Next-Generation Game Performance with the Unreal Engine: 15-way GPU Shootout

[nemesismk2]

This article is very interesting, like many Kyro 2 owners I was unsure of what performance my Kyro 2 would give with Unreal 2, from this article my Kyro 2 performance is playable but atleast it beats the Radeon DDR and Geforce2 Pro at 800x600 and 1024x768 which are the resolutions I play games at.

Anyway before it's released I'll have a Kyro 3 or ATI Radeon 8500 in my PC!

Next-Generation Game Performance with the Unreal Engine: 15-way GPU Shootout

 

[JBChance]

I'm not too sure how representative of games, or future games, that demo is.

Alot benchmarks I've seen, put the Kyro II way behind the Geforce2 GTS or PRO.

That being said, however, I wish I really had given it more thought about the Kyro II. I' m wondering if the
Tile-based rendering is the wave of the furture. The cost of if is much cheaper because the card doesn't
need all that memory bandwith to overcome the limitations of the rendering system. Could be real good.

I'll be interested to see what the Kyro III will look like; Unless nVidia does to them what they did to 3dfx,
that is.

I hope not.

 

[Mingon]

The problem is that for every unreal game their is another which tells a different story

 

[WageSlave]

I personally find that frame rate on the 64MB ddr radeon unacceptable. I didnt buy that card (and im sure this goes for the geforce 2 owners also) to NOT be able to play newer games in the near future... I think mostly this is just an example of an engine that has not been optimized for any but the high end video cards yet. Lets face, not many people own a geforce 3 or radeon 8500 yet, and some are even backin the TNT2 generation (definatley time to upgrade there) but If the average dell user that bought their computer a year ago cant play unreal 2 without an upgrade.. guess what

unreal 2 wont sell.... developers are very concious of that fact that they need their games to run on the previous generation of hardware, in order to get any kind of dcent market saturation. The market for PC games is already small enough, and I dont thik pandering to only the hardcore FPS freaks, and the financially elite is going to provide a large enough profit to keep a game profitable. Epic is not a stupid developing house, and I guarantee that when Unreal 2 releases, no one will have a problem playing on a geforce 2 or Radeon


I also think that sometimes Anand is so high on being at the cutting edge of technology, that the reviews provided have a really hard edge "you are screwed if you dont spend 500$ a month in computer upgrades" edge to them

 

[JBChance]

I agree with you 100%, Wage Slave.......

I think the whole thing is getting blown out of proportion about these vid cards. I usually buy one
generation behind, 'cause I play the same games for $150 - 200 less.

That's why I said I wish I had looked at Kyro II more. I just plunked down $100 for a GF2 Ti, when maybe
I could have spent less for the same, playable framerates. Maybe, maybe not.

A lot of folks around here are always spending to be on the cutting edge (and that's fine for them); take
a look at the thread about this review in General Hardware Forum. I posted some comments along
your line, and they all pretty much ignored them.

Oh well, it's their money, not mine

 

[nemesismk2]

<< The problem is that for every unreal game their is another which tells a different story >>



Yes that is true but you miss the point, this thread is about Unreal 2 not about games in general!

Unreal 2 is a game which myself and alot of people are looking forward to and it seems that the current generation of video cards are struggling to run it at the resolution which I like to play ie 1024x768x32bit.

 

[nemesismk2]

The Kyro 2 for me gave me good gaming performance (it also runs lightwave v5 well) and it only cost me £75, it was a bargain and because of my good experience with the Kyro 2 I'm waiting for the Kyro 3 before deciding on my next purchase, if it's not that great then I'll get the best out an ATI Radeon 8500.

 

[Mingon]

To be honest i think your missing the point - everything below a geforce 3 seems to be unplayable @ 800 x 600 32bit imoh much below 50 fps will be unplayable. It looks like I will finally be forced to upgrade my geforce 2 ultra.

 

[sMashPiranha]

Come on people, I'm sure most people with modern video cards will have no need to upgrade. Most likely you'll just have to play with the detail levels to get your FPS to a playable level. How many games are out now that have a fixed detail level? Epic isn't going to be going out to lose money on this game by only catering to hardcore upgrade freaks.

 

[WageSlave]

Epic isn't going to be going out to lose money on this game by only catering to hardcore upgrade freaks.


Exactly my feelings.... Epic would not make any money on this game if you couldnt play it on a Radeon or Gefroce2, since those are the cards that practically everyone got if they bought a system with in the last year or so, that or even a geforce 2 MX.... I have a buddy whos paretns are dumb and bought a really cheap dell, that came with a geforce2mx200... THOSE are the majority... those of you that are dropping 300$ every 6months to 1 year on a vid card are the EXTREME minority, if you werent, and there was a bigger market, they wouldnt cost nearly so much

 

[Piano Man]

You guys should read Mark Rein's (VP of Epic Games) post about this in the articles section.


Find it here

 

[EMAN]

I didnt buy that card (and im sure this goes for the geforce 2 owners also) to NOT be able to play newer games in the near future... I think mostly this is just an example of an engine that has not been optimized for any but the high end video cards yet. Lets face, not many people own a geforce 3 or radeon 8500 yet, and some are even backin the TNT2 generation (definatley time to upgrade there) but If the average dell user that bought their computer a year ago cant play unreal 2 without an upgrade..

But the game has 50-100 times more polygons than Unreal Tournament. The game is going to look fantastic and I truly love the way Unreal engine looks and also the game play is one of my favorites. An OEM radeon 7500 cost only little over a hundred so you can't really complain for the state of art graphics that Unreal 2 is going to provide for us.

Anantech also states this:

We will provide follow-ups if/when Epic introduces new features to their engine that introduce new performance challenges, as well as if manufacturers release new drivers that are further optimized for these new features that we're testing. We'll also entertain reader requests, as always, for other avenues to continue this investigation.

Being that said we can still improve our peformance when this game comes out.

 

[nRollo]

" personally find that frame rate on the 64MB ddr radeon unacceptable"
Er, that card is pretty old now. When UT2 comes out it will be two generations back.

"I didnt buy that card (and im sure this goes for the geforce 2 owners also) to NOT be able to play newer games in the near future..."
If you bought that card when it came out to play UT2, that was a bad move. If you bought it recently to play UT2, why?

"Lets face, not many people own a geforce 3 or radeon 8500 yet"
GF3 Ti200s are $150? 8500 OEMs are down to $170.

"unreal 2 wont sell"
I wouldn't bet on that.

 

[WageSlave]

Rollo, you took a whole lot out of context there... thats a pretty low way to make a point.


For the average computer user... 170$ upgrade for something they bought 1 year ago is pretty unacceptable.. thats alot of money for a non enthusiast, and I think that history pretty well shows that most new games come ready to run on hardware that isnt bleeding edge. you may not think twice about dropping 170$ and tossing something you paid that much for a year ago in the trash, but average joe blow 15year old computer gamer ussually doesnt have that kind of cash to throw around.....

And sorry, im not going to really look at hardware I bought a year ago as 'old' I played everything I wanted to, on a TNT2 until about a year ago.

 

[Idoxash]

I'm a HUGE fan of Tribes 1 and 2 and i love Unreal T........so this game should kick and heck it looks as if it will own all even our hardware I'm glad really about time something comes out that makes you spend hard to come by money that want go to waste and yeah i have a Kyro II and i will own a Kyro III and either way i buy this game for my pc and will run it as hi as the pc will let it even if I have to deal with 20 fps or slower.......yeah man!

 

[EMAN]

What kind of card do you have Wageslave?

I only shelled out $150 for my Vivo SE that's clocked 260/460 last year and it looks like I can play the game fine with full detail 800x600 if I optimize a little bit. You know you can make the game run faster by having certain features off. When Unreal Tournament first came out most people were playing with 16bit colors and most of bandwidth effects off and even then it was good for 800x600 or 1024x768 with voodoo 3 cards. Voodoo 3 were top of the line at the time. This game isn't like quake 3, you can play decently with 50fps.

Also by the time this game comes out geforce 4 will come out and higher clocked Radeon 8500 and older cards are going to get cheaper. Radeon 8500 OEM right now is pretty cheap. Cost a lot less than playstation 2 or Xbox for having state of the are graphic power.