Author: HQH
Released: August 6, 2004
Updated: August 19, 2004
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Legend/key:
Baseline default = P4 at stock speed (2.4 GHz), RAM timing at 2-7-3-3, no video card overclocking
3 GHz + RAM speed = P4 overclocked to 3.0 GHz with FSB at 250 MHz, RAM timing at 2-5-3-2, RAM at 200 MHz, no video card
overclocking
Max OC = Maximum overclocking allowable without any voltage increases and use of stock air cooling and without any
stability/artifact problems. P4 overclocked to 3.08 GHz with FSB at 256.6 MHz, RAM timing at 2-5-3-2, RAM at 205 MHz, video card
overclocked with core at 400.5 MHz, memory: 353.25 MHz
FPS numbers and bigger graphs ported over from Excel here.
The lowest resolution that Doom 3 will render. CPU performance scaling shows nice improvements. With the first two image quality
settings (low and medium), anti-aliasing at 2x are virtually free of performance hits when running an Intel Pentium 4 2.4C
processor (look at green line). As the CPU clock cycles are jacked up to 3 GHz and above, we now start to see less CPU limitations
on Doom 3 and that the Radeon 9800 Pro is starting to work a bit harder. With an Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz CPU, the Radeon 9800 Pro is
waiting on the CPU for data to render the next video frame at Low and Medium quality settings. Start using image quality at High or
Ultra is now starting to show that the Radeon 9800 Pro is starting to chug along.
CPU performance scaling on 800x600 resolution shows nice improvements, although not as much as the previous resolution.
The Radeon 9800 Pro is starting to show its performance limitations at 1024x768. CPU performance scaled up is giving smaller
improvements between each image quality configurations as higher quality options are chosen.
For Doom 3 rendered at 1280x1024, Doom 3 is showing that the Radeon 9800 Pro is getting old and slow for rendering 1280x1024.
When CPU performance is scaled up, Doom 3 performance shows little improvements, thus meaning that my Radeon 9800 Pro is hitting its
limits rendering Doom 3 at 1280x1024. A newer video card generation upgrade is needed for better performances at this resolution.
Otherwise, having an Intel Pentium 4 CPU over 3 GHz is a waste of clock cycles spent waiting on the video card struggling to
render each video frame. Take a look at the plot above again, and you'll see that a 2.4 GHz performance line (green) is right next
to the 3.0 GHz performance line (blue). However, overclocking the Radeon 9800 Pro sets the performance line (red) a bit further
apart from the blue line than it did with the green and blue lines (with only CPU performance scaling). This does show that the
Radeon 9800 Pro is hitting its limitation at stock clock speeds.
In each plot of resolution benchmarks, there are a few things that can be seen:
Low and Medium image quality settings show that there is a negligible performance hit. They're always roughly the same in every
resolution settings. Low setting is basically for 64 MB video cards. Medium setting is for 128 MB video cards. So my ATI AIW Radeon
9800 Pro 128 MB video card has no problem handling Low or Medium image quality settings as this should be obvious.
2x anti-aliasing has a small performance hit. 2x anti-aliasing is plausible for use in Doom 3. However, I can't say the same
for 4x anti-aliasing, as 4x takes a big performance hit chunk. At 640x480, 4x is okay. 800x600 is marginal, but higher resolutions,
you can start to kiss 4x anti-aliasing goodbye. Not worth it unless you like to start playing Doom 3 in slide show mode.
Catalyst 4.8 Results
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