DirectX 10 Shootout: Nvidia vs. ATI

Benchmarks - Lost Planet

Lost Planet is a 3D shooter in which the hero struggles through snowstorms and deserts of ice, fighting nasty insect-like monsters. Among the noteworthy features of this game are the amazing reflections on some of the textures as well as the motion blur effect when the player turns quickly. The story, control scheme and level design with automatic save points make it obvious that this game was ported to the PC from the game console world.

Setting the shadow quality to High will bring any current graphics card to its knees. Even the high-end cards will only produce smooth frame rates at the Medium setting.

Having more graphics memory becomes important at higher resolutions. The version of the 8600 GT with 256 MB drops to 5.1 fps in the 1600 resolution, while the 512 MB version still manages 10.7 fps. The Radeon 2600 XT does not display this kind of pronounced performance drop-off. The Radeon HD 2900 XT and Geforce 8800 GTS cards both run this game pretty well, but the frame rates only becomes really smooth on the 8800 GTX and Ultra.

While the slower graphics chips almost need a full minute before the game could start after loading a saved game, Nvidia's Ultra chip was ready after only a few seconds. To achieve somewhat playable frame rates on the slower cards, there is only one option - deactivate shadows.