Benchmarks IV
Let's now have a look at the bandwidth-hungry Valley of the Jaguar benchmark contained within the publicly available edition of Croteam's excellent first-person-shooter, Serious Sam 2. Settings are 1024x768x32 Normal preferences. I deliberately choose this demo as it stresses the subsystem heavily.
The similarity continues here. Averaging over 100 FPS in this demo is no mean feat at all. Largely limited by the CPU and memory subsystem due to the massive polygon expanse that has to be rendered, neither platform is a slouch. Extra CPU muscle translates into an astonishing 112 FPS average.
On to another subsystem-taxing benchmark in Comanche 4. This impressive helicopter benchmark, based on a game from Novalogic, requires a serious amount of CPU and memory power to run smoothly. Historically, the Pentium 4 has always enjoyed this benchmark. What will the 2.8GHz CPU make of it ?.
The stock 2.8GHz Pentium 4 shows a clean pair of heels to our enhanced XP2600. The P4, when run at a lofty 3.3GHz, simply demolishing all previous benchmark records. It's the first time we've seen 60 FPS broken with a stock GeForce 4 Ti 4600.
Nice and fast.
On to Quake 3. Point Release 1.30. I'll run this at 512 Fastest and 1024 Quality settings. The former gives you an idea of throughput, and the latter details a common setting.
Now 1024x768x32, quality settings.
The numbers are still mind-numbingly quick at what was once considered a decent resolution and setting. The combination of massive clock speeds and potent graphics cards make something of a mockery of the Q3 engine. The Pentium 4, on this evidence at least, is still the preferred Q3 solution.
The Pentium 4 has showed that it can still hold the gaming fight to any of its rival's processors. The overclocked Pentium 4, purring along at 3.3GHz, puts its foot to the floor and sets fire to our gaming benchmark records.
