I promised to report back on how my experiment with modding an ATI R9500
into an R9700Pro went, so here's the scoop, with lots of FRAPS benchmarks
and notes.
SoftR9700 definitely works, if your card is up to it. Unfortunately, it
looks like mine was not, as my card suffers a bit from the checkerboarding
effect that is apparently a sign that this was a 9700 intendee that didn't
quite make the cut and got shunted into the 9500 line. The artifacts mainly
appear in the darker sections of game menus, worst of all in F1-2002 and
GTR-2002, but also in others. BUT - they also appear to a slight degree in
darkest areas in the games, which is the kicker. So back to the store it
goes. C'est la vie... ;-) But as I had it and thought some others might be
interested in what such a card might do relative to a GeForce 4, I did some
sim benchmarks and have dumped my edited Frapslog.txt file in at the bottom
of this message.
While pretty similar in FPS to my Ti 4400 without the AA and AF turned on,
the ATI card was impressive in its ability to run at high resolutions AND
levels of AA and AF that would have utterly crippled my GeForce. But I have
to say the vaunted IQ difference was underwhelming IMHO, and I had to crank
the ATI all they way up to 16X12X32 with 6XAA and 16XAF for it to really
shine. Which is actually do-able if you've got the CPU for it and are
willing to turn some in-game goodies down. I took a lot of screenshots for
comparison, and when I get the chance I'll upload them so anyone can have a
look themselves if they're interested.
As for the problems - In-game, D3D suffers much less from artifacts than
OGL, to the extent they're barely noticeable if you don't look for them. But
they're there. GPL doesn't like the ATI card at all in OGL. It gets all
sorts of nasty artifacts, in addition to suffering the 3.0 WHQL drivers'
inability to do AA in 16bit. As the ATI driver-swapping routine is at least
as ugly as with NVidia, I haven't gotten into the "leaked" beta's that
supposedly fix that issue. There were also some issues with crashes in the
NR2003 demo but that was the game and not the card. No doubt Papy will have
that sorted by release.
Here's the Fraps Log with notes and methodology, and note that some of the
tests don't list minor anomalies even though they may have occurred; this
was done the last couple of nights and I might've been a bit
sleep-deprived... ;-)
Hope it's of use to someone!
SB
------------------------ Frapslog --------------------------
System: AMDXP1800/ABITKR7A/256MB/SBAUDIGY/WIN98SE nothing overclocked unless
noted.
All games were initially tested with FRAPS at my usual playing resolution
for my Ti 4400 - 1280X960X32, except GPL at 1280X1024X16 (or otherwise
noted). ALL in-game settings were on FULL; buttons, sliders, etc. -
everything. I don't normally play with them that way for FPS reasons, but
wanted to stress the cards to show the performance differences at a full
load. The benchmarks scale well with graphics settings, so the XP1800 was
enough CPU for the purpose of the comparisons, although the AI in GPL slowed
things a bit at Monaco getting round the hairpin. The ATI card was
overclocked to a stable but near-9700 pro level just to test the feasibility
of substitution via SOFTR9700 modding. The mentioned artifacts appeared at
the default clock speed as well.
Testing Method: (all FPS data taken from in-car views)
GPL - Monaco,latest hi-res graphics for cars and track, back of field of 20;
follow field to T1, then slow for one lap
NR2K2&3(demo) - Michigan, back of field of 11 (to match NR2K3 demo); follow
field to T1, then slow for one lap
F1 & GTR 2K2 - Monaco, back of full F1 & GT fields; follow field to T1, then
slow for one lap
Rally Trophy - Mini/Switzerland/Stage 5
Netkar - newest D3D version, drove one lap of Newbury Track starting from
pit lane
-- NO AA OR ANISO --
CARD #1 - LEADTEK GEFORCE 4 TI4400 128MB - 41.09 WHQL
GPL OGL Avg: 33.712 - Min: 20 - Max: 38
GPL D3D Avg: 32.042 - Min: 16 - Max: 37
NR2002 OGL Avg: 59.975 - Min: 46 - Max: 96
NR2002 D3D Avg: 48.570 - Min: 39 - Max: 86
NR2003DEMO OGL Avg: 31.749 - Min: 23 - Max: 52
NR2003DEMO D3D Avg: 29.084 - Min: 22 - Max: 45
F1_2002 Avg: 33.360 - Min: 22 - Max: 45
GTR_2002 Avg: 33.421 - Min: 15 - Max: 52
RALLYTROPHY Avg: 91.144 - Min: 67 - Max: 124
NETKAR Avg: 189.623 -Min: 130 -Max: 223
CARD #2 - SAPPHIRE-ATI R9500 OEM 128MB W/3.3MEM, (MODDED TO R9700 VIA
SOFTR9700 OC@325/295), CAT3.0 WHQL DRIVERS(7192C), "quality" settings for
textures and mipmaps, vsync off, trueform on "application preference"
GPL OGL Avg: 33.711 - Min: 14 - Max: 38 checkerboarding in dark areas and
panels visible between sky sections
GPL D3D Avg: 33.677 - Min: 17 - Max: 38
NR2002 OGL Avg: 36.477 - Min: 28 - Max: 64 some checkerboarding in dark
spots and menu
NR2002 D3D Avg: 48.694 - Min: 40 - Max: 82 some checkerboarding in menu
NR2003DEMO OGL Avg: 22.533 - Min: 17 - Max: 41 some checkerboarding in dark
spots and menu, Locked up PC on exiting game (3dconfig showed 111mb of fast
texture memory available. card showed as ATI9700)
NR2003DEMO D3D Avg: 16.650 - Min: 15 - Max: 22 Locked up PC twice on
exiting game; no anomalies in-game (3dconfig showed 208mb of fast texture
memory available!?! card showed as ATI9700)
F1_2002 Avg: 29.829 - Min: 20 - Max: 39
GTR_2002 Avg: 29.811 - Min: 17 - Max: 47
RALLYTROPHY Avg: 100.122 -Min: 66 - Max: 148
NETKAR Avg: 190.578 -Min: 142 -Max: 219
-- 4XAA & 8X ANISO --
CARD #1 - LEADTEK GEFORCE 4 TI4400 as above
GPL OGL Avg: 33.383 - Min: 18 - Max: 37
GPL D3D Avg: 32.925 - Min: 15 - Max: 38 (w/menu corruption and some screen
flashes).
NR2002 OGL Avg: 33.503 - Min: 27 - Max: 44
NR2002 D3D Avg: 17.598 - Min: 15 - Max: 22
NR2003DEMO OGL Avg: 14.355 - Min: 5 - Max: 19 (min FPS only for a moment
due to solar effect).
NR2003DEMO D3D Avg: 7.778 - Min: 6 - Max: 10 (screen res froze at game
level & left windows taskbar in middle of screen-had to reboot-did it
repeatedly).
F1_2002 Avg: 6.705 - Min: 6 - Max: 8
GTR_2002 Avg: 7.705 - Min: 6 - Max: 10
RALLYTROPHY Avg: 26.760 - Min: 20 - Max: 31
NETKAR Avg: 31.722 - Min: 23 - Max: 37
CARD #2 - SAPPHIRE-ATI R9500/9700 as above
GPL OGL Avg: 32.678 - Min: 13 - Max: 38 checkerboarding in dark areas and
panels visible between sky sections.
GPL D3D Avg: 33.634 - Min: 17 - Max: 38 noted transparent trees at
landmark.
NR2002 OGL Avg: 35.467 - Min: 28 - Max: 65 slight checkerboarding.
NR2002 D3D Avg: 37.923 - Min: 34 - Max: 46
NR2003DEMO OGL Avg: 23.492 - Min: 11 - Max: 47 very slight checkerboarding.
NR2003DEMO D3D Avg: 15.648 - Min: 14 - Max: 18 lockup on exit as with Ti
4400 in D3D with 4XAA & 8XAF on.
F1_2002 Avg: 14.382 - Min: 14 - Max: 16 - nearly double the Ti 4400.
GTR_2002 Avg: 14.473 - Min: 12 - Max: 17 - nearly double the Ti 4400.
RALLYTROPHY Avg: 71.266 - Min: 50 - Max: 85 - check this out next to the Ti
4400!
NETKAR Avg: 110.421 -Min: 78 - Max: 123 - holy cow!
MISC OTHER @ 4XAA & 8X ANISO (all on ATI card)
GFTi4400 LFS (N) Avg: 38.478 - Min: 21 - Max: 66
R9500/9700 LFS (N)Avg: 38.413 - Min: 19 - Max: 65 obviously cpu-limited!
(one lap in a race).
MISC 6XAA & 16X ANISO (all on ATI card)
RALLYTROPHY Avg: 62.993 - Min: 56 - Max: 77
LFS (N) Avg: 34.835 - Min: 20 - Max: 55
NR2002 OGL Avg: 39.442 - Min: 31 - Max: 60
NR2002 D3D Avg: 26.410 - Min: 21 - Max: 37
NR2003DEMO D3D Avg: 47.254 - Min: 35 - Max: 60 no shadows on cars, no
specular or solar effects, med mirror - NO LOCKUP!
NR2003DEMO D3D Avg: 28.850 - Min: 23 - Max: 37 no shadows on cars, all else
on high - NO LOCKUP!
GTR_2002 Avg: 7.957 - Min: 8 - Max: 10
GTR_2002 Avg: 11.896 - Min: 10 - Max: 14 shadows, effects and other
vehicles on medium.
BELOW at 1600X1200X32(GPL 16X12X16) on ATI card, with 6XAA & 16X ANISO, all
texture and mipmap setings on highest quality: in-game tweaks as noted.
FULL POWER!!! ;-)
NR2002 OGL Avg: 35.139 - Min: 27 - Max: 54
NR2003DEMO OGL Avg: 22.155 - Min: 9 - Max: 33 no shadows on cars, all else
on high. min FPS only for a moment due to solar effect.
NR2003DEMO OGL Avg: 26.607 - Min: 20 - Max: 50 no shadows on cars, no
specular or solar effects.
NR2003DEMO OGL Avg: 31.457 - Min: 23 - Max: 50 same as above w/med mirror.
GPL D3D Avg: 34.081 - Min: 21 - Max: 38 detail slider at about 80% like I
usually have it set.
