Club3D Volari V3XT

Doom 3

Publisher: Activision

Doom 3 was not playable on the Club3D Volari V3XT, with an average frame rate of under fifteen frames per second on the minimum detail settings. The Radeon 9200 SE, which is priced roughly the same as the Volari V3XT did not deliver a smooth gaming experience, but it was less of a slide show than the XGI card - it was actually possible to play the title to some extent on the minimum detail settings. With a bit of overclocking on the memory you should, by rights, be able to gain an average frame rate above thirty frames per second.

We're over exerting these video cards here, but if you are not interested in spending any more than £35 on a video card, you can't expect miracles in the most advanced games available.

Half-Life 2

Publisher: Valve Software


We had trouble getting the Club3D Volari V3XT stable or playable on any rendering path. We tried the DirectX 9.0 path, but averaged under five frames per second whenever water was present on screen. Seeing as water is a big part of Half-Life 2, that doesn't fare well for the Volari V3XT.

Things were no better with the DirectX 8.1 rendering path - the system became unstable and we were greeted with the dreaded Blue Screen Of Death. Despite this, the frame rates were still exceedingly poor whenever water was present on screen. We were seeing a fifteen frames per second average frame rate. Under DirectX 7.0, we finally thought we'd found a playable setting; however, we then experienced some rather strange happenings whenever we looked at a light source. The short movie was encoded with Windows Media Encoder 9, and we are spinning around in the centre of a room with several light sources.

There are also models and textures missing all over the place. The helicopter is missing in the Water Hazard levels - all that you see is the rotor blades spinning, while you are riding around on an invisible hovercraft. The sand buggy is the same as the hovercraft too.

FarCry

Publisher: Ubisoft

The Volari V3XT was a poor performer in FarCry too - we are using minimum details and we cannot get the title to run smoothly by any stretch of the imagination. However, it was more playable than Doom 3, and we could play without crashing in the way that we experienced in Half-Life 2. Whenever we went in to an area with a large amount of trees, we suffered massive frame rate drops in to single figures, which made the gaming experience a very choppy one.

The Radeon 9200 SE was capable of a smooth frame rate with the details turned up slightly - we were able to increase Texture Quality, Particle Count and Environment Quality to 'Medium'. Every other detail setting was left on 'Low'.