Mid-range Performance:

For our mid-range graphics tests, we used the following system:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (dual-core, 2.13GHz – 266 x 8); Asus Striker Extreme motherboard (nForce 680i SLI); 2 x 1GB Corsair XMS2-8500C5 (operating in dual channel at DDR2-800 with 4-4-4-12-1T timings); Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 200GB SATA hard drive; Enermax Galaxy DXX 1000W PSU; Windows Vista Ultimate x86; Nvidia nForce standalone drivers version 15.00 WHQL.

Graphics cards:

• Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB -- operating at 675/1450/2000MHz using Forceware 163.44 beta
  
• Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT 256MB -- operating at 540/1180/1400MHz using Forceware 163.44 beta
  
• ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB GDDR4 -- operating at 800/2200 using ATI Catalyst 8.401 BioShock hotfix
  
• ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB -- operating at 580/1400MHz using ATI Catalyst 8.401 BioShock hotfix
  
• Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT 256MB -- operating at 560/1400 using Forceware 163.44 beta

We used the "medium" quality setting, but forced high-quality textures and Vsync was disabled.




Under DirectX 9.0 mode, the Radeon X1950 Pro is a somewhat unsurprising victor and was the only card of these that could be considered playable at 1680x1050 with medium quality settings and high textures. The Radeon HD 2600 XT also puts up a strong showing, just like its bigger brother did on the previous page.

While we've not shown it here, both the GeForce 7600 GT and GeForce 8600 GT benefited considerably from lowering the texture detail to "medium". This increased our average frame rate into acceptable boundaries at 1280x1024 – in the case of the GeForce 8600 GT, it took our average into the mid-30s and the minimum increased to over 20 fps.




When we switched to DirectX 10 mode, we had a similar story to the one we told on the previous page, whereby the Radeon's performance dropped off pretty sharply. In contrast, Nvidia's performance improved slightly as a result of using the DX10 codepath – it's fair to say that Nvidia has had a lot longer to work on DirectX 10 drivers than AMD, but also there's the fact that this game is part of Nvidia's The Way It's Meant To Be Played developer relations programme.

In terms of performance, the GeForce 8600 GTS delivers a very smooth experience at 1280x1024 and there is certainly scope to increase the quality settings a little, while the Radeon HD 2600 XT and GeForce 8600 GT were right on the ragged edge of playable at this resolution – they'd certainly benefit from slightly lower in-game quality settings.