Radeon X800 XL Roundup

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Demo
Publisher: Ubisoft

Image Quality:

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is set to be released towards the end of this month. It features a new game engine that has been built from scratch - the important thing to note is that the game only has two Shader profiles: Shader Model 1.1 and Shader Model 3.0. This means that all of ATI's video cards default to Shader Model 1.1, and only the GeForce 6 series are capable of using the Shader Model 3.0 path.

Despite the fact that ATI's cards only use a DirectX 8.1, Shader Model 1.1 path, you will see that the quality of the scene is fantastic in comparison to the Shader Model 3.0 rendering. We found that a lot of the additional features that came with enabling the Shader Model 3.0 path were of no use to us in this scenario, as the performance implications that came after enabling features such as HDR Rendering, Parallax Mapping and High Quality Soft Shadows were too great for them to be of any benefit to us with the speed of current hardware.

We configured both Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering from within the game, and thus the driver control panel was left set to "Application Controlled".

We found that the Radeon X800 XL delivered a smooth gaming experience with settings of 1280x1024 0xAA 8xAF. In general, the game is very dark, or slightly blurred by the night vision goggles, so we found that Anti-Aliasing was not a requirement over increasing the resolution to the highest possible setting before applying Anti-Aliasing.

The GeForce 6800 GT struggled to get going in this title, maybe the performance is related to the drivers, because we played with the in-game settings for a long time. We found that all of the advanced shader options were basically useless features on the hardware, because we were limited by the speed of the hardware in this title. The GeForce 6800 GT's frame rate dropped well below 30 frames per second in areas that weren't necessarily graphics heavy whenever we enabled HDR Rendering, Parallax Mapping and High Quality Soft Shadows, or any combination of the three effects.

The effects that come with the Shader Model 3.0 path are really promising, and we expect to use them in the future. However, we just need faster hardware, or better-performing drivers, to make good use of them right now. We suffered stuttering at 1280x1024 0xAA 8xAF with a high shadow resolution, but we found that Hardware Shadow Mapping improved performance by a couple of frames per second. We also tried using Shader Model 1.1, after being impressed with the quality of Shader Model 1.1 on the Radeon X800 XL, but that did not deliver performance that was noticeably faster than Shader Model 3.0 with Hardware Shadow Mapping enabled. We finally settled on 1024x768 with 2xAA 8xAF and the Shader Model 3.0 path as our best-playable settings on the GeForce 6800 GT.

The most impressive thing about this title is related to the great job that Ubisoft have done to deliver such fanstastic image quality with the Shader Model 1.1 path. There are differences between it and the Shader Model 3.0 path, but we are genuinely impressed with the quality when you consider that it is nothing more than DirectX 8.1.

There is better lighting and reflection from the Shader Model 3.0 path, but when you think 'Shader Model 1.1 vs Shader Model 3.0', the differences are not all that great. We feel that the image quality delivered by the Radeon X800 XL is exceptional, and the GeForce 6800 GT's image quality is slightly better thanks to the improved reflections and lighting effects that were introduced in DirectX 9.0. Despite the lower resolution, we feel that both video cards deliver a very good image quality in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. We can't wait to see the full version of the title - we may well see some more notable differences between the two Shader paths.

Performance:

Both video cards delivered a smooth gaming experience in this title, with the Radeon X800 XL achieving the higher minimum frame rate. However, the GeForce 6800 GT's drop below 30 frames per second was brief, and the gaming experience still remained very smooth. Ultimately, the choice is down to whether you think that the improved lighting that comes with Shader Model 3.0 outweighs the slightly higher resolution that the Radeon X800 XL achieved. We can expect NVIDIA to improve its performance in this title, especially when you consider that it is a part of the TWIMTBP developer relations program. When that happens, we feel that the gaming experience that the GeForce 6800 GT will be superior to the Radeon X800 XL, until then it is a toss up between higher resolution and better light reflections.