CONTENTS

1. Test results: Quake3 ARENA
2. Test results: Serious Sam: The Second Encounter
3. Test results: Return to Castle Wolfenstein
4. Test results: Code Creatures DEMO
5. Test results: Unreal Tournament 2003
6. Test results: AquaMark3
7. Test results: RightMark 3D
8. Test results: Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness
9. Test results: Half-Life2 (Beta)
10. Test results: HALO
11. Test results: Unreal II
12. Summary on the test results
13. 3D quality: anisotropic, bilinear and trilinear filtering
14. 3D quality in general
15. Conclusion

3D graphics, game tests

For estimation of the performance in 3D games we used: 

• Return to Castle Wolfenstein (MultiPlayer) (id Software/Activision) - OpenGL, multitexturing, Checkpoint-demo, test settings - maximum, S3TC OFF, the configurations can be downloaded from here

 
• Serious Sam: The Second Encounter v.1.05 (Croteam/GodGames) - OpenGL, multitexturing, Grand Cathedral demo, test settings: quality, S3TC OFF 

 
• Quake3 Arena v.1.17 (id Software/Activision) - OpenGL, multitexturing, Quaver, test settings - maximum: detailing level - High, texture detailing level - #4, S3TC OFF, smoothness of curves is much increased through variables r_subdivisions "1" and r_lodCurveError "30000" (at default r_lodCurveError is 250 !), the configurations can be downloaded from here

 
• Unreal Tournament 2003 v.2225 (Digital Extreme/Epic Games) - Direct3D, Vertex Shaders, Hardware T&L, Dot3, cube texturing, default quality 

 
• Code Creatures Benchmark Pro (CodeCult) test demonstrates operation of cards in the DirectX 8.1, Shaders, HW T&L. 
• Unreal II: The Awakening (Legend Ent./Epic Games) - Direct3D, Vertex Shaders, Hardware T&L, Dot3, cube texturing, default quality
• RightMark 3D v.0.4  (one of the game scenes) - DirectX 8.1, Dot3, cube texturing, shadow buffers, vertex and pixel shaders (1.1, 1.4). 

• Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness v.49 (Core Design/Eldos Software) - DirectX 9.0, three recorded demo. Highest quality, Depth of Fields PS20 off. Test settings are here.

 
• HALO: Combat Evolved (Microsoft) - Direct3D, Vertex/Pixel Shaders 1.1/2.0, Hardware T&L, highest quality

 
• Half-Life2 (Valve/Sierra) - DirectX 9.0, two different recorded demo (ixbt07 and coast). Tests carried out with anisotropy enabled, and with AA and anisotropy enabled.

 

If you need the demo benchmarks please email me. 

Quake3 Arena, Quaver

Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, Grand Cathedral

Return to Castle Wolfenstein (Multiplayer), Checkpoint

Code Creatures

Unreal Tournament 2003

AquaMark3

RightMark 3D

TR:AoD, paris5_4

Half-Life2 (beta), ixbt0703

HALO

Unreal II

Summary on the test results

Obviously, XGI's card looks very poor! It falls behind even middle-end FX 5700 Ultra and RADEON 9600 XT, especially in shader applications.

Even without renaming EXE files of the games it's clear that there are optimizations and cheats for certain applications, since in Splinter Cell Volari got a second wind and even wins somewhere. However, the rendering quality... but we will speak a bit later about it. 

3D graphics quality

Before we estimate general rendering quality let's see how anisotropy, bilinear and trilinear filtering affect it. 

ANISOTROPIC, TRILINEAR and BILINEAR FILTERING

Quality is estimated in the RightMark3D, in Pixel Filling test.

Remember that Volari supports only 4x degree of the anisotropic filtering.