NVIDIA Puts Its (New) Cards on the Table

Freelancer Demo

Microsoft released Freelancer at the beginning of this year. Although its 3D engine is not exactly up-to-date, the game still has a loyal following. In our suite it represents the older generation of games. Framerates were determined with FRAPS.

In 1024x768 the FX 5950 Ultra is still on a level with the Radeon 9800 cards, but begins to fall more and more behind at higher resolutions. In the midrange arena, the FX 5700 Ultra is unable to keep up with the Radeon 9600 XT. Interestingly, the picture is reversed when we get to 1600x1200. Then the midrange ATi card takes the characteristic performance dive and drops behind the rival NVIDIA card.