![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Tuesday , December 11, 2007
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTS OC 512MB
NVIDIA launching a new 65nm GeForce 8800 GTS specification today, this time with 128 streaming processors. We have a retail BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTS OC 512MB to look at today in Crysis, UT3, and COD 4 with in-depth gameplay evaluation.
Crysis
(DirectX 10)
We are using the full version copy of the most anticipated games of the year, Crysis. Crysis is a first person shooter that is set in 2019. What makes Crysis unique is the amazing destructible environment and the on the fly customizability of your character and your weapons. Then there is always the graphics quality that will bring even the top end video cards to their knees. We will be playing Crysis in the default APIs for our system, which launches automatically in DX10 mode with the 64-bit executable.
As you progress through Crysis the game becomes more graphically demanding; first the scenic vistas, then the weather effects, and finally the final boss all lead your optimized playable settings of the first few levels to become unplayable. Our run-through in the graphs below involves 10 minutes of gameplay in “Assault_Crysis” the Harbor map. This map includes the transition from night to day, tons of explosions, particles, physics, AI interaction and water.
Note that in the graphs, we have lowered our redline to 25 FPS for Crysis. This game is demanding, and low framerates are impossible to avoid, gameplay is also different in this game to where 25 FPS and up feels very playable (Very likely due to the efficient use of motion blur.). We will test the three video cards below at three different resolutions, to find the highest playable settings. Note that the down-spikes to 0 FPS in the graphs are due to the saved game points.
1920x1200
Only the GeForce 8800 GTX and BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTS OC 512MB video cards have the performance to possibly play at the widescreen resolution of 1920x1200 in this game. We found that if we set every in-game setting to “Medium” we could achieve an average of around 30 FPS in the game, so it definitely isn’t “flying high,” but it is still playable. Since both video cards here are playable at the exact same settings what we have is a perfect high resolution apples-to-apples test.
If you look at the graph, and framerate numbers, you will find the new BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTS OC 512MB video card trading blows with the GeForce 8800 GTX in performance. During the first half of the run-through the new GTS is somewhat faster, during the second half the GTX is somewhat faster. Overall framerates are very close though and we couldn’t actually tell any noticeable differences in performance as we were playing at this resolution between these two video cards. In this game, even on these high-end video cards, lowering the resolution will allow you to increase in-game quality settings.
1600x1200
At a more reasonable 1600x1200, we can bring in the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB into the mix for comparison. At 1600x1200 both the new BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTS OC 512MB and GeForce 8800 GTX were able to achieve the exact same in-game settings. We set everything at “Medium” but were able to keep Shaders Quality at “High” at this resolution. You could reverse that and turn everything else to “High” but Shaders Quality on “Medium.” However, there is a very large lighting difference in the game between “Medium” and “High” Shaders Quality. It is beneficial to the gameplay experience and image quality to keep Shaders Quality at “High” if at all possible.
The GeForce 8800 GT in comparison was playable with everything on “Medium”, including Shaders Quality. Therefore the new GTS is definitely faster than the GeForce 8800 GT, and very close in performance to the GeForce 8800 GTX at 1600x1200.
1280x1024
In Crysis, by lowering the resolution we can custom set in-game quality settings higher. As you saw at 1600x1200 we had to keep everything on “Medium” while putting Shaders Quality on “High.” If we drop to 1280x1024 we can now turn other in-game quality options on “High” as well. Look at the comparisons though; something interesting is happening with the new GTS, it is actually slightly slower than the GeForce 8800 GTX here concerning the Texture Quality setting which makes sense considering the crippled memory bandwidth with the 256-bit bus.
We attempted to set “High” Texture Quality on the BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTS OC 512MB, but when we did so we found performance to be slower than the GeForce 8800 GTX. It was slow enough that the game was unplayable with “High” Texture Quality on the BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTS OC 512MB. This is because of the narrower bus-width and smaller framebuffer capacity. As you can see every other setting matched the GeForce 8800 GTX. We were able to have Objects Quality, Physics Quality, Shaders Quality, Volumetric Effects Quality and Water Quality all at “High” at this resolution.
The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB video card was able to have “High” Texture Quality enabled, but notice we have Objects Quality and Volumetric Quality at “Medium” versus the other two cards at “High.” The GeForce 8800 GT was slower, so these settings had to be lowered to make the game playable. We did find with the BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTS OC 512MB that if you lowered these same settings then “High” Texture Quality was also playable, so it really comes down to your personal preferences with those settings.
Overall, compared to the older 90nm GTX, the new 65nm GTS is just slightly slower than the GTX due to the narrower bus-width and smaller framebuffer capacity when you crank the settings up in Crysis.