Connect3D Radeon X1950 XT 256MB

Call of Duty 2:

Publisher: Activision

We used the full version of Call of Duty 2, patched to version 1.2. The game makes use of some awesome effects and is generally very graphically intense and immersive. That's helped by the tremendous smoke effect that Infinity Ward have created - it's better than anything we've ever seen before. There are also real time shadows and a subtle HDR lighting effect too.

The gameplay is not as linear as the first version of Call of Duty, and Infinity Ward has ditched the rather old Quake 3 engine in favour of creating its own proprietary graphics engine to render the effects. There is something about the game that makes it very intense and you often find yourself having to take a break from the action because you're too overwhelmed by its immersiveness and intensity.

We used a custom timedemo that covers both indoor and outdoor performance in the title across one of the most intensive portions of the game. The Optimise for SLI option was disabled for single GPU configurations as it causes some texture corruption if there is only one GPU present. It was enabled for dual-GPU configurations and all other options were set to their maximum values.







Our Call Of Duty 2 benchmark really hammers all of the cards and with maximum in-game details selected, the Radeon X1950 Pro struggles to deliver acceptable frame rates with just 2xAA applied at 1280x1024. Connect3D's Radeon X1950 XT 256MB does manage a decent enough frame rate at this resolution though and you'll get frame rates that are just about acceptable with 4xAA enabled at the same resolution.

Playing Call Of Duty 2 at 1600x1200, will not be very pleasant on Connect3D's X1950 XT 256MB unless you turn down the texture details, or leave anti-aliasing turned off instead. The trend continues as you increase the strain on the card with higher resolutions and higher levels of anti-aliasing, too. If you're looking for acceptable frame rates at resolutions higher than 1280x1024, you're going to have to make compromises.