Quake 4


Quake 4 takes the Doom 3 engine and advances it a little further. Doom 3's primary rendering principles still apply, though, with the unified lighting model playing a heavy role. Quake 4 does appear to have higher geometry levels than Doom 3, leaning on the geometry processing capabilities of a system a little more.

Quake 4

  307200  480000  786432  1310720  1920000 
X1900 XTX  40.4  62.2  103.3  160.8  215.8 
X1900 XT  40.5  62.7  102.3  158.1  208.9 
X1800 XT  40.1  62.6  98.9  144.7  183 
X850 XT PE  36.6  58.4  81  102.6  120.6 
X1900 XF  39.6  61.9  101.3  168.6  249.2 
X1800 XF  39.6  61.9  101.1  168.2  241 

pixels x fps - Mpixels per second

Quake 4 Performance Diff

  640x480  800x600  1024x768  1280x1024  1600x1200 
X1900 XTX to X1900 XT  -0.30%  -0.80%  1.0%  1.70%  3.30% 
X1900 XTX to X1800 XT  0.80%  -0.60%  4.50%  11.10%  17.90% 
X1900 XTX to X850 XT PE  10.40%  6.50%  27.60%  56.70%  79.0% 
X1900 XF to X1800 XF  0.10%  0.0%  0.20%  0.20%  3.40% 

Quake 4 Crossfire Increase

  640x480  800x600  1024x768  1280x1024  1600x1200 
X1900  -1.90%  -0.50%  -2.0%  4.80%  15.50% 
X1800  -1.20%  -1.20%  2.30%  16.20%  31.70% 

percentage

Despite Quake 4 using the Doom 3 engine, hence probably having a similar shader utilisation, the performance difference between the X1900 XTX and X1800 XT is actually a little greater at these settings than was the case for Doom 3, with the X1900 having an 18% performance advantage at 1600x1200. Despite this the performance are still quite CPU bound across this full range of resolutions here, hence the Crossfire gains are not that great without any extra IQ features enabled.

Quake 4 4xAA 8xAF

  307200  480000  786432  1310720  1920000 
X1900 XTX  40  60.2  95.1  134.6  165.7 
X1900 XT  37  59.7  92.5  128.5  157.1 
X1800 XT  39.4  57.5  86.4  114.8  138 
X850 XT PE  33.1  41.8  55.7  70.1  81.4 
X1900 XF  39.1  58.5  101.1  167.4  224.4 
X1800 XF  39.5  55.7  101.4  163.6  215.2 

pixels x fps - Mpixels per second

Quake 4 4xAA 8xAF Performance Diff

  640x480  800x600  1024x768  1280x1024  1600x1200 
X1900 XTX to X1900 XT  8.20%  1.0%  2.80%  4.80%  5.50% 
X1900 XTX to X1800 XT  1.50%  4.80%  10.10%  17.20%  20.0% 
X1900 XTX to X850 XT PE  21.0%  44.30%  70.80%  92.0%  103.50% 
X1900 XF to X1800 XF  -0.90%  5.10%  -0.20%  2.30%  4.30% 

Quake 4 4xAA 8xAF Crossfire Increase

  640x480  800x600  1024x768  1280x1024  1600x1200 
X1900  -2.20%  -2.90%  6.40%  24.30%  35.50% 
X1800  0.20%  -3.10%  17.40%  42.50%  55.90% 

percentage

With 4x FSAA and 8x AF enabled the performance gap actually opens out a little more between the X1900 and X1800 despite the higher demands FSAA and AF have on bandwidth and texturing, but thats likely due to the normal rendering case being CPU limited and constraining the potential difference in that situation.

Quake 4 6xAA 16xAF

  307200  480000  786432  1310720  1920000 
X1900 XTX  39.3  59.1  90.8  124  150.1 
X1900 XT  39.5  57.6  87.8  118  142.7 
X1800 XT  38.4  55.2  81.6  106.3  127.1 
X850 XT PE  29.2  36.3  48.4  58.7  63.2 
X1900 XF  39.6  56.8  101.4  165.5  228.5 
X1800 XF  38.7  53.8  99.7  158.7  206.2 

pixels x fps - Mpixels per second

Quake 4 6xAA 16xAF Performance Diff

  640x480  800x600  1024x768  1280x1024  1600x1200 
X1900 XTX to X1900 XT  -0.50%  2.70%  3.50%  5.10%  5.20% 
X1900 XTX to X1800 XT  2.20%  7.10%  11.30%  16.60%  18.10% 
X1900 XTX to X850 XT PE  34.50%  62.70%  87.80%  111.20%  137.70% 
X1900 XF to X1800 XF  2.10%  5.50%  1.70%  4.30%  10.80% 

Quake 4 6xAA 16xAF Crossfire Increase

  640x480  800x600  1024x768  1280x1024  1600x1200 
X1900  0.70%  -4.0%  11.60%  33.50%  52.20% 
X1800  0.80%  -2.50%  22.20%  49.30%  62.20% 

percentage

With 6x FSAA and 8x AF enabled the performance gap between the X1900 XTX and X1800 XT is about 18% at 1600x1200 and the average rendering performance of the XTX is well in excess of 60 FPS here. As the performances of the single boards are a little more graphics limited Crossfire shows gains over over 52% at 1600x1200 for the X1900, with both Crossfire platforms rendering above an average of 100 FPS at 1600x1200.