pro Audio Intel High Definition Audio Power Supply Seasonic M12 600 Watt Drivers & Configuration Graphics ATI Catalyst 7.9 Nvidia Forceware 162.22 Opeating System Windows Vista Enterprise DirectX Version 10 Chipset Driver Intel Intel 8.2.0.1014 Test Matrix Application Benchmark Anti Aliasing (AA) Anisotropic Filtering (AF) Possible Problems and Settings Bioshock Fraps/Rapture-Intro, Plasmid-Intro No AA Graphics Driver Decides AF, AA not offered in Game Menu Company of Heroes v1.70 Game Benchmark Application Decides Graphics Driver Decides AF not offered in Game Menu, -novsync Lost Planet Fraps/Mission 1 Application Decides Application Decides   World in Conflict Game Benchmark, Fraps/Tutorial Application Decides Application Decides