Taking Two Weeks Out to do Graphics Card Testing.

ATI Graphics Card Testing;

By Richard Williams; aka, Corporal Willy

7/20 - 31/09

It is not very often that I agree to do testing for companies or vendors of new products and programs, but when I do say yes, I normally have a personal interest or agenda in mind to find out the truth about how good something is. That truth can only be revealed and satisfied with personal testing. So it was, when I agreed to do testing of an ATI Graphics Card. In fact, I was the last or fifth person in my team to get this equipment sent to me. There were two teams of five, set up with two identical computers with one assigned to each team and every team member would use it in performing their own individual tests. All team members were made up of SolidWorks users and promoters and we needed to see for ourselves how this particular card would perform using the latest version of SolidWorks 2009. I think it is fair to state that we all are already aware of how SolidWorks would normally be working on our own personal systems. We were allowed to do whatever we thought would be needed to give the ATI graphics card a good test. In other words we weren’t given a narrow corridor in what we were allowed to use in doing this test.

First of all, I think that whoever is reading this report should know exactly what was being tested and how it was tested and with what programs I used in doing my testing. How else would this report satisfy those interested people unless I stated it upfront to you so you could compare it with what you might have already? The computer that was sent out was an HP xw4600 Workstation, with an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, E8600 @ 3.33 Gigahertz speeds and had on board 3.48 Gigabytes of RAM, which is the most that Windows XP can utilize. This was more or less a standard off the shelf HP Workstation and not really “sooped” up for just this testing that was going to be done with it. Search the HP web site and do a site search at the top for this workstation and then you will know exactly what I mean. I was notably pleased with how quiet it was when it was running. Almost as quiet as it was when it wasn’t running, if you can believe that. The Graphics Card was the ATI Fire Pro V5700 (FireGL) used for this test. The monitor that came with the rest of the equipment was an HP L2245w. It must also be stated for the record that the Operating System used was the Microsoft’s Windows XP Pro, 32 bit architecture. Now that you know the basics parameters used in the testing let me describe to you what I did.

Upon receiving the shipment it was brought inside and observed that there were some external signs of wear and tear on the shipping boxes, especially after being the last one on the list of five to receive it. Everything was then unpacked, spread out and inspected carefully and a report sent to those overseeing the test. An amazing job of unpacking and repacking was done by everyone and no physical damage could be seen on the outside of the hardware equipment. The Styrofoam glove like inserts were broken in a few places and cracked almost through. This packing took a lot of punishment but did save the equipment for the test and is an obvious compliment to those packaging engineers that designed it. Since we have many computers here in our home lab we were very pleased to see that nothing was actually damaged externally with the hardware. I then placed everything up on our work bench to hook things up. It was decided to also take a look inside the HP workstation to make sure everything was still connected properly and plugged in with nothing being jarred loose inside. Once again it was nice to see how well the workstation was put together and how it maintained its internal integrity throughout this ordeal of going from home to home or business.

The packaging took a beating as seen in the pictures up above but the computer, monitor and accessories came through just fine. Down below the workstation was nicely put together with no internal damage found from all the shipping it went through. Testing could now be done knowing that it had survived unscathed. Why would I accept such a shipment when it seemed to be handled so roughly? The fact is that it came while I was shopping and as is the case more often than ever now, they drop things off and run before you can even get to the front door to see who it is and that presumes that they have bothered to ring the doorbell before leaving.

Testing was begun the next day when the schedule permitted.   When I pulled up SolidWorks I noticed that the program told me that there was an update that it wanted to have installed after getting on the internet. I allowed it and it was a very large download of 2.3 gigabytes in order to bring it up to the Service Pack 4 level. I started the download and did some other things. I believed that this would be a definite factor in any testing being done for bug corrections and compatibilities with other programs, including the Operating System that was running it, so I took the time to do this. I wasn’t in any rush, because being retired allows me to have more time than most people have and this was a pleasure to do. I have learned through experience that it pays to stay updated with drivers and updates like this. While I was at it, I decided to see if Windows needed to be updated. Yes it did and it needed to be done several times to bring that up to date as well. Then I defragged the whole C hard drive. After that I went into the Control Panel and then went into the Visual Display settings and maxed out all the settings to make the test as hard as I could. I chose 1680 by 1050 for the screen resolution which was the highest setting allowed and I also chose the full screen option for the game I chose, to tax the system as hard as I could on this wide screen monitor. It has the capability for dual monitor operation but I did not use this during my testing. All together this preparation setup took a few hours and I had to meet other deadlines with articles so I decided to pick it up the next day.

Something I use all the time in writing articles with is my screen capture tool and I installed it on the HP Workstation in order to capture things I wanted this report to have in it to show those interested readers out there. You might think that the very first test program that I would run would be SolidWorks, but I had some other ideas and I decided instead to load up a game that is considered to be a pretty good test for any graphics card. Many benchmark tests can be done with computers based on time lapsed events, but it is very hard for that type of test to relate to the human sensory experience in this testers opinion. I wanted to see smooth animations and movements, along with as real of a life like visual experience as possible.

The visual effects showing the finer details of colors, hues, textures and lighting that was both direct, bounced and reflective, is what I needed to see to judge what a graphics card is really capable of doing.   When it is really like eye candy and can produce an experience as if you were right there “inside of the game or monitor” then I would know exactly how to rate this graphics card. So first I picked a very fast action game, filled with vividly detailed graphics with a great amount of movements. One of the reasons for picking this game is because one of my close friends had it and he also wanted to see how it would play on a higher end graphics card then the one he plays the game with on with his own computer. The Game: Unreal Tournament 3, which many owners of it found out to their dismay that they would have to update their graphics cards and computers in some cases, just to play this extremely graphic intensive game. One comment here is that the Unreal Tournament 3 game is indeed that type of game test I wanted to try with all its really great visual graphics and details built into the game code. It is absolutely “fantasy fantastic” but I am not a strong advocate for “shoot em up” games. However, this test was done to see how good the graphics card could or would perform in keeping up with the action and visually detailed experience. No sound card was installed and I didn’t want to mess with anything other than the updates I did and programs I installed, so it was strictly a visual experience for us.   I don’t think taking screen shots of what I saw on screen does do any real justice to the game’s makers, Midway Home Entertainment Inc, out of San Diego. I was amazingly surprised on how great the ATI Fire Pro V5700 (FireGL) showed everything with such fine detail. Not even once did the scenes stall or hiccup as I have seen so often on other systems using less powerful graphics cards. All in all I would have to rate this part of the test as an absolutely positive experience and I can give it my best recommendation here. Let’s look at a couple of screen shots from the game.

With most computers used to play games you never see this much clarity and detail. Look at the textures, edges and surfaces. I have seen this game played by many adults with some pretty powerful equipment but this ATI Fire Pro V5700 (FireGL) seemed to make it into a whole new gaming experience. It could show all the finer visual depictions of details that the game makers put into it, but that you normally would not see with lesser visual capabilities.

After being shot so many times because I was looking for screen shots to take rather than confronting my opponents in the game I slipped outside and figured I would hide myself behind some foliage. There was a fog out there and I guess it was done like that in this mission to give it that mystical oriental scenario. Hiding here worked long enough for me to get a screen shot of the individual blades of grass moving gently in the breeze. The focus here is on the plant life and not the building across the way.   It was kind of surreal knowing that this was just a game. Or was it?

Okay, maybe I am getting carried away here somewhat but take a look at this one little screen shot of a wall that everyone runs past during the game. This is a dark little corner with a branch hanging down that clearly shows the grains in the rock and shadows cast upon it from the lighting being blocked by the overhanging foliage branch.   Notice the seed pods at the end of the branch, who other than myself has ever seen them? I’ll bet that 99.5 % of the people that ever play this game ever saw this little piece of the game that is clearly defined and projected onto the screen by this ATI Card. I had to look for the most obscure places to get screen shots for you to see but believe me I was killed a number of times by not paying attention to the game. I really was paying attention here but in a different way.

I stayed away from all that gory stuff, but this scene I wanted you to see because I really liked the way the graphics card showed the crystal clear parts of this gloved arm holding this weapon. Notice the rust, nicks and knocks also. Do you ever see anything like that with your system? Plus what kind of a computer, monitor and graphics card are you using to read this review report? It is worth repeating here that these screen shots do not truly show the quality that was seen when performing this test using the ATI Fire Pro V5700 (FireGL), HP xw4600 Workstation computer, Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 3 and of course the Unreal Tournament 3, game. Can it get any better? I am sure it can and will someday, but I’ll gladly settle for what I experienced with these old eyes in this test. I did everything I could do to get the game to break up or to stall (catching up) or to do anything badly so I could tell you about it, but I simply cannot report anything like that to you. Also, I don’t think you can get much more action and visually graphic details from any other game out there. This graphics card was not only up to the challenge but excelled to the point where I just could not believe what it could do. Wow and double wow for the game testing part. I kept my own judgment to myself because I did not want to influence my friend that plays this game all the time. Then I asked him to rate it from one to ten with ten being the best and he gave me an evaluation of 10. He also played it again on his home computer when he got back there and he called me to say that the test he did at my house was between three to four times better than what he has at home. We also configured his computer for him so it wasn’t an entry level computer either. Here is that weapon screen shot. Really nice detail.

Those that play this game will undoubtedly know this next screen shot. The reason I wanted to show it to you is because if you look close you will or should be able to see the grain of the wood inside the grooves of the sign. Did you even know that they were there? If you have seen them are you using ATI’s Card here when you play this game? I believe you will have to have a pretty darn good graphics card to see all the details that I am talking about.

Moving on to what is the principal event here for this dynamic duo of the ATI Graphics Card and the SolidWorks Premium 2009, I wanted to choose something that could be considered to be pretty hard to do. Now when I tried pulling up SolidWorks to see what the ATI Card could do in showing its power, I was hard pressed to come up with anything that I could do to test it with using SolidWorks, like the game did. However, I designed a Reduction Gear Assembly and animated the gears using the on board simulation that is embedded into SolidWorks Premium. I cannot really show you how well it worked but I did take a screen shot of the assembly for you. The Unreal Tournament game is also impossible to show you how that plays and whatever I would try to show you it could do, would have to be reproduced on your own system that you would see it with. Whether it was movements or animations, dark or bright, multi-colored or plain, reflective or direct lighting, it just could not have been better or smoother in this writer’s opinion. Nothing I did was jumpy at all and it didn’t stall even once. I now know what my next graphics card is going to be, so it can do all those things I know that are possible now. I will give it my stamp of approval here and I know it beats anything we have here in the home lab right now. I knew the ATI people would not send us out a system unless they were pretty confident about it and now I am too. I hope this report is helpful to anyone that might have to get another graphics card soon or if you are trying to configure a complete system for yourself or the office.

Ps. This card is priced around $2,028 dollars. But you and I both know that when you deal in graphics for a living using computers, this is or should be a tax deduction but do please check on it or you will fall into the category of ASS U ME, if you know what I mean. Bye for now.