Lower Quality Performance
Our editorial comments about Oblivion aside, some gamers will attempt to play games like this and Rise of Legends on budget 128 MB cards. This is their God-given right, and we've included some special tests for the slowest of our cards, the Sparkle 7300 GS Ultra 2 at even lower quality settings for Oblivion and Rise of Legends. This is so that we can get an idea of the performance we might expect in games like these with just the most basic graphical elements enabled.
The quality settings in Oblivion for these tests were the same as listed for the normal performance tests, except with HDR effects turned to "off." In Rise of Legends, we set the performance slider exactly halfway between the two choices: "run faster," and "look better." This turns down settings like shadow and special effects details.
For reference, in the town benchmark, the Sparkle card got 25.5 fps at 800x600 and 19.7 fps at 1024x768 in the normal performance tests (with HDR on). In the oblivion gate benchmark, the card got 16.2 fps at 800x600 and 11.5 at 1024x768. This shows us the kind of performance demands that just something like HDR lighting adds to the game. In Rise of Legends, the framerate we got at 1024x768 for the Sparkle 7300 GS Ultra 2 was 11.5.
Both of these games obviously see large improvements in performance with these lower settings as the table shows. While Rise of Legends becomes playable by turning down the graphics settings, this card still has trouble running Oblivion even at 800x600. For those determined enough to run this game on a card like this, it is technically playable, but again we recommend waiting until you've saved up at least enough money for a card like the 7600 GT or X1900 GT.
Our editorial comments about Oblivion aside, some gamers will attempt to play games like this and Rise of Legends on budget 128 MB cards. This is their God-given right, and we've included some special tests for the slowest of our cards, the Sparkle 7300 GS Ultra 2 at even lower quality settings for Oblivion and Rise of Legends. This is so that we can get an idea of the performance we might expect in games like these with just the most basic graphical elements enabled.
The quality settings in Oblivion for these tests were the same as listed for the normal performance tests, except with HDR effects turned to "off." In Rise of Legends, we set the performance slider exactly halfway between the two choices: "run faster," and "look better." This turns down settings like shadow and special effects details.
| Low Quality Results | ||||
| 800x600 | %Improvement | 1024x768 | %Improvement | |
| Oblivion Town Low Quality | 42.8 | 67.84% | 33.6 | 70.56% |
| Oblivion Gate Low Quality | 23.9 | 47.53% | 17.4 | 51.30% |
| Rise of Legends Medium Quality | 22.1 | 92.17% | ||
For reference, in the town benchmark, the Sparkle card got 25.5 fps at 800x600 and 19.7 fps at 1024x768 in the normal performance tests (with HDR on). In the oblivion gate benchmark, the card got 16.2 fps at 800x600 and 11.5 at 1024x768. This shows us the kind of performance demands that just something like HDR lighting adds to the game. In Rise of Legends, the framerate we got at 1024x768 for the Sparkle 7300 GS Ultra 2 was 11.5.
Both of these games obviously see large improvements in performance with these lower settings as the table shows. While Rise of Legends becomes playable by turning down the graphics settings, this card still has trouble running Oblivion even at 800x600. For those determined enough to run this game on a card like this, it is technically playable, but again we recommend waiting until you've saved up at least enough money for a card like the 7600 GT or X1900 GT.
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imaheadcase - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
I guess to each his own, i play bf2 on a 19inch CRT monitor at 1024x768. But even if i had a better card i would still prefer lower rez.DerekWilson - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
it's an issue of how games work on the inside ...all the objects, shapes, characters, and landscapes are there no matter how you see them. everything is mathematically represented in the software. rendered onto your display is a viewport into the world. this viewport only allows you to see a fixed grid of colors. the color of each pixel is determined by a bunch of factors, but the largest contribution is made by the object that projects onto a particular pixel.
... on second thought, this is too hard for me to explain with out a lot of math. lets look at it another way.
when there's a naked person on tv, they decrease the resolution of the area over the persons naughty bits. this makes it harder to see what's really there because there is a smaller number of large pixels that can only represent one color each. it follows, then, that it would also be harder to shoot the person acurately in said bits.
I think your preference may be based on your experience with performance at higher resolutions. Responsiveness is necessary for a quality experience in games like bf2. If you get a faster card, I would encourage you to at least try a higher resolution.
blckgrffn - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
When it is in stock at newegg, its ~$90, not nearly $140.Nat
mostlyprudent - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
I would be interested to know how much noise (quantitatively) an actively cooled 7600GS or 7600GT contributes to a system built in a relatively quiet case like an Antec P150. I am familiar with some of the leaf blowers attached to the higher end cards, but wonder how much overall system noise savings you'ld get in the mid-range cards.wilburpan - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
One obvious use for silent video cards would be in an HTPC system, where quiet performance would be a priority. Can't have those noisy computer fans intrude on watching Snakes on a Plane, you know. :@) Anyway, it would have been nice to include some video playback benchmarks to see how these cards can handle playing back a 1080p HDTV signal, or similiar tests.ViRGE - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
Since HDTV is MPEG2, any modern video card should be able to handle a 1080P signal(since this is an either/or case, it either can or can't). The limitations come in to H.264, where the video decode engine may not be clocked high enough to do higher resolution decoding. Unfortunately, I'm not sure there's any 1080 commerical/usable content that would work with Cyberlink/Intervideo's H.264 decoders(the only ones with GPU acceleration), since Quicktime content doesn't work in those.DerekWilson - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
with nvidia, the video decode engine is clocked off the core -- it actually will run better on a card with fewer pipelines and a higher core speed ... iow, the 7600gt is a better video decode graphics card than a 7900gt at default clock speeds.a little counter intuitive, but there it is.
nvidia 7 series parts with a core clock of >450 MHz should have no problem accelerating 1080p decode on players that support purevideo.
MontagGG - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
Which of these have HDCP?DerekWilson - Thursday, August 31, 2006 - link
to my knowledge, none of the cards tested here support hdcp. but I will certainly try to confirm this ...