We will check and see.

I've played around with Silent Hunter 4 and I don't think its graphics engine stresses these new GPUs enough to use (kinda falls into that GTR2/IL-2 category). If there's a demo for Armed Assault I'll check it out. And likewise for X-Plane since that title was mentioned upstream.

Edit: forgot I checked out Armed Assault a year ago and thought it looked dated then. A lot of reviews of the game made similar comments when it was released. So probably not the best to use, unless there's been an expansion that updates the graphics a bit?

Regarding Silent Hunter 4 "not stressing new GPUs enough" I can't comment because I don't know. But I honestly doubt that Silent Hunter 4 graphics and graphics engine fall in the same category as GTR2 or IL-2, that's for sure. Lets see, GTR2 was released in 2006 (a year before Silent Hunter 4) and IL2 forgotten battles was released in 2004 (3 years before Silent Hunter 4) while Silent Hunter was released in 2007. Many game technologies evolve in only 1 year, and moreover in 3. Besides Silent Hunter 4 has in terms of graphics the best water (ocean) and ship modeling that I ever seen in any game! But again, I don't if this is enough to stress modern video cards.

Regarding ArmA, sorry but ArmA "looked dated"?? Don't get me wrong but I think people should know little more about games before posting such comments. You see, sure ArmA may not have the same graphics as Crysis but people trend to forget that ArmA's map has an area of 400 square kilometers (which is loaded all at once) while each level of Crysis has what, 7 square kilometers at best!?
So it's safe to say that ArmA's map is more than 40 times bigger than Crysis map (for example, and even bigger than most of other FPS games). So in theory Crysis could have 40 times better graphics than ArmA with the same performance, but the truth is that Crysis graphics aren't 40 times better than ArmA's graphics and the performance of Crysis isn't much better tan ArmA either, which also makes ArmA a wonderfull game in graphics department.

You see, you can't compare the graphics of games like Crysis with ArmA, the same way you can't compare the graphics of a FPS game with the graphics of a flight simulator for the simple reason that the graphics of the FPS game will always be much better because the maps from a flight simulators are much, much bigger than the ones from ANY FPS game!

Besides, I recently decided to buy an ATI 4850 video card, and so far I think I made an excelent choise. I play ArmA at 1280x1024 (my TFT monitor resolution) with almost everything set on maximum I play very well with only having an occasional micro stutter once and awhile, which means that ArmA is definitly a challenge even for modern video cards.

Also, I find the graphics of ArmA now with my new video card to be wonderfull (this is of course, a personal oppinion) specially considering that ArmA renders huge 400 square kilometer maps (for a "FPS style game").

Note, I don't have anything against Crysis, I just used the Crysis example because it's considered one of the best standards in terms of graphics nowadays and doesn't have so narrow corridors as typical FPS have, such as Call of Duty 4 for example.

Again, there is no Starforce protection with SH4. SH4 uses Securom, not Starforce.

Doom 3, released during key DX9 years, used a game engine built around DX7-era tech. So comparative release dates really aren't that relevant IMO.



Oblivion. <and that's all I need to say to show the rather large errors of your above statements>



Have you ever heard of repeating or tiled textures? There's a reason most shooter levels have a consistent look across walls and floors. There's no tech reason that I know of that automatically prohibits a developer from creating a flight sim that rivals the graphics of any other type or class of game available today. It's more likely that devs/pubs simply aren't going to spend the money on funding a AAA sim in today's market as a limiting factor (art assets are generally the costliest in terms of development man hours).



Has any site that anyone knows of used ArmA for graphics testing? And, for the record, several print magazines commented on the dated graphics when reviewing the game last year. Just because a game runs well on your home system doesn't mean it's good for GPU testing. What was your old graphics card and how did the game run on it?

Oblivion map = 40 square kilometer

ArmA map = 400 square kilometer

Arma's map is 10 times bigger. I rest my case!




Yes I heard. Neverthless, If someone created a flight sim that have graphics that rivaled with the best graphic looking FPS (like Crysis) it would simply be unplayable in any PC system in existance today! That's one of the reason why games like Crysis never have large maps like ArmA and much less as large as a flight simulator. Besides, did you ever played Lockon? Arguably the combat flight sim with the best graphics ever built so far and still is barely playable in today's best PC systems (and the map is not that big, even for a jet flight simulator)!




Nope I never seen graphics testing using ArmA, but the reason doesn't seem to have anything to do with ArmA's graphics technology, but instead because ArmA is not a "blockbuster" or a game where millions were spent in advertising or even one of the best selling games in the world. In fact unfortunally only "blockbuster games" ever shows in "major" graphics testing (either on major web gaming sites or in gaming magazines).

Regarding "several print magazines commented on the dated graphics when reviewing the game last year" is like I said, mainly because most of those magazines editors only look to the graphics of a first-person perspective game expecting a Far Cry or a Crysis style of graphics, instead of understanding very important and even more important details such as huge maps, ability to fly over the entire cenario, no level loadings, total freedom of movements, etc... which is that they should in the first place!
You see graphics are very important but are not everything in a game, and if you want huge maps you have to trade of some graphics details in order to be playable in today's and near (and even medium-term) future PCs! And not only certain graphics details will push for a video card but huge landmasses will perhaps push video card even more.
Besides I don't find ArmA graphics (now that I play with almost everything in very high) outdated, but again this is only my humble oppinion.

Regarding how ArmA ran in my previous video card (which was an ATI X1600XT) compared with now it's like day and night. With my previous video card I could only run ArmA satisfatory at a resolution of 1024x768 with most graphic settings set on low and some on medium. If I ran ArmA with a resolution of 1280x1024 the game never ran as well as it did in 1024x768, even if I set all the graphic settings in LOW. Now with my new ATI HD4850 I can run with resolutions of 1280x1024 (my TFT monitor resolution) with everything either in High and on Very High and much smoother than before (X1600XT with 1024x768 resolutions), so the diference is definitly HUGE! Besides I previously gave you an another example that a friend of mine also noticed a HUGE improvement when upgrading from an ATI 2400 to a NVidia 9600GT.

LoD. Oblivion probably could've been 400 square kilometers and it's gorgeous compared to ArmA. Your argument is really overly simplistic and there's no logical reason to compare different game engines like you're doing (different programmers, different tech targets, different amounts of optimizations, etc.).




No one knows that.



Used to use LOMAC for CPU testing, did so for several years. Heavily CPU-bound.



Not necessarily so. I can think of several examples off-hand where a reviewer decided to use a game that wasn't a blockbuster.



If a game looks dated to someone's eye then I wouldn't run down the road of conjecturing as to why their subjective opinion was such. And I don't think most people expect something like ArmA to have the level of object and detail density of a single-player shooter like Crysis.

Than perhaps could you explain me why there aren't games like Oblivion with maps nearly as larger as ArmA?

LODs will definitly help very much to reduce the workload of a PC system, but like everything else it won't make miracles! Maps in games like ArmA or Oblivion or STALKER (another gourgeous game, with a similar map style as Oblivion) must be loaded all at once, in order that once you start playing the game to avoid situations like in Crysis, where you have in fact serveral levels or zones and once you pass a zone to another the game will stop in order to load the other zone (which is in fact an another map). LODs will load objects (like vegetation or buildings) and their textures but the map/landscape (except perhaps its texture) is always loaded at once, this means that a bigger map will always have a much bigger impact on a PC system than smaller maps, even using LODs which currently and if I'm not mistaken all games use.
Besides, you are forgetting that in ArmA you have AIRCRAFT (from helicopters to fast moving jets) which means that the LOD loading in ArmA must occur much more faster than in Oblivion or STALKER, afterall when flying you are travelling much faster which means much faster LOD loadings!

Resuming, I'm willing to bet with you one of the finnest bottles of scotch that if Oblivion had a map of 400 square kilometers that it would simply be unplayable in todays and near future (at best) PC systems. Take for example the new Far Cry 2, which from what I read it will have similar map style as Oblivion or STALKER (with total freedom of movements) and it will "only" have 50 square kilometers (8 times smaller than ArmA) and this with a tecnology more advanced than was available when ArmA or Oblivion were made. If what you say is true, that you can have a game with the graphics of a Crysis, Oblivion, STALKER, whatever... with maps of 400 square kilometer range, than again why in your oppinion none of those game have such large maps?

Also, I think that people here (including myself) have more than reasons to "complain" because No simulation was included in your reviews, afterall people come here because they play simulations and want to read news about simulation and not much about arcadish games like Crysis. Please, don't get me wrong but the games included in your review, are covered in dozens perhaps hundreds of other video card reviews (even including the most recent ATI 4000 series) all over the net, so I think most of us here expected to see something diferent which is the inclusion of simulations, which is what this site (SimHQ) is all about if I'm not mistaken.
Of course you're right that older simulations like IL2 or Falcon4 are perhaps a bit pointless to review for modern video cards, that I understand and that you should include modern games that make a diference in modern video cards (afterall you received those video cards for free) that's why I gave you the example of Armed Assault, which is a simulation and at the same time it's relatively modern and there's a huge diference playing this game from older video cards to newer ones (like I previously said, from night to day). And of course I'm not against including games like Crysis, not at all. I just think that some simulations should be included as well. There are very few simulations (that can stress a video card) that came out recently but nevertheless they exist. An another example is Wings Over Israel, a combat flight simulation that when the graphics are set in medium doesn't push much even in most modest PC systems but will definitly stress the most modern systems when everything is set at maximum.

Finally and neverthless, I want to thank you for your review, since it definitly helped me to decide to buy an ATI 4850 for my PC

I think ArmA might be a good benchmark candidate even for newer graphics cards, as it can definately be quite stressing for them. Just put in enough vegetation and the overdraw will give your card something to work, especially with Post Processing, AA and AF.

I don't know about english websites, but the german speaking 3DCenter.org used ArmA as a benchmark and had a performance report for it some time ago. They found out that it can be both, CPU and GPU limited, depending on the scene.
Only AI should better be left out of the graphics test scenes, as they tend to not do everything the same everytime.

And regarding the outdated graphics: ArmA and Oblivion both on highest settings, both only converted to .jpg and cropped the HUD.






In my opinion ArmA looks better, it can do all the fancy tech and shader stuff and you can stress your pc more than Oblivion. At least it does that to mine. Apart from Crysis there is no other game I can think of where walking through a forest looks this awesome (try Schmalfelden XHV) and flying into the sunset in your helicopter over the hills of Sahrani and the smoking remains of the battle is quite a sight.
So why does it "look dated" to some? My guess is that first you need a monster of a pc to play it at full settings and even then it depends on the mission. Second, it's not as shiny. Shiny like Oblivion here:


For whatever reason that seems to equal good graphics, at least in many reviews here, as brown/gray graphics equals realism somehow. One german magazine said "ArmA looks bad when the sun isn't shining". Well guess what, it looks gray and boring when the weather is bad outside



So, besides my rant on magazines around here I think ArmA could work as a benchmark even for newer cards. I would also like to see some older games tested or maybe some results posted in the forum. I understand that it is heavy to find something not CPU limited, but there might be differences between cards as I think many sims might have different requirements than the shader heavy graphic leaders. That could be a subject on it's own (if it actually exists) or maybe problems with older games. Having read about the problems the 8800s have with the old Unreal Engine (-> Raven Shield) was one of the reasons to buy my HD3870.
After all I like the reviews here and where else to find benchmarks for games that I actually play.

I'll d/l the ArmA demo and take another look at it. It's certainly not my intent to try to move the apps I test away from stuff the site's readers enjoy. I've tried to do a decent job over the years with what I use, but the last few have been pretty rough in terms of new sims released and my options are getting pretty limited for GPU testing. But like I said, I'll spend some time with ArmA and see what I can do with the game.

But I have no interest at all in a conversation comparing graphics engines designed for different purposes. And the flippant comment over "free" video cards is really unnecessary. The time spent and money out of my own pocket (for example, no one saw a review of the Corsair 620 PSU I used with the 4870 because I bought it or the Dell 3007WFP I paid over $1,200 for, the additional OCZ memory, etc.) for necessary stuff makes review samples less than "free" in my opinion. Not to mention time spent between launches maintaining relations with the companies.

You guys really don't want to get into a ArmA vs. Oblivion graphics contest. The latter will win hands-down, particularly with Qarl's texture pack and some of the other mods that've been released over the last two years. The shots above are terrible and I still think it looks better than ArmA in those side-by-side pics.