Looking Back Pt. 3: The 6800 Ultra, ForceWare, and the Future
by Ryan Smith on May 11, 2006 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Wildcard: Console Ports
One area of increasing importance lately in gaming is the relationship between PC games and consoles games. Once greatly separated in abilities and game types, the PC and the console have been coming together in recent years with a number of titles being published for both the PC and one or more consoles. Since this influences game design towards a different direction than PC-centric design, we've rounded up 4 games from our usual test sequence that are all console ports, to see if these console influences offer anything substantially different from the normal ebb & flow of game performance.Because these games aren't designed with the PC as the primary platform, benchmarking these games is a more limited and difficult affair than our other games. As such, we are only going to list the performance of the initial working driver and the latest driver for each game.
Serious Sam 2
First off is Serious Sam 2, Croteam's sequel to their immensely popular run and gun FPS. Unlike its predecessor which was first a PC game and then poorly ported to a console, this title was simultaneously developed for both the Xbox and the PC, which means it shows some of those aforementioned console influences.
| Serious Sam 2 | ||
| 1024x768 | 0xAA | 4xAA |
| ForceWare 78.01 | 82.2 | 56.9 |
| ForceWare 84.21 | 83.7 | 58 |
| Catalyst 5.09 | 56.3 | 23.3 |
| Catalyst 6.04 | 72.7 | 41 |
Like most games designed with a console in mind, Serious Sam 2 while still a graphically impressive title is not terribly hard on our GPUs. However, looking at the ATI results, the performance improvement is very eye-catching, though it also highlights the initial disappointing performance. With NVIDIA providing the underpinnings of the original Xbox, it's hard to tell if this is a case where they have a natural advantage or if ATI simply was unlucky with the game initially, but at any rate it reinforces the importance of the impact of new drivers on freshly-released games.
The Chronicles of Riddick
Here is another game with roots originally in a console game, and in fact it was originally only a console game. However, with the PC version released some 6 months after the Xbox version, the Developers Cut offers enough differences from other titles that were simultaneously developed that it can stand apart.
| The Chronicles of Riddick | ||
| 1280x1024 | 0xAA | 4xAA |
| ForceWare 66.93 | 36.83 | 21.26 |
| ForceWare 84.21 | 37.6 | 21.5 |
| Catalyst 4.11 | 20.11 | 9.11 |
| Catalyst 6.04 | 23.22 | 10.88 |
In spite of the time difference between releases and the more PC-focused nature of the resulting game, we see an interesting pattern similar to what happened in Serious Sam 2. NVIDIA picks up nothing, while ATI picks up over 10% in order to partially close a fairly wide gap. This could be another case where performance favors NVIDIA due to the Xbox, in which case NVIDIA may be in for a rude awakening in the near future as more Xbox360 titles make the transition to the PC. (Xbox360 uses an ATI graphics chip, whereas the original Xbox used an NVIDIA graphics chip.) Of course, with PS3 also using NVIDIA hardware, it could be that Xbox360 ports will run better on ATI while PS3 ports will run better on NVIDIA; that's something we'll watch for over the coming year(s).
Need For Speed: Underground 2
Moving away from Xbox-only titles, Need For Speed: Underground 2 differs in that it was created for multiple consoles instead of being an Xbox exclusive. With a focus on vehicular mayhem, NFS offers a nice contrast to our other games. Here, a super high frame rate isn't quite as important as in FPS games, since fast changes in direction aren't quite as frequent. It will also be interesting to see how a "sim" compares to the more common FPS benchmarks.
| Need For Speed: Underground 2 | ||
| 1024x768 | 0xAA | 4xAA |
| ForceWare 66.93 | 62 | 49 |
| ForceWare 84.21 | 62 | 49 |
| Catalyst 4.11 | 58 | 38 |
| Catalyst 6.04 | 59 | 39 |
As the only multi-platform console port on our list of games, it's very notable that NVIDIA does not have a massive performance lead at any point here, nor does ATI need to close any large gaps. While the framerate hovers around 60 FPS, the title is not locked at 60hz internally, and rather this is only an odd coincidence. Although the lack of a performance increase is a bit disappointing, the implications of the data aren't. As PC games become increasingly tied to console games, who's under the hood of the primary console may be having a fairly large impact when it comes to PC performance.
Final Fantasy XI
Rounding up our look at console games, we take a look at Square-Enix's MMORPG, originally released for the Playstation 2. With an emphasis on the number of characters in a scene over individual character detail and environmental detail, FFXI can be fairly punishing even with it's now dated graphics.
| Final Fantasy XI | |
| 1024x768 | 0xAA |
| ForceWare 60.72 | 6472 |
| ForceWare 84.21 | 6562 |
| Catalyst 4.05 | 6336 |
| Catalyst 6.04 | 6212 |
As neither ATI nor NVIDIA supply the graphics underpinnings of the PS2, it's not surprising to see both start out on equal footing. In fact, neither card deviates much from their initial score, indicating that the limiting factor is not the GPU in the first place, and hence there's little that either company can do to improve performance. However as ATI and NVIDIA will be supplying the GPUs in all 3 next-generation consoles, these scenarios are likely to be few and far between in the near future.
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Schugy - Thursday, May 11, 2006 - link
nVIDIA has done quite a good job with linux drivers. It's simple to run this script and start your favourite game afterwards. nVIDIA's reward will be that I`ll buy a GF7800GT for AGP when it comes out. I wonder why the last anandtech linux story is more than 10 months old.KickusAssius - Sunday, May 14, 2006 - link
I have owned the 9000, 9500 PRO and 9700 PRO and I just hate ATI's drivers. I had problems with at least half of the games I played. Gradually they fixed certain problems, but other problems were never resolved even after contacting ATI directly via email and I was not the only one.Prior to this, I owned a Geforce 256 and Geforce 4 MX and Nvidia's drivers were nothing spectacular, but they always worked.
Now, I have owned the 6800GT, and the 7800GTX and the drivers have been excellent for a long time now. The only problems I ever had were in CSS, but Nvidia fixed that problem relatively quickly. Also, I have never had a system crash as a result of Nvidia drivers, but several times this happened with my 9700 PRO, (still loved the card though especially when drivers got better). I think that now both sides have excellent drivers, though ATI's control panel is simply annoying.
johnsonx - Thursday, May 11, 2006 - link
The image for Doom3 with the 60.72 driver can't be right; in the text you say there are major rendering issues with th 60.72 driver, but both images (normal and 'moused-over') look fine to me; the image presented as the 60.72 image looks identical to the 61.76 image presented below it.ozzimark - Thursday, May 11, 2006 - link
the pictures are too small for me to really even see anythingjohnsonx - Thursday, May 11, 2006 - link
oh, nevermind, i see it nowJarredWalton - Thursday, May 11, 2006 - link
The rendering error isn't "major" -- that's why we kept the 60.72 results in the graph. You could certainly play the game with the 60.72 drivers and never realized there was a "problem". For anyone else trying to find the anomaly, look for the vertical lines right in the center of the screenshot.synque - Thursday, May 11, 2006 - link
I think the conclusion the article draws is completely meaningless. Nothing can be said about NVIDIA because they either failed to improve the drivers, or the drivers were close to "optimal" from the start.One could speculate that the ATI drivers weren't optimal because they could be improved. But even that'd be guessing, because the driver team most likely optimizes for popular games after they are released (which could lead to special optimizations).
So I know exactly as much as I knew before reading the article. Weird.
z3R0C00L - Thursday, May 11, 2006 - link
Umm not true,You forget that the x8x0 line are essentially built on an improved R300 design. They're not an all new part. This means ATi have gradually worked to improve there drivers. They were optimal to begin with since they're essentially the same driver SDK that reaches to the time of the 9700 Pro.
I have a feeling that if a 9800 Pro were tested you'd see the same improvements in non video card bottlenecked situations.
This proves that the Catalyst driver team is superior to the Forceware driver team. But most of us have known this since Catalyst 3.0. Heck even Microsoft has stated this as well as 3rd party driver analysts. ATi's card have less issues then nVIDIA cards and carry with them less issues not fixed from previous releases. There's a simple way of checking this.. read the Driver Release notes from both ATi and nVIDIA.. you'll notice FAR more unresolved issues with nVIDIA drivers then ATi drivers. Many of them major issues.
One thing nVIDIA is better at, and this is a fact, is supporting older hardware (GeForce2,3,4). ATi's 8500 support is lackluster at best. I can't remember the last time a driver release focused on fixing issues that still exist since Catalyst 3.0 on the 8500 series.
Redofrac - Thursday, May 11, 2006 - link
Since Catalyst 3.0? I'm going to have to disagree with that.From firsthand experience owning a 9700 Pro with the earlier catalysts, I have to say that they were crap. Having to try multiple releases of the driver to find one that was actually stable isn't quite what I'd use for the mark of a good driver team. Every once in a while they'd manage to get out a stable release, and I'd stick with that one until the next, lest random games start crashing on me or glitching.
I can't speak for ATI's current drivers, which I'll assume are much better (dealing with drivers for a 9700 somewhat turned me away from ATI) but I find it a bit hard to say that 3.0 drivers were stable with a straight face.
LoneWolf15 - Friday, May 12, 2006 - link
And I owned a Radeon 9700(non-pro) and had no problems at all; in fact, I'd daresay it's the best card I've ever owned in terms of performance/stability/longevity. But, one experience does not equal all.I'm not debating your experience, but what if you had a borderline power supply at the time, for example? That could easily cause some issues.
Neither of us is a representative example of how the Radeon 95xx/97xx cards worked by ourselves. By and large though, the enthusiast community had very few issues with this series of cards.