HIS Radeon X850XT IceQ II Turbo

Battlefield 2

Publisher: Electronic Arts

We are using the newly released follow up to Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield: Vietnam, Battlefield 2. It features an all-new game engine based on the DirectX 9.0 API. There is no Shader Model 3.0 support, but the majority of hardware will use a Shader Model 2.0++ mode that includes support for Normal Maps, Parallax Mapping, Full-Resolution Dynamic Shadowing, Post Processing and Fog.

The game will look the same on both NVIDIA and ATI hardware, so there is no advantage of choosing one over the other in image quality related circumstances. The only major difference is that Ultra Shadow 2 is utilised on NVIDIA's hardware, while the Shadowing on ATI hardware is done using a slightly different technique.

We played five five-minute segments of the same map, taking the median frame rate as our published frame rates. We found that there was no 100% repeatable way to benchmark this game manually, so we felt that taking a typical slice of action from the game was the best way to report our findings. We controlled Anti-Aliasing from inside the game, while Anisotropic Filtering was controlled from the driver control panel.

Below is a table of the best-playable settings that we found best for each video card configuration. In this title, we found that 25 to 30 frames per second minimum and a target of 55 frames per second (or higher) for the average frame rate delivered a smooth and fluid gaming experience.


Obviously, the GeForce 7800 GTX delivers some very solid, unrivalled performance in this title, but the HighTech Radeon X850 XT iTurbo does well – the settings used for the Radeon X850 XT were slightly higher than the GeForce 6800 Ultra, with Terrain, Geometry, Texture, Dynamic Shadows and Texture Filtering all set to 'High'. On GeForce 6800 Ultra and Radeon X800 XL, we found that we had to lower the details a little, with only Terrain, Texture and Texture Filtering set to 'High'.

In terms of performance, there was very little to choose between the stock and enhanced clocks on the HIS Radeon X850 XT, and you will have to overclock the card further if you are looking to improve image quality settings in this title. GeForce 6800 Ultra and Radeon X800 XL delivered the same gaming experience, with the Radeon X800 XL representing great value in this title.