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Supreme Commander

Before we turn things over to those rowdy 3D shooters, we have one more benchmark to run through. Though Supreme Commander’s built in benchmark produces a composite score similar to what you would see from 3DMark, this test is anything but synthetic. This benchmark makes full use of the in-game engine, and plays out a full battle right before your eyes. Both CPU and GPU are tested as the AI, physics, and graphics are rendered in real time.

As for our results, it would seem that at the lower resolutions the 9600 GT is once again beaten by the 8800 GTX. However at 1680×1050, the playing field was levelled. The 9600 GT came into what is effectively a tie with the 8800 GTX, and only posted a 3% drop in performance from the 9800 GTX.

Playability once again was a non-issue with this game. Frame rate drops in RTS games don’t affect the game play very much, unless your game turns into a complete slideshow. Neither was the case with Supreme Commander. The game engine has aged well, and frame rates were always at a level that ensured all the death and destruction of the futuristic battlefield looked quite shiny.

BioShock

We now turn down the road of 3D First Person Shooters. These titles tend to be a little be demanding on video cards. Not only that, but any deviation or drop in frame rates for more than a second can affect game play in a fashion that affects whether your avatar lives or dies. Our first title used for testing is the critically acclaimed BioShock.

This game has been known to put a great degree of stress on the system running in, it especially in the later stages. For the interests of brevity, we used the intro as benchmark. I paid close attention to the fire and water details as they would be the deal breaker in benchmarking. Settings wise, we cranked everything up to high and ran our test on two resolutions. Once again we see the 8800 GTX pull ahead of the 9600 GT in results. This time a 16% and 20% drop in performance was experienced at 1440×900 and 1680×1050 respectively.

The game was still quite playable. In areas of extreme detail and activity, frame rates only dropped into the mid 30s at their lowest. Overall the 9600 GT is still a great performer for it’s price.

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