Performance Comparison--Dynamic Illumination Of Objects
We performed the second test with maximum graphics quality and illumination in the DirectX 9 mode. Once the DirectX 10 limitations are gone, the frame rate shoots up and reaches the CPU limit at the 1280 resolution, which is supposed to be between 94 and 97 fps.
Without anti-aliasing, all the test cards are fast enough. The trouble starts when anti-aliasing is applied. The combination of current graphic drivers and the game not allowing filtering in the DirectX 9 mode means the settings in the Stalker graphics menu don’t show any effect.
With Nvidia you can force the activation of anti-aliasing with the override function in the graphics driver. But with AMD cards, Stalker does not react to driver settings, which means we couldn’t run any tests with anti-aliasing. The GeForce 8800 GTS 512 and 9800 GTX both have the G92 graphics chip and 512 MB of graphics memory. At 1280x1024 pixels and 4xAA you can reach playable values, but at higher resolutions the frame rate drops significantly.
The weaker GeForce 9600 GT performs better, which might be due to the 1024 MB of graphics memory. Either way, it will be exciting to see what the frame rate looks like after future driver optimizations — 1 GB cards used to have only slight advantages, and Stalker CS would be a unique exception. Currently, only the GTX 260 and GTX 280 run really smoothly because they have enough power, and anti-aliasing can be forced through the Nvidia graphics driver.
