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ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB PCI-E Preview
Testing - NFSMW
 Need for Speed Most Wanted is the newest in a long series of NFS titles. This game is extremely taxing even on some of the highest-end hardware available today if you crank up the video settings. And of course, we do crank up the settings for benchmarking. Unfortunately this game does not support a demo recording feature that I am aware of and there is no built-in benchmarking utility. As such, I am forced to use FRAPS and run the same course multiple times for the various settings. For benchmarking I go to Quick Race > Custom Race > Circuit > Ironwood Estates > 2 laps, and I use the same car each time (a pimped out RX-8 if you're curious, but not too pimped out because I don't have the time to play and earn more upgrades). Each test is repeated 3 times, however, the weather changes every race (and during the race), so while the benchmark results are pretty reliable, they're not exactly scientific. To help keep the tests as consistent as possible, I run the same course every race, and I never use the nitrous (because it queues special effects which I can't reproduce precisely every race). All of the in-game video settings are maxed out and the only variables are AA, AF, and resolution. Since the AA and AF sliders represent different values on ATI and NVIDIA cards I just test AA and AF at their minimum and maximum respective settings at each resolution. Otherwise the comparisons lose their value. I should note that it appears from gameplay and screenshots I've taken that the minimum texture quality (AF) setting represents bilinear filtering. I would think they would at least make it trilinear since it's noticeably better quality and what I consider the standard 'minimum' AF setting - but that's neither NVIDIA nor ATI's fault. Silly EA. Patch 1.3 was used.
Need for Speed Most Wanted @ 1024 x 768
(Show All Graphs)
57
55
54
0
FPS
100
56
49
49
0
FPS
100
Need for Speed Most Wanted @ 1280 x 960
(Show All Graphs)
55
49
46
0
FPS
100
55
41
37
0
FPS
100
Need for Speed Most Wanted @ 1600 x 1200
(Show All Graphs)
53
39
37
0
FPS
100
50
30
28
0
FPS
100
Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: The Cards Page 3: Test Setup Page 4: Testing - Half-Life 2 Episode 1 Page 5: Testing - F.E.A.R. - First Encounter Assault Recon Page 6: Testing - Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher's Bay Page 7: Testing - Need for Speed: Most Wanted Page 8: Testing - X3: Reunion Demo Page 9: Testing - 3DMark '06 Page 10: Performance Summary & Closing Thoughts 
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