Games Benchmarks - Doom 3 (OpenGL)
Doom 3 is an OpenGL game that can take advantage of the latest DirectX class hardware with the use of pixel shaders for the special effects and a faster shadow volume generation implementation. Its shadow solution requires plenty of stencil fill-rate and also taxing is the interaction shader that is run once for every light/surface interaction.
| Doom 3 (FPS) | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 |
| X850 XT PE | 71.3 | 71.1 | 71.6 | 68.5 |
| 9800 PRO | 63.2 | 57.9 | 46.7 | 32.7 |
| X850 XT PE % Difference to: | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 |
| 9800 PRO | 12.8% | 22.8% | 53.3% | 109.5% |
Doom 3’s results mirror Battlefield’s where even without AA, the X850 ceases to be CPU bound at 1280x1024 whilst the Radeon 9800 shows a moderate difference in performance even at 640x480. It's interesting that with each resolution rung the X850 roughly doubles its lead on the 9800 PRO.
| Doom 3, 4x AA + 8x AF (FPS) | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 |
| X850 XT PE | 69.5 | 68.7 | 64.5 | 52.5 |
| 9800 PRO | 47.7 | 36.5 | 27 | 17.8 |
| X850 XT PE % Difference to: | 640x480 | 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1280x1024 |
| 9800 PRO | 45.7% | 88.2% | 138.9% | 194.9% |
Although FSAA is not terribly useful for Doom 3 it still draws on considerable fill rate. The 9800 PRO virtually plateaus and the game is now only barely playable at 800x600 whereas the X850 more or less matches the CPU limit ceiling until 1280x1024 is employed all the while maintaining a completely playable frame rate; at the last resolution rung tested it is nearly four times faster than its older brother.
Overall, like Battlefield 2, this game pushes video cards first and foremost and any upgrade from a high-end 9800 series is more than welcome. Here also, the X850 more than pays for itself in frame rate.
