Games Benchmarks - OpenGL


Return to Castle Wolfenstein (RtCW)

For the first of the OpenGL games tests we'll look at RtCW, which is based on the popular Quake 3 engine.

RtCW (FPS) 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200
5800 Ultra 187.1 182.6 160.7 111.6 78.8
5900 Ultra 186.9 180.3 153.4 103.4 72.5
Diff from 5800 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200
FPS -0.2 -2.3 -7.3 -8.2 -6.3
% 0% -1% -5% -7% -8%

RtCW is a traditional fixed function texture title, and hence the performance is pretty much inline with clock speeds of the two boards, seeing as the 5800 is faster than the 5900. In this instance the extra bandwidth of the 5900 Ultra is not giving any extra performance as the title is fill-rate limited rather than bandwidth limited.

In this case the average FPS performance is above 100 up to 1280x1024 and over 60 FPS at 1600x1200.

5900 Ultra 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200
Normal 186.9 180.3 153.4 103.4 72.5
8x AF 183.8 169.8 136.4 91.5 65.5
4XFSAA 177.8 170.4 140.4 94.0 66.4
8x AF + 4X FSAA 173.0 157.7 121.2 81.6 59.2
% Difference from Normal 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200
8x AF -2% -6% -11% -12% -10%
4XFSAA -5% -5% -8% -9% -8%
8x AF + 4X FSAA -7% -13% -21% -21% -18%

With 8x AF there is only a maximum performance penalty of 12%, with the performance staying well above 100 FPS at 1024x768 and over 60 FPS at 1600x1200. Enabling 4X FSAA also take quite a light performance hit, no doubt aided by the 256-bit memory bus, with the maximum performance penalty of 9%. Utilising both 4X FSAA and 8x AF in this instance incurs a cumulative performance penalty, with a maximum hit of 21%.