HIS Radeon 9600SE ViVo Video Card

Game Tests:

UT2003 v2225:

For the
UT2003 test, we ran the built in Asbestos Botmatch benchmark. We set the
AA and AF settings through the driver. The graph shows the results after
using FRAPS to capture the FPS ever second over the course of the benchmark.
The chart shows the Average FPS from the built in benchmark.

For the
graphed comparison, we chose to run the 9600SE at the best quality settings
it could handle without sacrificing game playability. So for UT2003, all
we had to do is drop the resolution to 1024×768 and the performance was
great!

Return to Castle Wolfenstein v1.41:

For the
RTCW test, we ran a custom Checkpoint Demo with the “/timedemo 1”
setting in the game’s console. We set the AA and AF settings through the
driver. The graph shows the results after using FRAPS to capture the FPS
every second over the course of the benchmark. The chart shows the Average
FPS from the timedemo results.

In RTCW,
we also just dropped the resolution but left 4xAA/8xAF and a more noticeable
performance hit was noticed than in UT2003. You can see that during the
benchmark, the FPS dropped below the 30FPS threshold of playability. So
4xAA/8xAF may be a little too much for the 9600SE in RTCW.

Halo v1.01:

For the
Halo test, we ran the built in timedemo benchmark by adding “-timedemo”
at the end of our shortcut. We left AA and AF disabled for this test due
to its graphic intensity at default settings. The graph shows the results
after using FRAPS to capture the FPS every second over the course of the
benchmark. The chart shows the Average FPS from the built in timedemo.

Halo
does not actually use real gameplay in the built-in test. It is because
of this that we left it at the default resolution of 1024×768 in order
to consistently show the performance difference between these cards. By
our results, it is obvious that one would drop the resolution to 800×600
or 640×480 when playing Halo with a 9600SE graphics card.

Call of Duty:

For the
COD test, we ran a custom demo created by ViperLair with the “/timedemo
1” setting in the games console. We set the AA and AF settings through
the driver. The graph shows the results after using FRAPS to capture the
FPS every second over the course of the benchmark. The chart shows the
Average FPS from the timedemo results.

Call
of Duty is the only game in our current test suite that we dropped the
resolution to 800×600 in order to show reliable playability. When looking
at the graph, you can tell that the 9600SE retains playable performance
at 800×600 and NoAA/NoAF.

Now on to IQ testing, Overclocking, and our Conclusion.