Trackmania Nations
A free game in the truest sense of the word, TrackMania Nations Forever lets you drive at mind-blowing speeds on fun and spectacular tracks in solo and multiplayer modes. Nations Forever will offer a new "Forever" version of the Stadium environment, a solid solo mode and 65 brand new, progressively difficult tracks. TrackMania Nations Forever will unite an even larger number of players than the original Nations thanks to its engaging multiplayer modes, innovative online functions and revolutionary interactivity between players.
We'll be testing the differences in 3D rendering in two set-ups:
1280x1024 - Medium quality & 1680x1050 - Very high quality
Same story as we've already seen: in higher resolutions, the HD4850 is scaling better than the 9800GTX.
Race Driver: GRIDThis game is made by Codemasters, the creators of the TOCA/Race Driver series. GRID is a hybrid between arcade and simulator of mainly tarmac racing that consists of 43 cars. There are several types of competitions for different cars: GT races, open wheel races, demolition derbies, etc. There are also several tracks from different countries, including Japan, United States and European tracks such as Le Mans and Spa Francorchamps. A track through the streets of Milan is also available.
The game runs on a modified in-house engine previously used by Colin McRae: DIRT. The similarities between the two games visually are noticeable. Grid adds a much more advanced damage model and several other improvements which makes it one of the best looking race games on PC.
We ran a few rounds on the Le Mans (circuit de la sarthe) track and measure the FPS with the Fraps utility.
The HD4850 is completely dominating in this game; the 9800GTX performs on a much lower level.
Unreal Tournament 3Epic Games had quite a bit success with their Unreal Engine ; at first competing with the ID Tech engine for licensing they now seem to have pulled ahead with the latest incarnation : Unreal Engine 3. The list of games using this engine is
huge with blockbuster titles like: Bioshock, Mass Effect, Gears of Wars, Rainbow Six Las Vegas (1&2) and of course their next iteration of the UT series, UT3.
While many games share the same Unreal 3 engine, the developers can decide how high the system requirements will be, by increasing the level of detail. Rainbow Six Las Vegas for example is known for being more demanding than Bioshock on the same hardware. Unreal Tournament 3 by Epic Games provides an amazing balance between image quality and performance, rendering beautiful scenes even on lower end hardware; on high end graphics cards you can really turn up the detail which makes it picture perfect.
We played three deathmatch rounds in the Defiance scene, using 15 bots.
The 9800GTX can keep up with the HD4850 in the higher resolution setting.
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