Halo

With Halo in stores today, we have welcomed it with open arms into our testing suite. The packaged benchmark that comes with the game is made up of all the cut scenes between levels (which are fairly graphics intensive). We ran the benchmark at 1024x768 @ 75Hz , which provided plenty of work for all our cards. We opted to simply include average framerate for this article, but there are some really interesting features of this benchmark (like percentage of time above a certain frame rate) that we may revisit later.

This benchmark clearly lets the 9800XT stretch its legs a little and pull away from the pack Of course, 51 fps is not really what you want to see for a first person shooter on the PC. We also don't get the benefit of AA (and therefore we don't get to see if the NVIDIA chips could make up some slack via their memory bandwidth), as AA is not currently supported in Halo.

Final Fantasy XI Homeworld 2
Comments Locked

263 Comments

View All Comments

  • Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link

    I'd like to see higher resolutions being used. This would (partially) remove the CPU from the equation, if we're testing video cards. 1024x768 may not be enough of a test nowadays.
  • Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link

    Does ANYONE read the first few pages of the review?

    I really like the new format. I have a limited amount of time to read this stuff so I'm glad it's coming in bite size pieces.

    I can't wait for the companion reviews that cover image quality etc. Until then, I'm satisfied that I have the salient points.
  • Anonymous User - Tuesday, October 7, 2003 - link

    How about adding Battlefield 1942 to the test suite?
  • Anonymous User - Monday, October 6, 2003 - link

    I would like to see Nascar Racing 2003 Season (Sierra/Papyrus) and Nascar Thunder 2004 (EA) added to the list for future testing; esp. NR2003.

    Thanks
  • Anonymous User - Monday, October 6, 2003 - link

    why are idiots allowed to post?
  • Anonymous User - Monday, October 6, 2003 - link

    What surprises me is that NVIDIA let Anandtech use and benchmark a card that hasn't been even announced yet. I haven't seen any reviews or previews for this card anywhere, and it's not even listed on NVIDIA's site! It's a bad time to own a NVIDIA card, so I guess I'll get rid of mine real soon.
  • assemblage - Monday, October 6, 2003 - link

    Star Wars Galaxies and Everquest. It would be nice if those games were benchmarked.
  • Anonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link

    Add Rise of Nations, it needs alot of power at late game & after every wonder is built.
  • Anonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link

    You know, it may be a bit overkill, but wouldn't it be a good idea to test video cards on a 8x846 opteron system, so that none of the tests is anywhere near cpu-limited?
  • Anonymous User - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link

    Nah, Bigshit under whatever handle is an idiot. Most of the rest are just naive. I think it's fair to criticise this review in several areas - e.g. the constant use of 1024x768 - but give 'em a chance to get it right before you start the accusations.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now