GTA San Andreas - GPU Performance

[Steve]

Take some GPUs on both AGP and PCIe cards and test them on the new PC version of GTA: San Adnreas. TechConnect have a Radeon X850XT PE in the mix, but the best NVIDIA offering they have is a 6800. Shame on them for no GT/Ultra! Still, we'll let them off.

Rockstar Games, with their newly released GTA: San Andreas, go a long way towards punishing even monster machines with the complexity of their new game. The sprawling metropolitan epic provides some rich and detailed locales, with gigabytes of texture maps and models, shading on just about anything large enough to catch the sun, and massive killer overdraws for long view distance settings.

[The review]

[megah0]

So where was the Nvidia PCI-E offering?

[ajbrun]

I'm suprised the ATI 9800 was so close to the nvidea 6800 with no AA. All in all though, I think I'm glad that I chose the 6800 for my PC. Since the system specs that they tested it in are exactly the same as mine, I think I should be able to enjoy GTA:SA with graphics on full when it comes in a few days .

[Stoo]

Not *that* good a test tbh, the agp system was ridiculously underpowered compared to the pci-e solution.. I mean, an xp 2600 vs X2 4800, single channel vs dual channel, that's hardly going to give you a fair comparison is it?

[ajbrun]

Well I've just got my hands on GTA in the last 10 mins, so I'm about to try it out. I'll tell you how it goes .

[YorkieBen]

9800 does very well doesnt it?

my system (XP3000+ 768MB RAM, 9800SE w/softmod) runs GTA:SA pretty good at 1280*1024 with with detail/draw distance and AA etc.

[turbo]

Not *that* good a test tbh, the agp system was ridiculously underpowered compared to the pci-e solution.. I mean, an xp 2600 vs X2 4800, single channel vs dual channel, that's hardly going to give you a fair comparison is it?

so true what were they thinking when they threw this all together

[Steve]

Granted it's bad for comparison's sake, but I inidcated as much when I pointed the lack of 6800GT/Ultra. Still, it gives you several reference points for the performance you can expect to get from the game.

Take it as that, rather than a scientific performance comparison.

[Stoo]

Still not convinced

Maybe it's something that Nick/Rys could attack, a proper Hexus test

[Steve]

I agree. Although Nick would just attack it, Rys would attack it with a technical edge.

[Stoo]

That's called an axe

[Willy]

It looks like the 9800 that they used for the test featured the cut-down 128-bit memory bus...

# Ati Radeon 9800: an old stalward that, while slightly weaker in OpenGL applications, features some serious DX 9.0 optimizations and lightning-fast 128-bit memory access.

So anyone with a full 256-bit version like YorkieBen, will be able to turn up the resolution and/or IQ, and still get very playable framerates