Our Half-Life 2 benchmark consists of a timedemo we recorded in the canals level (map d1_canals06). In this timedemo Gordon is in a boat and emerges from an enclosed area into a canal. He maneuvers through several obstacles and eventually comes across some enemies. Some Combine dropships fly by overhead and a couple of Combine soldiers on the ground fire their weapons. There is a lot of water in this scene.
All of the in-game graphical settings were set to high. The "Reflections" drop down menu was set to "Reflect All. HDR was left enabled although our demo map doesn't support it. Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering were controlled through a batch file which changes the in-game settings. After the batch has finished running, the average frames per second for each test is output to a file. For each test, the timedemo was run three times and the results were averaged.
The batch file was also run with the -nosound option to gauge the performance impact of using the onboard sound for audio processing. As with the standard test, each settings combination was run three times and the score averaged.
Half-Life 2 @ 1024 x 768 (With Sound) (Show All Graphs)(Collapse Graphs)
No AA / No AF
2x AA / 4x AF
4x AA / 8x AF
ECS KN1 SLI Extreme
BFG nForce4 Ultra
85
83
0
FPS
120
No AA / No AF
2x AA / 4x AF
4x AA / 8x AF
ECS KN1 SLI Extreme
BFG nForce4 Ultra
85
83
0
FPS
120
No AA / No AF
2x AA / 4x AF
4x AA / 8x AF
ECS KN1 SLI Extreme
BFG nForce4 Ultra
83
81
0
FPS
120
Half-Life 2 @ 1024 x 768 (No Sound) (Show All Graphs)(Collapse Graphs)
No AA / No AF
2x AA / 4x AF
4x AA / 8x AF
ECS KN1 SLI Extreme
BFG nForce4 Ultra
96
94
0
FPS
120
No AA / No AF
2x AA / 4x AF
4x AA / 8x AF
ECS KN1 SLI Extreme
BFG nForce4 Ultra
94
92
0
FPS
120
No AA / No AF
2x AA / 4x AF
4x AA / 8x AF
ECS KN1 SLI Extreme
BFG nForce4 Ultra
92
89
0
FPS
120
Half-Life 2 @ 1600 x 1200 (With Sound) (Show All Graphs)(Collapse Graphs)
No AA / No AF
2x AA / 4x AF
4x AA / 8x AF
ECS KN1 SLI Extreme
BFG nForce4 Ultra
82
80
0
FPS
120
No AA / No AF
2x AA / 4x AF
4x AA / 8x AF
ECS KN1 SLI Extreme
BFG nForce4 Ultra
75
73
0
FPS
120
No AA / No AF
2x AA / 4x AF
4x AA / 8x AF
ECS KN1 SLI Extreme
BFG nForce4 Ultra
69
67
0
FPS
120
Half-Life 2 @ 1600 x 1200 (No Sound) (Show All Graphs)(Collapse Graphs)
No AA / No AF
2x AA / 4x AF
4x AA / 8x AF
ECS KN1 SLI Extreme
BFG nForce4 Ultra
90
87
0
FPS
120
No AA / No AF
2x AA / 4x AF
4x AA / 8x AF
ECS KN1 SLI Extreme
BFG nForce4 Ultra
79
77
0
FPS
120
No AA / No AF
2x AA / 4x AF
4x AA / 8x AF
ECS KN1 SLI Extreme
BFG nForce4 Ultra
72
70
0
FPS
120
The nForce4 Ultra is always just a couple frames behind the ECS in all resolutions and video modes. Both boards get a nice jump in framerate when the -nosound option is used.
Doom 3
Doom 3 offers the ability to record and play back demos through the in-game console. We recorded a demo in the Delta1 level, mainly in the reactor core area. The demo includes open spaces with catwalks as well as narrow passageways, dark corridors and plenty of baddies for the fraggin'!
We used a batch file to run our recorded demo as a time-demo and to specify in-game resolution, anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing settings. For each combination of resolution, AF and AA, the time-demo was run three times and the results were averaged.
Doom 3 @ 1024 x 768 (Show All Graphs)(Collapse Graphs)
No AA / No AF
2x AA / 4x AF
4x AA / 8x AF
ECS KN1 SLI Extreme
BFG nForce4 Ultra
129
121
0
FPS
150
No AA / No AF
2x AA / 4x AF
4x AA / 8x AF
ECS KN1 SLI Extreme
BFG nForce4 Ultra
107
105
0
FPS
150
No AA / No AF
2x AA / 4x AF
4x AA / 8x AF
BFG nForce4 Ultra
ECS KN1 SLI Extreme
73
73
0
FPS
150
Doom 3 @ 1600 x 1200 (Show All Graphs)(Collapse Graphs)