Black & White 2 is a shader-intensive game: there are vast expanses, and since all of the game is played on islands, there is a lot of water to render. The interesting thing about Black & White 2 is that it deviates from the traditional real time strategy game in that instead of only being able to zoom the camera or move it up, down, left and right, it allows users to change to whatever views they wish. You can pan as well as pivot the camera view. This adds more complexity to what the card must render, and moving/pivoting pan shots can bog down the card.

ATI's 48 pixel shaders, dispatch processor, and complex memory show their muscles in a game like this. Nvidia still does not do well with this game. Once we leave the resolution realm of the majority - 80-90% of all gamers play at resolutions of 1280x1024 or less - we see the GeForce 7950GX2 take over. It is no wonder that Nvidia is stressing XHD or Extreme High Definition gaming at high resolutions.