Darkstar One

We decided to benchmark the game in one of the most graphically intensive environments - by declaring war on all friendly targets surrounding a trading station. We flew around, blowing up ships with reckless abandon, whilst taking in the lovely sights like the sun, explosions, planets and of course the trade station. We kept the resolution at a nice 1280x1024 and fiddled around with the graphics to try and find the best possible settings.

Mid-Range System Setup:

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (operating at 2200MHz, 11x200MHz); ABIT AN8 32X (NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16); 2 x 512MB Corsair (operating in dual channel at 400MHz with 2-2-2-5-1T timings); Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 200GB 7,200RPM SATA II hard disk drive; AC '97 on-board sound; OCZ PowerStream 600W power supply unit; Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2; DirectX 9.0c; NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 platform drivers, version 6.86.

Video Cards:

• HIS Radeon X850XT IceQ II iTurbo 256MB - operating at its default clock speeds of 520/1080MHz using Catalyst 6.7 WHQL;
  
• BFG Tech GeForce 6800 GT OC 256MB - operating at its default clock speeds of 370/1000MHz using Forceware 91.31 WHQL;
  
• HIS Radeon X1600XT IceQ iTurbo 256MB - operating at its default clock speeds of 587/1380MHz using Catalyst 6.7 WHQL;
  
• BFG Tech GeForce 6600 GT OC 128MB - operating at its default clock speeds of 525/1050MHz using Forceware 91.31 WHQL.

Don't be put off by a lack of anti aliasing with your mid-range system. Although the game does benefit from smoother edges the difference is not hugely noticeable. Running on a more budget conscious system does not actually sacrifice any gameplay elements. The game runs, looks and feels smooth with all these cards.

The lower minimum fame rates may also look slightly worrying, however do not panic. Due to the nature of space games, whilst playing at these settings, I noticed no slow down and the game was still fast and exciting. The game felt best on the X850, despite the fact that this is the only card that doesn't have Shader 3.0. The experience of playing the game on mid range was, however, nowhere near as good as playing on the high range.