by Rob Williams on October 13, 2009 in Graphics & Displays
AMD may have released its first Evergreen GPUs mere weeks ago, but don’t think it’s slowing down for anybody. The company has followed-up with its first mid-range parts, belonging to the HD 5700 series. Performance is much more modest on these new cards, but no features have been scrapped. It’s all here… DirectX 11, Eyefinity and more.
I admit that I’m not a huge fan of RTS titles, but World in Conflict intrigued me from the get go. After all, so many war-based games continue to follow the same story-lines we already know, and WiC was different. It counteracts the fall of the political and economic situation in the Soviet Union in the late 80’s, and instead provides a storyline that follows it as if the USSR had succeeded by proceeding with war in order to remain in power.
Many RTS games, with their advanced AI, tend to favor the CPU in order to deliver smooth gameplay, but WiC favors both the CPU and GPU, and the graphics prove it. Throughout the game’s missions, you’ll see gorgeous vistas and explore areas from deserts and snow-packed lands, to fields and cities. Overall, it’s a real visual treat for the eyes – especially since you’re able to zoom to the ground and see the action up-close.
Manual Run-through: The level we use for testing is the 7th campaign of the game, called Insurgents. Our saved game plants us towards the beginning of the mission with two squads of five, and two snipers. The run consists of bringing our men to action, and hovering the camera around throughout the duration. The entire run lasts between three and four minutes.
Similar to most of our other results, the HD 5770 fell just behind the HD 4870 here, but even further behind the GTX 260.
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NVIDIA GTX 295 1792MB (Reference)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 8xAA, 16xAF
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40
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55.819
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NVIDIA GTX 285 1GB (EVGA)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 0xAA, 16xAF
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34
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49.514
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NVIDIA GTX 275 896MB (Reference)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 0xAA, 16xAF
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36
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46.186
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ATI HD 4890 1GB (Sapphire)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 0xAA, 16xAF
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31
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46.175
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ATI HD 4870 1GB (Reference)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 0xAA, 16xAF
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28
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40.660
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NVIDIA GTX 260 896MB (XFX)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 0xAA, 16xAF
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23
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39.365
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ATI HD 5770 1GB (Reference)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 0xAA, 16xAF
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28
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37.389
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NVIDIA GTX 250 1GB (EVGA)
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2560×1600 – Max Detail, 0xAA, 4xAF
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24
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32.453
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ATI HD 4770 512MB (Gigabyte)
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1920×1080 – Max Detail, 4xAA, 16xAF
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22
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31.561
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Although the game is playable with 4xAA at 2560×1600, the gameplay is made much more smooth, and enjoyable, with anti-aliasing removed entirely. This is also one game where AA isn’t too noticeable in the heat of battle, so it’s hardly even missed.