Legit Video Card Reviews

HIS Radeon 9600SE ViVo Video Card

Manufacturer: HIS
Product: Excalibur 9600SE VIVO Edition Platinum Pack
Date: Fri, Jan 23, 2004 - 09:00 AM
Written By: Justin West -
Share:

Game Tests:

UT2003 v2225:

For the UT2003 test, we ran the built in Asbestos Botmatch benchmark. We set the AA and AF settings through the driver. The graph shows the results after using FRAPS to capture the FPS ever second over the course of the benchmark. The chart shows the Average FPS from the built in benchmark.

For the graphed comparison, we chose to run the 9600SE at the best quality settings it could handle without sacrificing game playability. So for UT2003, all we had to do is drop the resolution to 1024x768 and the performance was great!

Return to Castle Wolfenstein v1.41:

For the RTCW test, we ran a custom Checkpoint Demo with the "/timedemo 1" setting in the game's console. We set the AA and AF settings through the driver. The graph shows the results after using FRAPS to capture the FPS every second over the course of the benchmark. The chart shows the Average FPS from the timedemo results.

In RTCW, we also just dropped the resolution but left 4xAA/8xAF and a more noticeable performance hit was noticed than in UT2003. You can see that during the benchmark, the FPS dropped below the 30FPS threshold of playability. So 4xAA/8xAF may be a little too much for the 9600SE in RTCW.

Halo v1.01:

For the Halo test, we ran the built in timedemo benchmark by adding "-timedemo" at the end of our shortcut. We left AA and AF disabled for this test due to its graphic intensity at default settings. The graph shows the results after using FRAPS to capture the FPS every second over the course of the benchmark. The chart shows the Average FPS from the built in timedemo.

Halo does not actually use real gameplay in the built-in test. It is because of this that we left it at the default resolution of 1024x768 in order to consistently show the performance difference between these cards. By our results, it is obvious that one would drop the resolution to 800x600 or 640x480 when playing Halo with a 9600SE graphics card.

Call of Duty:

For the COD test, we ran a custom demo created by ViperLair with the "/timedemo 1" setting in the games console. We set the AA and AF settings through the driver. The graph shows the results after using FRAPS to capture the FPS every second over the course of the benchmark. The chart shows the Average FPS from the timedemo results.

Call of Duty is the only game in our current test suite that we dropped the resolution to 800x600 in order to show reliable playability. When looking at the graph, you can tell that the 9600SE retains playable performance at 800x600 and NoAA/NoAF.

Now on to IQ testing, Overclocking, and our Conclusion.

Next Page - Image Quality:


Review Index
Page 1 - Introduction:
Page 2 - The Card:
Page 3 - Performance:
Page 4 - Game Tests:
Page 5 - Image Quality: