Date:
Monday , June 15, 2009
Author:
Mark Warner
Editor:
Brent Justice
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Demigod Gameplay Performance and IQ

Demigod arrived ahead of schedule amid uproarious approval of its graphical splendor and downcast horror of its networking abomination. Focusing in on its graphical splendor, we will find out which video card best fits your needs in this game, testing no less than seven cards in performance and image quality.

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Test System Setup

For our test system platform we are using an ASUS Blitz Extreme motherboard with an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 processor at 3.66GHz, and 4GB of OCZ Platinum series DDR3-1600. For the power supply, we will be using a CoolerMaster Real Power Pro 1250W.

While it might be a bit "overkill," we use the 3.6GHz overclocked quad-core processor in an attempt to keep from putting our evaluation into a position of being CPU limited. Obviously, we make every effort to not use CPU limited games for video card evaluations, but the 3.6GHz processor seems to put many peoples’ minds at ease when it comes to that subject.

For this video card evaluation of performance in Demigod, we will be using Microsoft Windows 7 RC1, build 7100 x64. All evaluations from here on out will be using the Win7 RC x64 release until final build is in retail.

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Driver Setup

With both the NVIDIA and AMD video cards we will be using the latest drivers. For the NVIDIA products we will be using the ForceWare 186.06 BETA driver. For the AMD products, we will be using the Catalyst 9.5 WHQL driver.

Evaluation Method

We evaluate what each video card configuration can supply us in terms of a playable gaming experience while supplying the best culmination of resolution and "eye candy" graphical settings. We focus on quality and immersion of the gameplay experience rather than how many frames per second the card can get in a canned benchmark or prerecorded timedemo situation that often do not represent real gameplay like you would experience at home. Then we will follow with apples-to-apples testing based on real gameplay as well.