VGA Charts VIII: PCI Express Winter 2005

Test Setup

Compatibility Of Graphics Processors With The Benchmark Games

The performance of graphics cards that support PixelShader 2 can’t be compared directly to that of those using PixelShader 3. If a game like Age of Empires III or Black & White 2 supports the higher shader version, it will utilize it to render more complex effects. In other words, cards with a lower shader version display fewer effects -all the while resulting in higher performance due to the lower computing load. The same holds true for shadow effects. For example, ATI’s driver automatically disables soft shadows in F.E.A.R. starting at 1280 x 960 pixels, giving the cards a performance boost. With older ATI hardware, shadow details have to be disabled completely in Fable - The Lost Chapters, or the game will automatically revert to 640 x 480.

There are also measurable differences in HDR rendering speed. Activating this visual enhancement in Serious Sam 2 can result in a performance drop between 14% and 70% depending on the graphics processor. To ensure that all results remain comparable, we tested all graphics cards according to their compatibility and grouped them into the result charts accordingly.