Detonator 50 First Look
Omega65
Philadelphia, Pa
<b>Gamer Depot <a href="http://www.gamersdepot.com/hardware/video_cards/ati_vs_nvidia/dx9_rel50/001.htm" target=_blank>Detonator 50 First Look</a></b>
There’s no doubt that all the recent news regarding NVIDIA’s beat-down in Half-Life 2 has created quite a buzz – not only with our readers and the industry – namely with NVIDIA. Over the course of this last week it’s been issuing a beta build of Detonator 50, which is promised to bring much needed improvement to DirectX 9 shader-driven games like Halo, Tomb Raider and of course Half-Life 2 when it ships.
We did a <a href="http://www.gamersdepot.com/hardware/video_cards/ati_vs_nvidia/dx9_desktop/001.htm" target=_blank>story</a> a couple of weeks ago on Halo and Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness – and since we still don’t have a copy of the Half-Life 2 benchmarking program we’ll use those two games again here.
Rather than run a benchmark that both NVIDIA and ATI would have ample opportunity to “optimize” for, we’ll stick to real-world games for now – after all, who the hell plays <a href="http://www.gamersdepot.com/games/action/aquanox2/001.htm" target=_blank>Aquanox</a> anyway?
ATI has long been suspect that NVIDIA is doing things visually (spelled sacrificing image quality) in Detonator 50 to help make-up the performance delta Today, we’ll put that theory to the test. Of course, NVIDIA has been rather “gung-ho” about getting us to test out Aquamark; however, as <a href="http://www.driverheaven.net/articles/aquamark3/index3.htm" target=_blank>tests</a> will show (watch the flash animation there), they’re giving up image quality in that benchmark as well.
There’s no doubt that all the recent news regarding NVIDIA’s beat-down in Half-Life 2 has created quite a buzz – not only with our readers and the industry – namely with NVIDIA. Over the course of this last week it’s been issuing a beta build of Detonator 50, which is promised to bring much needed improvement to DirectX 9 shader-driven games like Halo, Tomb Raider and of course Half-Life 2 when it ships.
We did a <a href="http://www.gamersdepot.com/hardware/video_cards/ati_vs_nvidia/dx9_desktop/001.htm" target=_blank>story</a> a couple of weeks ago on Halo and Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness – and since we still don’t have a copy of the Half-Life 2 benchmarking program we’ll use those two games again here.
Rather than run a benchmark that both NVIDIA and ATI would have ample opportunity to “optimize” for, we’ll stick to real-world games for now – after all, who the hell plays <a href="http://www.gamersdepot.com/games/action/aquanox2/001.htm" target=_blank>Aquanox</a> anyway?
ATI has long been suspect that NVIDIA is doing things visually (spelled sacrificing image quality) in Detonator 50 to help make-up the performance delta Today, we’ll put that theory to the test. Of course, NVIDIA has been rather “gung-ho” about getting us to test out Aquamark; however, as <a href="http://www.driverheaven.net/articles/aquamark3/index3.htm" target=_blank>tests</a> will show (watch the flash animation there), they’re giving up image quality in that benchmark as well.
0
Comments
Why don't nVidia just not bother to render textures at all, it will look crap, BUT YOU WILL GET BETTER BENCHMARK SCORES AND HIGHER FPS!!!!111
NS
It certainly seems so, doesn't it
"There are no cheats here! The infadel will be made to pay dearly for detering the conquest plans of the mother-company!"
Maybe I'll put the caffinated-beverages away now...