GeCube Radeon X1800XT 512MB

Quake 4

Publisher: Activision

We used the full retail version of Quake 4 patched to version 1.0.5. It is the fourth game in the Quake series, based on the technically sound Doom 3 engine. However, unlike Doom 3, we found that the game benefits from at least 2x antialiasing, and the experience with antialiasing at a slightly lower resolution was better than increasing the resolution with no AA applied.

Both antialiasing and anisotropic filtering were controlled from inside the game. When you select high quality mode, 4xAF is automatically enabled, and when the ultra quality mode is enabled, 8xAF is automatically applied to the scene. It's worth noting that you require a minimum 512MB frame buffer to have a hope of achieving smooth gameplay in ultra quality mode.

We did a manual run through from a five minute section of the Nexus Hub Tunnels level and found that a minimum of 15 frames per second and an average of 40-50 frames per second in our test section was deemed to be playable across the rest of the title.

It seems that Quake 4 doesn't seem to really benefit from the additional pixel processing capabilities in R580, as both the Radeon X1800XT and Radeon X1900XT were playable at the same settings with the Radeon X1900XT reporting a slightly higher average frame rate. The ultra quality bug is still present as we were unable to attain smooth gameplay at that setting, despite both the Radeon X1800XT and X1900XT having a 512MB frame buffer. ATI is said to be working on a driver fix, but we're still waiting for that to become a reality.

This meant that Gainward's GeForce 7800 GTX Golden Sample is the best-performing video card of the bunch in this game. We found that we were able to achieve smooth gameplay at 1600x1200 2xTMS AA 4xAF with high quality in-game details. The Gainward Ultra/3500PCX Golden Sample also delivered a higher minimum frame rate than the other video cards we've compared, meaning that it also delivered the smoothest gameplay.

The All-In-Wonder X1900 was the slowest card and was only capable of delivering a good gaming experience at 1280x1024 2xAA 4xAF with high quality in-game details. The lower clock speeds and minimal benefits for the additional mathematical processing capabilities inside R580 are the cause of this.