Leadtek Duo PX6600GT TDH Extreme

Battlefield 2

Publisher: Electronic Arts

We used the 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, reporting the median frame rate. We found that there was no ready way to duplicate testing situations manually in this game, 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 set to 8xAF when the 'Texture Filtering' option was set to 'High'.

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 60 frames per second (or higher) for the average frame rate delivered a smooth and fluid gaming experience.

In this title, we found that the Leadtek Duo PX6600GT Extreme was not able to play the game with any of the details set to high at 1280x960, with the exception of the Texture Filtering option that controls Anisotropic Filtering. It was generally slower than both the GeForce 6800 GT and the Radeon X800 XL 256MB as we believe that Battlefield 2 is quite sensitive to frame buffer and available memory bandwidth.

The Radeon X800 XL is faster than the Leadtek Duo - we were able to add detail to terrain and texture quality by increasing them to 'high'. With the GeForce 6800 GT, we were able to add 2xAA on top of the higher details. As such, we found that the GeForce 6800 GT delivered the best gaming experience in this title.