Race Driver: GRID

Publisher: Codemasters

Race Driver: GRID is one of the best racing games to grace the PC in some time, striking a fine balance between automotive simulation and arcade throttle-fest which has resulted in an enormously entertaining game. Players can choose from racing tuned saloons through city streets, through to driving Lamborghinis around Le Mans, with all cars displaying a highly detailed damage model.

GRID runs on a modified version of Codemasters' own in house Neon engine, rechristened Ego for GRID. This will also be the engine used in the highly anticipated Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising, so hopefully GRID will give us a good indication of how hardware will perform in this future title too. Despite only supporting DirectX 9.0c, GRID features a lot of high level graphical features, including motion blur, fantastic smoke effects, dynamic track side details and thousands of fully 3D spectators.

To test performance in GRID, we raced a lap of the "Circuito Di Milano B" track in the RADT Nissan Skyline Z-tune, starting from the back of the grid to ensure as many cars on screen for as long as possible. We chose the Milan circuit due to the large amount of dynamic track side details like flags and spectators visible from the track, and for the close proximity of track side objects.

However, GRID does not support anisotropic filtering in game, so we had to force this to 16x using the Forceware and Catalyst drivers. We captured the average and minimum frame rates during the lap, and the results you see below are indicative of around one minute and forty seconds of gameplay (average lap time) per setting.


Race Driver: GRID

1680x1050 4xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB
    • 77.7
    • 62.0
    • 77.4
    • 60.0
    • 75.8
    • 64.0
    • 75.1
    • 57.0
    • 74.6
    • 60.0
    • 69.2
    • 57.0
    • 65.4
    • 54.0
    • 64.9
    • 53.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Race Driver: GRID

1680x1050 8xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB
    • 72.9
    • 61.0
    • 72.6
    • 61.0
    • 70.6
    • 40.0
    • 70.3
    • 55.0
    • 68.5
    • 51.0
    • 64.4
    • 50.0
    • 54.2
    • 29.0
    • 52.5
    • 35.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Race Driver: GRID

1,920 x 1,200 4xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB
    • 78.4
    • 65.0
    • 76.5
    • 62.0
    • 75.7
    • 57.0
    • 71.2
    • 56.0
    • 66.2
    • 56.0
    • 62.0
    • 49.0
    • 57.1
    • 46.0
    • 56.4
    • 47.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Race Driver: GRID

1,920 x 1,200 8xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
    • 73.8
    • 63.0
    • 71.8
    • 59.0
    • 68.1
    • 52.0
    • 59.5
    • 47.0
    • 59.2
    • 49.0
    • 53.4
    • 42.0
    • 49.0
    • 25.0
    • 25.2
    • 13.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Race Driver: GRID

2,560 x 1,600 0xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB
    • 80.2
    • 56.0
    • 74.5
    • 55.0
    • 69.3
    • 55.0
    • 61.1
    • 48.0
    • 55.5
    • 46.0
    • 49.0
    • 39.0
    • 47.6
    • 36.0
    • 46.9
    • 36.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Race Driver: GRID

2,560 x 1,600 2xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB
    • 73.8
    • 53.0
    • 68.8
    • 47.0
    • 56.5
    • 46.0
    • 51.1
    • 42.0
    • 48.3
    • 30.0
    • 44.8
    • 36.0
    • 38.2
    • 28.0
    • 26.6
    • 20.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

Race Driver: GRID

2,560 x 1,600 4xAA 16xAF, DX9, Maximum Detail

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1GB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260+ 896MB
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB
    • 72.0
    • 52.0
    • 65.3
    • 46.0
    • 54.5
    • 45.0
    • 48.2
    • 38.0
    • 42.4
    • 23.0
    • 40.5
    • 31.0
    • 29.0
    • 21.0
    • 14.7
    • 9.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Frames Per Second
  • Average
  • Minimum

The Radeon HD 4870 1GB is the star of the show in GRID as it not only manages to outperform the GeForce GTX 260+, but also beats Nvidia's flagship card as well. What's more, there are scenarios--particularly with high levels of AA--where the 4870 1GB is quite a bit quicker than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB.
Discuss this in the forums

Posted by Kúsař - Mon Nov 10 2008 12:42

Great job! Definitely good idea to retest GPU's with new drivers.

So many reviews in november...did you forget to sleep? :D

Posted by WildThing - Mon Nov 10 2008 13:22

In short then, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB is still the card we'd spend our own money on at the moment
That's great news for me! (I just bought one, should be arriving today :clap:) nice one Bit-Tech!:thumb:

Posted by bowman - Mon Nov 10 2008 13:32

Why do you test on different platforms when there's no SLI/Crossfire involved?

Posted by zr_ox - Mon Nov 10 2008 13:57

I'm likewise thankfull for your recommendation recently for the 1GB 4870 which I've had for about 1 month.

Excellant card, only problem I had so far was Crysis at 1600x1200 and high settings with lots of AA & AF on the last mission. Overclocked my CPU to 3.5Ghz and it went away.

Buying another soon for CF.
null
YouTube logo
MSI MPG Velox 100R Chassis Review

October 14 2021 | 15:04

In line with recent changes to data protection legislation in the UK and Europe we would like to direct you to our updated Privacy Policy here.