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First post, by TheAbandonwareGuy

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I was going to do a monster bench of all my NVIDIA 6/7/8 series cards (Ranging from 6200 Turbocache cards to a 8800GTX from XFX) but theres a slight issue. I can't seem to find enough benchmarks that won't crash on the older ones that also can take advantage of the features of the newer ones. The 6200 for example, has 32MB Dedicated and borrows the rest from system RAM via TurboCache. So far i've got:

Half Life 2: Lost Coast (Custom Time Demo)
DOOM 3 (Custom TIme Demo)
QUAKE 4 (Custom Tme Demo)
TES IV: Oblivion (Manual Run)
3DMark06 (Synthetic)
Aquamark3 (Synthetic)

I was hoping to have a few more real world and synth tests but sadly the internet seems to have dumped all knowledge of alot of early Tech Demos and Benchmarks into the Recycle Bin of time.

Are there any other benchmarks out there (Or games from 2004-2006 with built in benching tools and or time demo support) that i'm not aware of?

Ill be posting the benchmark results here later but first i have to find enough tests to make it worth while.

Cyb3rst0rms Retro Hardware Warzone: https://discord.gg/jK8uvR4c
I used to own over 160 graphics card, I've since recovered from graphics card addiction

Reply 1 of 14, by agent_x007

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F.E.A.R. (1) : build-in
Quake III Arena : build-in timedemo (for "Leveling the playing field" purpose) - usefull if you got CPU power 😀
Crysis : +Crysis Benchmark Tool

What programs crash ?
I hope U got monster CPU to power 8800 GTX 😀
Windows 7 or XP ?

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Reply 2 of 14, by TheAbandonwareGuy

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agent_x007 wrote:
F.E.A.R. (1) : build-in Quake III Arena : build-in timedemo (for "Leveling the playing field" purpose) - usefull if you got CPU […]
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F.E.A.R. (1) : build-in
Quake III Arena : build-in timedemo (for "Leveling the playing field" purpose) - usefull if you got CPU power 😀
Crysis : +Crysis Benchmark Tool

What programs crash ?
I hope U got monster CPU to power 8800 GTX 😀
Windows 7 or XP ?

Im going to have these running off a Core2Duo E8500 @ 3.16GHZ so i've got the CPU portion covered. And ill be using Windows XP since some of these cards have pretty flaky 7 drivers if i remember correctly. As far as Quake goes i don't know why i didn't think of that one. but Crysis im 99 percent sure will crash the lower end cards being that it's probably one of the most demanding games of that decade...

Cyb3rst0rms Retro Hardware Warzone: https://discord.gg/jK8uvR4c
I used to own over 160 graphics card, I've since recovered from graphics card addiction

Reply 4 of 14, by PhilsComputerLab

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Cards not working in some games (just give it a 0 score), IMO is very useful information!

If you only show working games, some poor dude out there will build a system around it and then notice that some games don't work 😀

So I wouldn't kick out games or cards because of this.

YouTube, Facebook, Website

Reply 5 of 14, by SPBHM

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Far Cry used to run OK even on the geforce 6100 IGP when I tested it, but it was considered an advanced game back in 2004

for games like Oblivion and Lost Coast I think it's worth maybe running a test with HDR on and also with HDR off

Reply 6 of 14, by TheAbandonwareGuy

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SPBHM wrote:

Far Cry used to run OK even on the geforce 6100 IGP when I tested it, but it was considered an advanced game back in 2004

for games like Oblivion and Lost Coast I think it's worth maybe running a test with HDR on and also with HDR off

Haha a 6150LE IGP was what got me into PC gaming (and retro gaming, this was around 2011-2013 before i got smart enough upgrade it to a GT520...) in the first place. and Yeah, Far Cry runs fine on the entire 6000 series. NVIDIA optimized there drivers to hell and back for that game. It was the Crysis of its day. Added to the battery of tests i'm going to run.

Also as far as Oblivion goes i'll likely test at Medium settings with HDR and then a 2nd with normal Bloom @ either 800x600 or 1024x768 (Again, im afraid ill low mem the cards if i go too high on the settings, especially with my 6800 and one of my 6600's being 128's. On a side note why did they even make 128MB 6800's... its like a Corvette Engine in a Volkeswagon).

Anywho i think we've got the game tests covered. What were some other era Synthetic tests? I'm open to the idea of using old tech demo's as benchmarks via FRAPS.

Cyb3rst0rms Retro Hardware Warzone: https://discord.gg/jK8uvR4c
I used to own over 160 graphics card, I've since recovered from graphics card addiction

Reply 7 of 14, by TheAbandonwareGuy

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agent_x007 wrote:

I think having Crysis is worth droping 6200 😀
It should work OK on 6600/7300 (GT).
How many cards you want to actually test ?

Currently, i have 11 cards lined up. 10 Geforce cards and 1 Radeon. I'm hoping you guys will add your benchmarks to the thread when i post my benchs.

and yeah, it will start on those cards. It wont work OK, it wont work acceptably. Infact, it will barely work at all. Crysis isn't nice to pre-8000 series cards. Its not friendly to anything less than a GTX285 and im sure if you crank up the res to 4k you could make it go toe-to-toe with a modern high end GPU (My 750TI only gets 20FPS at 1680x1050 with Max settings and 2x AA)

Cyb3rst0rms Retro Hardware Warzone: https://discord.gg/jK8uvR4c
I used to own over 160 graphics card, I've since recovered from graphics card addiction

Reply 8 of 14, by SPBHM

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TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:
Haha a 6150LE IGP was what got me into PC gaming (and retro gaming, this was around 2011-2013 before i got smart enough upgrade […]
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SPBHM wrote:

Far Cry used to run OK even on the geforce 6100 IGP when I tested it, but it was considered an advanced game back in 2004

for games like Oblivion and Lost Coast I think it's worth maybe running a test with HDR on and also with HDR off

Haha a 6150LE IGP was what got me into PC gaming (and retro gaming, this was around 2011-2013 before i got smart enough upgrade it to a GT520...) in the first place. and Yeah, Far Cry runs fine on the entire 6000 series. NVIDIA optimized there drivers to hell and back for that game. It was the Crysis of its day. Added to the battery of tests i'm going to run.

Also as far as Oblivion goes i'll likely test at Medium settings with HDR and then a 2nd with normal Bloom @ either 800x600 or 1024x768 (Again, im afraid ill low mem the cards if i go too high on the settings, especially with my 6800 and one of my 6600's being 128's. On a side note why did they even make 128MB 6800's... its like a Corvette Engine in a Volkeswagon).

Anywho i think we've got the game tests covered. What were some other era Synthetic tests? I'm open to the idea of using old tech demo's as benchmarks via FRAPS.

regarding the 128MB memory, well, it was enough at the time and it saved money, if you look in 2004 and maybe even 2005 in typical resolution most games would perform the same with both...

talking about the 6100s, I remember even trying Oblivion, with all on low 640x480 it was basically unplayable, I suppose even the 6200 TC will be a lot better; also it's funny because I had just the 6100 series for a couple of years, around early 2005 I got a little tired of buying hardware and PC gaming, so I sold basically everything and kept using a SiS IGP for a while, but soon we had cheap s754 semprons everywhere and the first 6100 IGP, so I had to get one... in 2007 I ended up upgrading to an AM2 board with the 6150SE which was a little faster but not much (this board actually I used for basic usage until maybe a month ago, when it started with random shutdowns...), but I remember Far Cry being kind of good in it, Doom 3 was horrible, I suppose Hl2 was OK with reduced settings... kind of impressive if you think it's just "half" a 6200 with no dedicated memory... but being a geforce, it was kind of OK for older games (good compatibility, unlike the typical SiS and Intel IGPs at the time).

synthetic... I really can't remember anything specific, just the basic 3dmarks (03, 05 and 06 for these cards)

Reply 9 of 14, by agent_x007

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Indeed drivers for Win 7 x64 SP1 are broken for 6800 series. My 6800 Ultra REALLY does not like it.
7900 GTX is fine Crysis @ Medium with 1024x768 = Avg. 24,5FPS.

3DMark 03 is good for comparison with older GPU's, other than that... there is Codecreatures Benchmark Pro.

For high end cards of it's generations, you could experiment with Unigine Heaven 2.5 (it has DX9 path, newer versions 3.0/4.0 don't) 😀

PS. 6800 GT with 128MB ?
Try 8800 GT with 256MB from early 2008 😁

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Reply 11 of 14, by agent_x007

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SPBHM wrote:

Crysis on low is quite ugly but I think it only uses SM2.0, even a 9700 can run it, it might run well enough with the 6800 on low.

Indeed. But GPU is not the only thing you need to run Crysis 😀

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And yes, GPU is overclocked a bit, but still - 1280x1024 on Low with almost 30 FPS avg. 😉

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Reply 12 of 14, by Carlos S. M.

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Lucky you are not bechning the FX series, they doesn't support SM 3.0 plus their DirectX 9 perfoamance is poor, i only have some low end models though like FX 5200 and FX 5500

Btw. i saw some people getting Crysis run on the Intel GMA 950 which is really weak.

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