![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Monday , October 30, 2006
- Author:
- Mark Warner
- Editor:
- Brent Justice
- Google +1
Sapphire Radeon X1650 PRO
Sapphire Technology's RADEON X1650 PRO has come out swinging at an excellent price point. Can the X1650 PRO and Sapphire's reputation for quality deliver a knockout blow to NVIDIA's 7600 GS series?
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
(DirectX 9)
Oblivion is the next Elder Scrolls game and the unconnected sequel to Morrowind. It uses the multi-platform Gamebryo game engine. Oblivion features DirectX 9 shaders and Havok physics. The engine supports lush vegetation, soft shadows, and high dynamic range lighting (HDR). Oblivion also features SpeedTree for rendering trees.
For testing, we have chosen to do a manual run-through riding horseback from outside the Imperial City to Chorrol to Bruma. This run-through allows us to push the hardware as much as the game can. While this is an outdoor run-through, we do make sure to test indoor situations in our gameplay analysis as well. We have found that turning on the torch indoors with HDR lighting takes a big hit on performance in some situations. We make sure to test this scenario, and the posted configuration screenshots reflect the results of testing both indoor and outdoor scenarios.
In Oblivion, Sapphire's RADEON X1650 PRO and the NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS had identical configurations and extremely close framerates. Visibility was decent and framerates were acceptable, but overall image quality was just "OK". Without HDR, the outdoor areas of Oblivion tend to look and feel somewhat bland and washed out. Neither the Sapphire X1650 PRO nor the GeForce 7600 GS were able to enable HDR and maintain playability. The indoor, cave, and dungeon areas look better than the outdoor areas without HDR, but they still suffer some.
The GeForce 7600 GT, however, did allow us to use HDR. It was also strong enough to let us use much higher visibility settings, as well as allowing water ripples and reflections. High water settings are an important aspect of image quality in Oblivion, because the water looks somewhat lifeless without ripples and reflections.
Image Quality
The first screenshot depicts our hero's prison cell, in the beginning of the game. As you can see, there is practically no difference between the Radeon X1650 Pro and GeForce 7600 GS. On the right of each side, there is a slight lighting difference, but that is from the flickering of the torch.
The second screenshot is from the Jerall Mountain region, near the Nord city of Bruma. The most noticeable part of that screenshot is the HDR difference. The edges of the large rock on the left side are somewhat obscured by the HDR effect, but are very noticeable without HDR. Some objects look less "blocky" with the HDR effect enabled.
The third screenshot clearly shows the difference that HDR and Water reflections can make on image quality in Oblivion. On the left, using the Sapphire RADEON X1650 PRO, the water looks nice but lifeless. On the right, using the NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT, the water looks excellent and dynamic.