ATi vs. Nvidia IQ showdown at Firingsquad

[MikeC]

Mike, my only beef is with your conclusion.
you denigrate the usefullness of synthetic benchmarks, while ignoring the glaring downside to the GFFX - slow shader performance (currently highlighted by mostly synthetic benchmarks and a few games).
I feel that the downplay of synthetic benchmarks does a disservice to your readers, who might want to buy a card that is still "top of the heap" in 6 months to a year.
I feel that the current trend to ignore synthetics and idolize "rela gameplay" is a red herring. Both are useful - and they tell you two totally different things!
One tells you how the card performs NOW - certainly important (and you ahve this covered very well). The other gives you an idea of how the card will perform in the future - this is the aspect you are lacking.

Thanks for the feedback Althornin. While I did test with 3DMark03 and Aquamark3, I'm sure that you're talking about ShaderMark and Rightmark3D when you stated that I ignored synthetic benchmarks. I did mention the importance of DirectX 9 and syntehtic benchmarks and provided links to the ShaderMark and Rightmark3D web sites. At the minimum it gives the reader an opportunity to do further research by searching on that particular topic.

There was no conspiracy on my part not to include those benchmark results. The reality is that I was pressed for time and made a decision not to include test results from ShaderMark and Rightmark3D since I've never used them before. There would have been a learning curve on my part, which would have further delayed the preview. I always spend time researching a topic that I'm not familar with before I write about it.

I don't think the preview is necessarily lacking in how the card will perform in the future since I included results from Halo. I realized that I hadn't included performance from a DX9-based game and picked up Halo last weekend. But my ignorance in testing Halo showed since I failed to mention that the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra resorts to "mixed mode rendering" when using the pixel shader 2.0 path. But I plan to follow through on Halo and update the preview based on my findings.

In my haste I had planned on mentioning DirectX 9 performance in the conclusion as I did in our Creative GeForce FX 5900 Ultra review. But in my haste, it was overlooked. But my previous are not set in stone and I do update them as required.

 

[Althornin]

Oh, i wasnt thinking "conspiracy" or anything like that!

I was mainly refering to this:

Now that I look back at what I've accomplished during the past three weeks, I believe that the gameplay results and screenshots I've provided speak for themselves. While synthetic benchmarks and non-gameplay based benchmarks may skew the results of one product in favor of another, actual gameplay reveals that both of these high-end graphics cards aren't that much different after all.

Where it reads to me like this:
"Synthetic benchmarks are worthless, the differences they show are meaningless, the cards perform simlilarly" along with an implication that this will continue in the future.
Now, thats just how it struck me.
I must say, again, that i thought your article treated CURRENT game performance quite well (and i agree, in current games, not much seperates the two products, perf wise). I just maintain that that is only half the picture

 

[Reverend]

I don't think the preview is necessarily lacking in how the card will perform in the future since I included results from Halo. I realized that I hadn't included performance from a DX9-based game and picked up Halo last weekend. But my ignorance in testing Halo showed since I failed to mention that the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra resorts to "mixed mode rendering" when using the pixel shader 2.0 path. But I plan to follow through on Halo and update the preview based on my findings.

While you're updating it, throw in TRAOD as well.

Although I'd understand it if you don't, or can't.

 

[THe_KELRaTH]

With regards UT2003 detail textures

Can anybody confirm whether detail texture quality is effected by altering the DetailTexMipBias setting in the UT2003.ini file on the FX59x0 cards?