Starcraft AA benchmarks: ATi vs nVidia

[BFG10K]

This is the comparison we've been waiting for: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/starcraft2-wings-of-liberty_6.html#sect1

The 5870 is pretty close to the GTX485, while the 5970 is miles ahead.

The GTX460 is also ahead of the 5830, but is slower than the 5850.

 

[TheMeanestGuest]

While it's good to know that AA works for both vendors, I'm not sure who would actually turn it on while playing SC2. People with computers powerful enough that they can turn on something they'll never notice just because?

SC2 just isn't the kind of game where you have the time to admire all the pretty straight lines. I mean, I'm really never looking at the same thing from the same position for more than a second, let alone close enough to actually notice the results of AA.

 

[jvroig]

I just took a peek at the performance without FSAA page, and it is more noticeable there that at lower resolutions (1600x900), GeForce cards perform better than the comparable Radeon alternatievs. But as you increase the resolution to 1920x1080 and 2560x1600, Radeon cards perform better. Is this a SC2 thing?

Why is it that the Radeon cards seem to cope better at higher res? I'd have thought it would be Fermi, since both 480 and 470 have more VRAM, but it seems that isn't the factor here.

 

[BFG10K]

Why is it that the Radeon cards seem to cope better at higher res? I'd have thought it would be Fermi, since both 480 and 470 have more VRAM, but it seems that isn't the factor here.

The current theory is Fermi's lacking texturing performance.

 

[Grooveriding]

Nice review.

Looks like at 1920x1200 and up the 480 takes a bigger hit with AA enabled.

Also the GTX 460 only gives a playable framerate with AA enabled at 1680x1050 and below. The forced AA is pretty hard on these cards, but they can give AA in the midrange.

The 5850 does nicely, 5830 is in the same boat as the 460 with not being able to do AA at high resolutions.

It's also interesting how with or without AA, the 480 and 5870 are neck and neck at 2560x1600. Looks like the 58XX series still has that advantage at top resolutions.

 

[Qbah]

While it's good to know that AA works for both vendors, I'm not sure who would actually turn it on while playing SC2. People with computers powerful enough that they can turn on something they'll never notice just because?

SC2 just isn't the kind of game where you have the time to admire all the pretty straight lines. I mean, I'm really never looking at the same thing from the same position for more than a second, let alone close enough to actually notice the results of AA.

You scroll plenty in this game and this is when aliasing shows most - movement. Not to mention people with bigger screens have the ugliness of aliasing even more visible. I game on my 40" HDTV and let me tell you, it ain't pretty without AA in every single game I played.

While it is indeed less visible than let's say Crysis or Mass Effect, I can still easily tell the difference with AA on and off. Anti-aliasing gives me a better experience, so why would I not use it?

As for the article itself, another high quality one from Xbitlabs. Their numbers seem a bit higher compared to what I'm getting. Within reasonable distance though, as I was just playing missions with FRAPS benchmarking results in the background.

They used a faster CPU, my HD5850 is OCed. And I got plenty stuff running together with the game (Steam Overlay to name one ).

All in all, very informative and, as usual, a great read

 

[golem]

Nice review.
Also the GTX 460 only gives a playable framerate with AA enabled at 1680x1050 and below. The forced AA is pretty hard on these cards, but they can give AA in the midrange.

The 5850 does nicely, 5830 is in the same boat as the 460 with not being able to do AA at high resolutions.

The graphs aren't labeled to what the numbers mean (lower number minimum, higher number average?), but isn't the difference at 19x10 for 5850 and GTX 460 only 1 frame 29 vs 30 and 39.8 vs 40.8?

At 25x16, the 5850 is better, but not really playable.

 

[Xarick]

Something seems off to me. Why is the 5850 doing so poorly at 1600x900. It is running almost as fast as it does at 1920x1080.

 

[PingviN]

Look at that HD5970 go! That's some pretty decent scaling.

 

[SiC420]

I'd like to see how well GTX 460 performs when in SLI.

 

[Cerb]

SC2 just isn't the kind of game where you have the time to admire all the pretty straight lines.

There are only four possible straight lines w/o AA, and they tend to be rare (0, 45, 90, and 135 degrees). On top of that, the diagonals are still improved by AA. AA, as typically implemented, is far from ideal, but it allows for approximating what those squares of the screen aught to look like (taking actual shape information, and treating each pixel like a square space with area to be filled, and weighting the values of samples from each polygon in the pixel by how much of its area it fills, would be ideal).

It's not a matter of admiring lines. It's that an attempt to draw most lines, with a single point-sample in the middle of a large square, results in things that don't look like straight lines. Likewise, curves don't look like curves. They look like what they are: many highly distinct right-angle edges, not unlike making the image from a mass of legos. The whole uproar has been because there are quite a few of us who see that, and use AA as a solution. it has only been in the last few years that popular games have come out that did not easily allow AA.

 

[Skurge]

So they got the crossfire working in SC2?

 

[SlowSpyder]

So the cards pretty well line up as they should. I guess the only things that stand out to me is that the 5870 is pretty close to the GTX480, close enough that you probably wouldn't be able to tell a difference between the two in this game. Likewise, the GTX460 is nipping at the heels of the 5850.

I just dropped the wife off at the airport, I'm picking up this game today. This gives me all day to get my nerd on. Between SC2 and UFC tonight it looks like today should be a fun one.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Something seems off to me. Why is the 5850 doing so poorly at 1600x900. It is running almost as fast as it does at 1920x1080.

Its not the 5850 doing poorly, its something else, such as the CPU. Bottlenecking 101.

 

[rolodomo]

The Xbitlabs AA results will be out of date faster than ATI and NVIDIA update their "hacks," which should be very soon (for beta).

 

[Sylvanas]

I'm surprised how varied each website is on SC2 benchmarks. It's hard to gauge an accurate approximation of performance but I'd assume the lowest common denominator may be under the most intense conditions (some maps can have half the performance of others I've noticed). Xbit's review is good as always and I love people showing minimums.

I assume the AA implemented by ATI and Nvidia does not include any of their 'enhanced' modes. This is unfortunate as I'd like to see the performance impact of higher levels of CSAA or perhaps ATI's edge detect.

 

[0roo0roo]

While it's good to know that AA works for both vendors, I'm not sure who would actually turn it on while playing SC2. People with computers powerful enough that they can turn on something they'll never notice just because?

SC2 just isn't the kind of game where you have the time to admire all the pretty straight lines. I mean, I'm really never looking at the same thing from the same position for more than a second, let alone close enough to actually notice the results of AA.

Its not hard at all to notice, the difference is subtle, but its everywhere, everything looks like its rendered as it should be, nice and clean "cg" instead of jagged old style game graphics.

 

[Grooveriding]

I'm surprised how varied each website is on SC2 benchmarks. It's hard to gauge an accurate approximation of performance but I'd assume the lowest common denominator may be under the most intense conditions (some maps can have half the performance of others I've noticed). Xbit's review is good as always and I love people showing minimums.

I assume the AA implemented by ATI and Nvidia does not include any of their 'enhanced' modes. This is unfortunate as I'd like to see the performance impact of higher levels of CSAA or perhaps ATI's edge detect.

Enabling supersampling on my setup is a huge performance hit, 4xSSAA at times is playable but others is not, especially when zerg creep is on the screen. I can maintain playability throughout the game with 4xAA and 2xSSAA.

Likewise stepping it up to 8xAA is too much, also trying to enable 8xQ causes the game to hang for me.

Supersampling in this game is probably only going to be playable if you have a 480/5870/5970/overclocked 470 and depending on resolution, if you have two cards.

 

[jvroig]

Its not the 5850 doing poorly, its something else, such as the CPU. Bottlenecking 101.

If the CPU is already bottlenecking the 5850, how come faster cards such as the 5970 performs much better? If CPU bottleneck is the real explanation, wouldn't it also show the 5970 perform barely faster than the 5850?

Not that I have an explanation myself, the thought just occurred to me. The moment I realized the small delta between 16 vs 19 resolutions, I also immediately thought CPU bottleneck. The delta is even smaller in page 5, performance without FSAA.

 

[Anubis]

While it's good to know that AA works for both vendors, I'm not sure who would actually turn it on while playing SC2. People with computers powerful enough that they can turn on something they'll never notice just because?

SC2 just isn't the kind of game where you have the time to admire all the pretty straight lines. I mean, I'm really never looking at the same thing from the same position for more than a second, let alone close enough to actually notice the results of AA.

TBH ive never cared about AA or AF, i normally just leave them at 4x4 or completely off. ive been gaming at 1600x1200 or greater for 10 years and never noticed it being anything more then an unnecessary performance hit

 

[BFG10K]

I assume the AA implemented by ATI and Nvidia does not include any of their 'enhanced' modes. This is unfortunate as I'd like to see the performance impact of higher levels of CSAA or perhaps ATI's edge detect.

Since both vendors implement AA at the driver level, any of their AA modes should work.

 

[lavaheadache]

TBH ive never cared about AA or AF, i normally just leave them at 4x4 or completely off. ive been gaming at 1600x1200 or greater for 10 years and never noticed it being anything more then an unnecessary performance hit

AF and AA an unnecessary performance hit?

Remind me in the future to disregard anything you say about graphics or video cards. AF and AA can make or break a lot of visuals

 

[Anubis]

yes seeing as visuals (graphics) are dead last on the list of things that contribute to game enjoyment

 

[HurleyBird]

Even 2x AA is too much in multiplayer when everyone has 200/200 and giant carrier fleets roam.

 

[Wreckage]

The difference between the 460 and the 5850 is just a few fps. Even closer when you consider minimum frame rate. (The 460 actually wins a benchmark there).


The 5850 needs to drop down to $199 to be competitive with the 460.