Source Engine: Counterstrike Beta Hits The Street
by Derek Wilson on August 26, 2004 5:22 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
ATI is the performance leader when we're talking about Source Engine performance at the high end. Unfortunately, we didn't have an X800 XT to compare with our 6800 Ultra, nor did we have our 6800 nonultra that we predict would have fallen between the 9800 XT and X800 Pro (closer to the latter) in our tests. Apparently, some of our graphics cards decided to go on vacation this week to visit a penguin. When it comes to upper midrange, NVIDIA's 6800 GT seems to have a leg up on the X800 Pro in most tests (though this may have changed if we could have gotten our Pro to run 20x15). This is just further proof that (so far) the GT offers some of the best value in NVIDIA's lineup.Overall, the framerates we saw in these tests were higher than we expected. Doom III will bring just about anything to its knees at the highest settings, and 2048x1536 wasn't even an option on the list. We still expect to see very high framerates when gameplay elements (more CPU usage) are introduced into the mix. This follows the traditional view (that id Software broke from with Doom III) that higher resolutions and higher framerates are always the better option. Certainly, these aspects have their place, but id has proven they aren't the be all end all of graphics engine design. This fundamental difference in viewpoint helps explain our initial impressions of each game. Source can look incredibly crisp running at a steady framerate at 20x15, and Doom III can look incredibly frightening at 10x7 with its intense shadows, atmosphere and lighting effects, and well executed low contrast edges between overlapping objects.
We will absolutely still have to wait for Halflife 2 before we can make any further judgment calls about relative goodness of the engine. Obviously the outcome of our tests revealed that even when source is pushing its hardest against a graphics cards, modern hardware doesn't have any major trouble rendering scenes.
From our brief look at CPU scaling, we can see that none of our tests were really CPU bound. This helps us know we were pushing our graphics hardware as hard as possible. We can also expect Valve to use as much of the CPU headroom they can for other things in the actual game. This is why we haven't taken as in depth a look at CPU scaling yet.
We hope our coverage of Valve's latest beta release has been informative, and if there is anything further anyone would like to explore, please feel free to drop us a comment and let us know.
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Connoisseur - Thursday, August 26, 2004 - link
I'm glad to see that they used the 4.8 catalyst drivers. I was wondering whether you guys can run Doom 3 benchies with the 4.8's as well. With my laptop (M6805 R9600), I saw an incredible performance gain (between 15-30%) in resolutions up to 1024x768 going from 4.7 to 4.8. I was wondering if this wasy typical.blckgrffn - Thursday, August 26, 2004 - link
Have you ever played a game at 20*15? If you have, you know it is awesome. Why would I plop $600 on my Sony 21" if I didn't want to use the higher resolutions? Battlefield looks really good :-) I fully support seeing these resolutions in the future, I was really happy when we finally saw the shift away from 1024*768 on review sites.deathwalker - Thursday, August 26, 2004 - link
#7..I can't necessarily disagree with you...I own a 6800gt (replaced my 9700pro)..my point was to mearly point out that you can't crown a graphics card line king based soley on its performance in one game. They could do these comparisons all day long and the results will flip flop back and forth depending on the tool you are using to measure performance.Bumrush99 - Thursday, August 26, 2004 - link
These numbers are screwed up. The HL2 video stress test IS NOT ACCURATE, nearly every review site has very different results. Don't use this review as your only source of information. On my 6800GT overclocked to ultra and my AMD 64 @ 2310 i'm getting way lower results. Funny thing is the first few times I ran the benchmark my results were in line with Anandtech's review...FuryVII - Thursday, August 26, 2004 - link
#5, I don't think it clearly shows that. For what its worth I have owned both nVidia and ATI (ATI Currently) and I have no problem buying the best card in price/performance ratio. I'd have to say that nVidia seems to be my choice for a new card. Also the gap in the benchmarks doesn't show ATI having that great of a lead. Its damned close.Also this was rather disappointing. Those resolutions are just ridiculous.
deathwalker - Thursday, August 26, 2004 - link
This test clearly demonstrates that Nvidia is "not" the performance leader when it comes to gaming. Mearly being on top of the heap in one game "Doom3" doesn't crown you the king. Especially when that game uses a graphis engine (opengl) that is clearly not the engine of choice over the long haul in graphics engines for future game developement...that being said..the new line of 6800 cards from Nvidia are products that they should be proud of.AtaStrumf - Thursday, August 26, 2004 - link
I wish you would include R9800Pro (very good buy right now), since it is not the same as 9800XT. Just look at xbit labs article and you will see a surprisingly big difference. Not all 9800Pros take kindly to OC-ig to 9800XT levels, and many people just don't bother!And those of you who want to see how other, lower end cards, perform under Source, may want to check it out as well.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/cou...
mlittl3 - Thursday, August 26, 2004 - link
#2The GF4 4400 is not last generation hardware. It is two generations old. We now have GF 6xxx and before that was GF FX 5xxx. If anyone is still using a GF4 to play current games, I think they know they will be running at resolutions at 800x600 with no AF or AA. No one needs a benchmark test to prove that. Besides anyone who can't afford a last generation or this generation video card, probably don't have an Athlon 64 FX in their rig. So looking at a GF 4 4400 with this processor will tell you nothing about how your GF4 with probably a 1st generation P4 or Athlon XP will run on this game.
I'm sure when the actual game comes out we will see exactly what we saw with Doom 3 at Anandtech. A huge CPU and GPU roundup with exhaustive tests. So you will get your chance to see the 9600 in action.
DefconFunk - Thursday, August 26, 2004 - link
This review was kind of dissapointing.I would have found it much mor useful if they'd included at least some ATI cards other than the top range. A 9600 would have been very much appreciated. Same with an FX5700. That way we could have some idea how the less financially able gamer (read: those of us with finicial obligations outside our computer) will be able to play CS:Source / HL2.
I did however appreciate the inclusion of the GF4 4400. Knowing how last gen products run on current games is important when thinking about purchasing either a new card or the new game in question.
mikecel79 - Thursday, August 26, 2004 - link
Great article. Found one little mistake:"Kicking a box or rolling an oil down a hill are fun enough to distract players from the game at hand"
Shouldn't that be oil drum.