-GROUND CONTROL II

Ground Control 2 is an action-oriented game of tactics and warfare. As Captain Jacob Angelus of the Northern Star Alliance, you will command squads of infantry, artillery and airpower against the might of the Empire of Terra. Base building and resource-collecting are replaced with unit control and combat tactics where your knowledge of the battlefield maneuvers will make the difference in your fight against a ruthless enemy. Position your troops on hilltops for better aim or inside buildings and forests for protection as you'll need to use every inch of terrain to your advantage. Call in air strikes or assault pods to bring the battle behind enemy lines. Send out scouts to locate the enemy and use spotters for your artillery with the 360° free-roaming camera. Experience the total immersion of futuristic warfare as you lead your forces to victory!
Ground control being a strategy game is quite dependent on the CPU and motherboard performance. At the first two resolutions, the framerate remained at the same levels, but even at 1280x1024 we had 88,6 fps. A framerate that would please even the most demanding gamer.

-DOOM 3

A massive demonic invasion has overwhelmed the Union Aerospace Corporation's (UAC) Mars Research Facility, leaving only chaos and horror in its wake. As one of the few survivors, you struggle with shock and fear as you fight your way to Hell and back, in an epic clash against pure evil. Activision made it's miracle again with Doom 3 which is said to be the best-looking game ever, thanks to the brand-new OpenGL graphics engine used to generate its convincingly lifelike, densely atmospheric, and surprisingly expansive environments. If you are a fan of the previous Doom games, then you will get many flashbacks with this revision, since you will find reimagined versions of almost every monster from both Doom and Doom II

To measure performance on the game we used the timedemo demo1 command from the console (Alt+Ctrl+~). We executed the test three times to make sure there is a reliable result.

Even though Doom is one of the most difficult games and pushes to the limit the whole system, the results were really good giving us 81 frames at the highest resolution we tested.

-HALF LIFE 2

Half life 2 is no doubt the most anticipated PC game of all times. Gamers keeping the excellence of Half Life 1 in mind as well as the remarkable E3 demo preview, have been anxiously waiting for the much delayed release of HL2. Regarding the storyline, the player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist Gordon Freeman, who finds himself on an alien-infested Earth being picked to the bone, its resources depleted, its populace dwindling. Freeman is thrust into the unenviable role of rescuing the world from the wrong he unleashed back at Black Mesa. And a lot of people he cares about are counting on him.

Characters - Advanced facial animation system delivers the most sophisticated in-game characters ever seen. With 40 distinct facial "muscles," human characters convey the full array of human emotion, and respond to the player with fluidity and intelligence.

Physics - From pebbles to water to 2-ton trucks, all respond as expected as they obey the laws of mass, friction, gravity, and buoyancy.

Graphics - Source's shader-based renderer, like the one used at Pixar to create movies such as Toy Story® and Monster's, Inc.®, creates the most beautiful and realistic environments ever seen in a video game.

AI - Neither friends nor enemies charge blindly into the fray. They can assess threats, navigate tricky terrain and fashion weapons from whatever is at hand.

To measure performance we used the Video Stress Test(VST) and for one more time the resolutions were the standard 800x600, 1024x768 and 1280x1024. The results gave a smooth and high framerate.

-Colin McRae 05

For all you racing fans out there, this test is for you and will represent the Racing game category in our benchmarks.

From the graphics point of view, the first thing you'll notice in the game is the excellent amount of detail on your racing car. High resolution textures on the car and lighting make it quite impressive. All the eye candy, such as the sun reflection in the virtual camera are still the same as the older CM versions but motion blur has been added when your car hits something hard which will happens most often if you're new to the racing simulation world.

To measure performance on the game, we used fraps to get the average fps of the whole 8th stage of UK which is actually the only stage you get to play on the demo.

The game runs smoothly without any problems and especially at high resolutions the framerate was exceptiopnal. Even though the higher framerate at 1280x1024 was a pleasant surprise, we couldnt really understand the reason.