Aquamark 3
- Author: Massive
- DirectX Class: 9.0
- Pixel and Vertex Shaders: Yes (mixed mode, PS1.4 and PS2.0)
Aquamark 3 is a newer style of render setup. DX9 class, shader heavy, not so much of a reliance on memory bandwidth performance. 9600XT with its clock speed advantage is able to beat 9800SE quite handily, with 9800XT doing the same at the upper end of the spectrum when modified. No 1600x1200 results due to a problem with my Aquamark 3 license, my apologies.
This is possibly the most interesting test of the bunch that I have results for. In games like Halo and TR:AOD, expect 9600XT to hold a slight but noticable performance advantage over the stock clocked 9800SE, with no softmod. It's tests like those where the shader hardware comes in to play and with only 4 pixel processing units, GPU core clock makes the difference. Not slow, but just a shade slower than the new card. I commented recently on a popular online forum that 9800SE was as quick, or quicker, than 9600XT. It's this type of test that makes my comment fall over. It just depends on the games you like to play.
