Game Benchmarks

Max Payne

For the first game benchmark we'll use the DirectX title, Max Payne.




FPS 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200
1.0.0.233 120.7 107.9 81.2 54.0 38.2
1.2.0.42 126.3 115.4 85.8 55.5 38.9
 
Difference 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200
FPS 5.6 7.5 4.6 1.5 0.7
% 5% 7% 6% 3% 2%

Looking at the two sets of drivers here we can see that Matrox do appear to have made some small gains in performance since the earlier release, with at best a 7% increase in low resolution, with that trailing down to 2% at high resolution where things are a little more fill-rate limited.

From the fill-rate graph we can see that Parhelia is becoming more fill-rate limited by 1024x768 and performance is dropping off at this point. At 1024x768 the performance is well above 60 FPS on average, with it still remaining above 30 FPS at 1600x1200.




1.2.0.42 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200
Normal 126.3 115.4 85.8 55.5 38.9
2X Aniso 126.3 105.0 75.8 49.0 34.8
16X FAA 112.6 78.6 57.0 37.6 27.1
2X Aniso + 16X FAA 104.7 72.7 52.3 34.8 24.8
 
% Difference 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200
2X Aniso 0% -9% -12% -12% -10%
16X FAA -11% -32% -34% -32% -30%
2X Aniso + 16X FAA -17% -37% -39% -37% -36%

Here we can see that enabling 2X Anisotropic filtering is only accounting for at worst a 12% performance decrease, though 2X Anisotropic filtering isn't a huge degree for a high end board these days. Performance still remains well above 60 FPS at 1024x768 and over 30 FPS at 1600x1200.

Enabling FAA accounts for a larger performance impact, with at worst 34% reduction. At 1024x768 the performance has dropped a little shy of 60 FPS and under 30 FPS at 1600x1200.

Using both FAA and Anisotropic filtering together accounts for a further performance degradation, as we'd expect, but in this case it does not appear to be a cumulative effect and the two are complementing each other a little.