Morrowind on the 9700

[ben6]

The first game I put any new card to the test on is Morrowind. As even a Geforce4 Ti4600 wouldn't do well playing this game at 1280x960 4x FSAA imagine my pleasant surprise when the 9700 Pro played at 1280x960 6x FSAA and 16x aniso without any kind of speed issue.

In towns , where sometimes on a 8500 , framerates without FSAA would hit 10-15, the 9700 Pro constantly maintains a 20-25 fps with 6x FSAA enabled. No pauses in action indoors either. Battles with enemies are also smooth. NOTE: I've restarted the game and am in Balmora , so it's not necessarily indicative of the entire game , but the 8500 experiences were on the same route.

Err maybe I should save the rest for my 9700 Pro review

 

[MuFu]

Looking forward to it.

Are you going to use the same layout as the 9000 review? That was great - very refreshing to see, especially the benchmarks page.

MuFu.

P.S. Has anybody seen a review of the 250/200MHz Radeon 9000 (i.e. the non-Pro version)?

 

[ben6]

Yes the same layout . Really a simple plan for my review

1. Intro
2. Features
3. Box and Bundle
4. Installation
5. Driver Control Panel
6. DVD playback
7. 2D
8. Gameplay experiences/screenshots
a. Morrowind
b Neverwinter Nights
c. Nascar 2002
d. Flight Simulator 2002
e. Tiger Woods 2002
f. Madden 2002
g. Soldier Of Fortune 2
h. Warcraft 3
9 Benchmarks
a. Quake3 (only 1280x1024 + AA modes+ AF)
b. Aquanox
c. Codecultures
d. SharkMark
e. Chameleonmark
f. Comanche4
g. Jedi Knight II
h. Dungeon Siege
10.Conclusiion

whew !! Lot of work to be done (well mainly screenshots and rerunning benchmarks) too bad I no longer have a TI4600 of any kind.

 

[Jazz]

im looking forward too seeing this review any ideas on when it might be finished

also i dont think ive seen the sharkmark benchmark in any other reivew, its a vertex shader test isnt it? Its gonna be interesting seeing how the r9700 performs on the matrox benchmark

 

[ben6]

If I remember my Parhelia bench about 2x Parhelia in Sharkmark roughly .

My plan is to get review done by the end of this weekend. As to the posting of it , that's not up to me but I would imagine a week after or two

 

[KimB]

Oh, and ben6, have you been following the threads about the gamma-correct FSAA? Please put some substantial space in the review about this feature...it is a very important feature.

 

[Rodéric]

unrelated to the topic.

Is ARB_vertex_program exposed in your drivers ?

I've an ATI RadeOn 8500 with Catalyst 2.2 and this extension isn't present.
(Not in GL_EXTENSIONS string)

Anyone know if and when it'll be available for the 8500 & 9700 ?!

 

[Dave Baumann]

9700 supports GL_ARB_vertex_program already.

 

[Humus]

unrelated to the topic.

Is ARB_vertex_program exposed in your drivers ?

I've an ATI RadeOn 8500 with Catalyst 2.2 and this extension isn't present.
(Not in GL_EXTENSIONS string)

Anyone know if and when it'll be available for the 8500 & 9700 ?!

It will be supported on Radeon 8500 in an upcoming driver release. However, directly from ATi: "It won't be exposed for at least another driver release beyond the one this month."

 

[Rodéric]

Thank you DaveBaumann & Humus.

 

[BoddoZerg]

dang that's a lot of different games.

How do you measure framerate in warcraft 3?

 

[ben6]

I like to include gameplay experiences with the card on games I'm currently playing in my reviews along with benchmarks. I'm not aware of any fps meter in Warcraft 3 but I suppose FRAPs could be used.

 

[pascal]

Hey Ben

What about some UT2K3 demo gameplay experience? Maybe with some fraps with CPU scalling. It is supposed to be available this week, but we never know.

This time dont forget the bikini girl

 

[ben6]

well , no bikini girls at the party , but I did dance with one of these two girls (the second from the left) at the after launch celebration. As to UT2003, I'll have to wait till the demo releases releases , as I don't have a copy of the demo yet

http://www.ati.com/companyinfo/events/r300launch/images/lg/DSCF0097.jpg

 

[pascal]

Nice girls. It is all about have fun

 

[WaltC]

It will be supported on Radeon 8500 in an upcoming driver release. However, directly from ATi: "It won't be exposed for at least another driver release beyond the one this month."

Does this mean that ATI is planning on releasing a single driver upgrade per month (not that I'm in need of one myself--just curious)?

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Does this mean that ATI is planning on releasing a single driver upgrade per month (not that I'm in need of one myself--just curious)?

That has been about the pace for official drivers on ATI's site. Of course, others tend to get leaked more often.