Part Five: Quake 3 Arena

To test the OpenGL side of the 8500, I am going to use Quake 3. I have run both in 16-bit and 32-bit, Trilinear and Bilinear, 640x480 800x600 1024x768 and finally at Normal High and Max settings to show what it can really do!

16-Bit NORMAL Configuration File Settings:

At normal settings, the Radeon 8500 holds on to well over 200FPS and on the 6032 the performance drops quite drastically, although still over 150FPS. Lets bump up the quality and see how it copes….

16-Bit HIGH Configuration File Settings:

At high settings, the FPS are only slighty hit for performance. Loosing only around 5-10FPS, the Radeon is still beaming with the performance! Lets see how it likes the maximum settings on Q3….

16-Bit MAX Configuration File Settings:

Again we see roughly the same performance hit on the Maximum settings from the previous setting, while loosing 10-20FPS from Normal settings. The FPS are still hovering over the 190FPS mark, where again the 6032's are performing the worst but still over 170FPS

From the results in 16-bit, they are all pretty even except for 6032 which drop considerably when at a higher resolution. Lets see how the drivers compare in 32-bit

32-Bit NORMAL Configuration File Settings:

We are nearly seeing identical results as we did in 16-bit. This surprised me a bit! I was expecting to see more of a performance hit then just 1 or 2 FPS missing here or there! Bumping up the details may show a different matter. Will more detail, while still being at 32-bit hurt the performance?

32-Bit HIGHConfiguration File Settings:

Again there is hardly any difference between the 16-bit counterpart! At these settings, it is starting to prove that if you have the option between 16-bit and 32-bit, then take the latter and enjoy the richer colours!

32-Bit MAX Configuration File Settings:

As you can see from all the results, the Radeon performs nearly on par in 16-bit and 32-bit with either Bilinear or Trilinear. What this proves is that you can play with all the best details, best colour depth and best filtering with a touch (if any) performance difference! The FPS is still well over 150FPS even at 1024x768 and MAX settings, which is simply amazing! It looks like ATi have really worked hard on the OpenGL front, and does it show!

Page Six: VulpineGL>>>

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