Quake 4 - Very High Res


Being based on the Doom 3 engine, Quake 4 is probably the least pixel shader limited of the titles that we're testing at higher resolutions.

Quake 4 Performance

  786432  1310720  1920000  3145728  4096000 
X1900 XTX  103.3  160.8  215.8  265.2  290 
X1900 XT  102.3  158.1  208.9  251.7  274.4 
X1800 XT  98.9  144.7  183  206.7  217.1 
X1900 XF  101.3  168.6  249.2  388.2  465.7 
X1800 XF  101.1  168.2  241  348.9  400.2 

pixels x fps - Mpixels per second

Quake 4 Percentage difference

  1024x768  1280x1024  1600x1200  2048x1536  2560x1600 
X1900 XTX to X1900 XT  1.0%  1.70%  3.30%  5.40%  5.70% 
X1900 XTX to X1800 XT  4.50%  11.10%  17.90%  28.30%  33.60% 
X1900 XF to X1800 XF  0.20%  0.20%  3.40%  11.30%  16.40% 

percentage

Quake 4 Crossfire Increase

  1024x768  1280x1024  1600x1200  2048x1536  2560x1600 
X1900  -2.0%  4.80%  15.50%  46.40%  60.60% 
X1800  2.30%  16.20%  31.70%  68.80%  84.30% 

percentage

Although the boards, especially the Crossfire platforms, are still showing either a host and/or CPU and/or vertex limitation to a certain extent, the performance difference between the X1900 XTX and X1800 XTX does open out fairly significantly growing from 18% at 1600x1200 to 34% at 2560x1600, with the average rendering performance of the XTX at this high resolution certainly being in the playable range. Although the Crossfire boards are still showing some limitation not raster function related, because the single boards are more fill-rate limited, the gains are for Crossfire even greater, stretching from 16% at 1600x1200 to 61% at 2560x1600 for the X1900 Crossfire, with the average rendering performance exceeding 100 FPS (or a single X1900 XTX at 1600x1200!).

Quake 4 4xAA 8xAF Performance

  786432  1310720  1920000  3145728  4096000 
X1900 XTX  95.1  134.6  165.7  211.1  227.3 
X1900 XT  92.5  128.5  157.1  200.4  215.4 
X1800 XT  86.4  114.8  138  166.1  169.6 
X1900 XF  101.1  167.4  224.4  346.3  392 
X1800 XF  101.4  163.6  215.2  293.8  310.9 

pixels x fps - Mpixels per second

Quake 4 4xAA 8xAF Percentage difference

  1024x768  1280x1024  1600x1200  2048x1536  2560x1600 
X1900 XTX to X1900 XT  2.80%  4.80%  5.50%  5.30%  5.50% 
X1900 XTX to X1800 XT  10.10%  17.20%  20.0%  27.10%  34.10% 
X1900 XF to X1800 XF  -0.20%  2.30%  4.30%  17.90%  26.10% 

percentage

Quake 4 4xAA 8xAF Crossfire Increase

  1024x768  1280x1024  1600x1200  2048x1536  2560x1600 
X1900  6.40%  24.30%  35.50%  64.10%  72.40% 
X1800  17.40%  42.50%  55.90%  76.90%  83.30% 

percentage

With 4x FSAA and 8x AF enabled the relative performance differences between the single boards are fairy similar as with normal rendering, although the actual performances are lower. At the maximum resolutions of 2560x1600 the average rendering performance of the X1900 XTX is a little under 60 FPS, but that enables it to open a performance gap from the X1800 XT to 34%, as opposed to 20% at lower 1600x1200. The X1900 XTX Crossfire edition has an average rendering performance a little shy of 100 FPS with these rendering options enabled.