CONTENTS

1. General information
2. Theoretical aspects of implementation of anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering
3. Peculiarities of the ATI RADEON 9700 Pro 128MB video card 
4. Test system configuration and drivers' settings 
5. Test results: briefly on 2D, extreme tests from DirectX 8.1 SDK and synthetic (DirectX 9.0 based) tests
6. Test results: 3DMark2001 SE synthetic tests 
7. Test results: 3DMark2001 SE game tests 
8. Test results: Quake3 ARENA 
9. Test results: Serious Sam: The Second Encounter 
10. Test results: Return to Castle Wolfenstein 
11. Test results: Code Creatures DEMO 
12. Test results: Comanche4 DEMO 
13. Test results: Unreal Tournament 2003 DEMO 
14. Test results: AquaMark 
15. Test results: RightMark 3D 
16. 3D quality: Anisotropic filtering
17. 3D quality: Anti-aliasing
18. Overall 3D quality
19. Conclusion

In this review we are not going to touch the architecture or specs of the RADEON 9700 chip (also known as R300); instead, we will examine its capabilities and performance aspects. The current line of the R300 based cards looks the following: 

• RADEON 9700 PRO - 325 MHz chip, 128 MB 310 MHz (DDR 620) 256 bit local memory; 
• RADEON 9700 - 300 MHz chip, 128 MB 300 MHz (DDR 600) 256 bit local memory; 
• RADEON 9500 - the chip cut to 4 pipelines, 128bit local memory; 

• Texture size - up to 2048x2048 (standard) 
• Non-square textures supported (good) 
• Light sources (max.) - 8 (standard) 
• Texture fetch stages - 8 (excellent) 
• Combination stages - 8 (standard) 
• Clipping surfaces - 6 (excellent) 
• Sprite size (max.) - 256 (excellent) 
• Primitives for one call (max.) - 65535 (questionable) 
• Vertex buffer size - 16777215 (excellent) 
• Vertex streams (max.) - 16 (excellent) 
• Vertex shaders version (max.) - 1.1 (bad) 
• Constants of vertex shader - 256 (excellent) 
• Pixel shaders version (max.) - 1.4 (bad) 
• Pixel shader (max. value) - 3.40282E+038 (the highest value for the floating point F32 format, excellent) 
• Multisampling modes: no, 2, 4, 6 samples (only in the X8R8G8B8 mode, in the frame buffer mode with alpha channel A8R8G8B8 it's not available). 
• Render target format (good): 
• D3DFMT_A8R8G8B8 
• D3DFMT_X8R8G8B8 
• D3DFMT_R5G6B5 
• D3DFMT_A1R5G5B5 
• D3DFMT_A4R4G4B4 
• Depth buffer formats (good): 
• D3DFMT_D16_LOCKABLE 
• D3DFMT_D24S8 
• D3DFMT_D24X8 
• D3DFMT_D16 
• Texture formats (strange): 
• D3DFMT_A8R8G8B8 
• D3DFMT_X8R8G8B8 
• D3DFMT_R5G6B5 
• D3DFMT_X1R5G5B5 
• D3DFMT_A1R5G5B5 
• D3DFMT_A4R4G4B4 
• D3DFMT_R3G3B2 
• D3DFMT_L8 
• D3DFMT_V8U8 
• D3DFMT_L6V5U5 
• D3DFMT_X8L8V8U8 
• D3DFMT_Q8W8V8U8 
• D3DFMT_V16U16 
• D3DFMT_UYVY 
• D3DFMT_YUY2 
• Cube texturing formats (OK): 
• D3DFMT_A8R8G8B8 
• D3DFMT_X8R8G8B8 
• D3DFMT_R5G6B5 
• D3DFMT_X1R5G5B5 
• D3DFMT_A1R5G5B5 
• D3DFMT_A4R4G4B4 
• D3DFMT_R3G3B2 
• D3DFMT_L8 
• D3DFMT_UYVY 
• D3DFMT_YUY2 
• Volume texture formats (OK): 
• D3DFMT_A8R8G8B8 
• D3DFMT_X8R8G8B8 
• D3DFMT_R5G6B5 
• D3DFMT_X1R5G5B5 
• D3DFMT_A1R5G5B5 
• D3DFMT_A4R4G4B4 
• D3DFMT_R3G3B2 
• D3DFMT_L8 
• D3DFMT_UYVY 
• D3DFMT_YUY2 
Filtering modes for single texturing (excellent): 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MINFPOINT 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MINFLINEAR 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MINFANISOTROPIC 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MIPFPOINT 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MIPFLINEAR 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MAGFPOINT 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MAGFLINEAR 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MAGFANISOTROPIC 
• Filtering modes for cube texturing (good): 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MINFPOINT 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MINFLINEAR 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MIPFPOINT 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MIPFLINEAR 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MAGFPOINT 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MAGFLINEAR 
• Filtering modes for volume textures (good): 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MINFPOINT 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MINFLINEAR 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MIPFPOINT 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MIPFLINEAR 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MAGFPOINT 
• D3DPTFILTERCAPS_MAGFLINEAR 

You might notice that there are no traces of the DX9. The matter is that the currently available drivers support only the old DDI8 (Direct Driver Interface 8) for drivers and can't provide any capabilities beyond the DX8. Only when the DDI9 appears (ATI will likely make it available only when Microsoft stops making changes in it and gives a respective permission), we will be able to test the new capabilities of the chip, and now we have just old ones. Although the DX9 works with such drivers without speed losses (the test results of the applications do not differ from the DX8 within the inaccuracy of measurement) we are deprived of the most interesting capabilities of the RADEON 9700 PRO - the second versions of the pixel and vertex drivers or floating point formats of the textures and a frame buffer. On the other hand, nothing prevents from estimating performance and implementation of AA, anisotropic filtering and certain chip's characteristics such as a fillrate and performance of its geometrical unit. 

Because of the early driver (or peculiar operation of the DX9 with the DDI8) the list of textures supported lacks for any compression formats. 

Here is a list of currently available OpenGL extensions and the OpenGL ICD version:
 

Theoretical aspects of implementation of anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering Contrary to the previous chip, operation of the anisotropy based on the RIP mapping is corrected in the R300 - irrespective of an angle of inclination of a plane relative to the Z axis the anisotropy works buglessly. It wasn't a bug of the RIP mapping, but it was a peculiarity of its implementation in the previous ATI's chips. However, this more correct implementation of the R300 costs more.  AA has changed as well. Like before, one of the pseuderandom chaotic templates with two, four or six samples is chosen (it's the main difference from NVIDIA where a template is always the same, though it depends on an AA method). But here samples are singled out according to the multisampling method, like in the NVIDIA's chips. The fillrate of polygons is expected to rise greatly, the situation will remain the same on their edges, but edges of transparent polygons will be processed incorrectly. Well, it's a cost of the increased AA speed. Further we will examine speed and quality of the AA in detail.  And now let's take a look at the card.  Card The card has AGP x4/x8 interface, 128 MB DDR SDRAM memory (8 chips located on both PCB sides).      The card comes with the Samsung's memory K4D26323RA-GC2A, BGA form-factor. The highest frequency of the card is 350 (700) MHz, which indicates that the access time is 2.8 ns instead of 2.2 ns as it was shown before in some reviews. The memory works at 310 (620) MHz at default. The memory chips in the new BGA package have become quite popular among video card makers, and we won't focus on their advantages once again.    ATI RADEON 9700 Pro 128MB At first glance the card looks ordinary. Certainly, a 256-bit high-speed bus makes the PCB more complicated, but while the cards from Matrox and 3Dlabs were entirely shielded, here only the left part is screened:  And the main part of the PCB containing the memory and the chip is not protected:  The card works with just external power supply. It comes with an adapter/splitter connecting the card with a standard tail of a power unit:  The set of interface connectors is standard: VGA, DVI and TV-out (S-Video). There is an adapter for connecting TV-out via RCA.  The right part of the PCB is very similar to the RADEON 8500, especially in positions of the memory chips. However, the chip has a huge heatsink which is not typical of ATI :-).  But it's necessary here as the VPU heats up greatly (because of a large number of transistors at 325 MHz and the .15-micron fab process). By the way, look at the package's form of the processor:  Well, the FCPGA packaging of processors, with an open flip die, has reached the graphics chips. In the Matrox Parhelia Review I was surprised at the dimensions though it had a metallic cover above of an approximately same size, and here it is lacking. There is a great deal of outputs here (well, it's a 256-bit bus).  That's all about the card itself. Note that in the second part of the RADEON 9700 Pro review we will examine peculiarities of the card in operation in the dual-monitor and TV-out modes (this time we have to leave it aside as we are short of time. Besides, the second part will also shed light on operation of the AGP8x).  The card is supplied with:  two CDs with software (drivers, MMC 7.8 etc.) and marketing materials, a quite small S-Video-to-RCA adapter (without a cable), and a DVI-to-d-Sub adapter.  And here is the box the RADEON 9700 PRO based cards will be shipping in:  Look at the right-hand corner. As you might know, at Quakecon'2002 such cards were demonstrated in special system units, not to mention that the promised fancy boxes priced at $450 (RADEON 9700 Pro, souvenirs, DOOM III which was promised for nothing and a remote control from ATI) didn't sell but could be just ordered.  Overclocking When we started testing operation at the rated frequencies, we thought that overclocking wouldn't be possible at such high temperatures. It turned out to be wrong! The latest version (3.21) of the PowerStrip is able to work with the RADEON 9700.

ATI RADEON 9700 Pro 128MB

325/620 -> 350/700 MHz

Frankly speaking, the chip is able to work at 370 MHz but we noticed no gains relative to 350 MHz in the standard modes (without AA and/or anisotropy). A bit later we ran the card again at 370 MHz , but that time under the maximum load and made sure that it operated stably. That is why the diagrams below show these results in the "brickwork bars". Although the processor is quite sophisticated and its temperature mode is rather high there is some overclocking potential. The FCPGA packaging helps it a lot. Besides, ATI selects the best chips for samples. Note that 

 
• in course of overclocking you must provide additional cooling, in particular, for the card (first of all, for its memory):
 



• overclocking depends on a definite sample, and you shouldn't generalize the results of one card to all video cards of this mark or series. The overclocking results are not the obligatory characteristics of a video card. 

Test system and drivers

• Pentium 4 based system (Socket 478): 
• Intel Pentium 4 2200 (L2=512K); 
• ASUS P4T-E (i850); 
• 512 MB RDRAM PC800; 
• Quantum FB AS 20GB; 
• Windows XP. 

In the tests we used ATI's drivers of v6.143 (this driver is meant only for the RADEON 9*** series, card of the previous release are not supported (yet?). VSync was off, the texture compression was off. 

The following cards are used for comparison: 

• ASUS V8460Ultra (GeForce4 Ti 4600, 300/325 (650) MHz, 128 MB, driver 30.82); 
• Matrox Parhelia (220/275 (550) MHz, 128 MB, driver 2.31); 
• Gigabyte MAYA AP128DG-H RADEON 8500 Deluxe (275/275 (550) MHz, 128 MB, driver 6.118). 

Drivers' settings

The AA is finally put in order. Instead of vague performance/quality modes together with AA levels we have three modes: 2x, 4x and 6x. It spares users from thinking over a choice. Below we will take a look at the most interesting modes - 4x and 6x. 

Test results

2D graphics

But remember that 2D quality depends on a given sample, as well as on a card/monitor tandem (first of all, quality of a given monitor and cable). 

3D graphics, MS DirectX 8.1 SDK - extreme tests

So, for testing various extreme characteristics of the chips we used modified (for better handling and control) examples from the latest official version of the DirectX SDK (8.1). 

EMBM 

Performance of Pixel Shaders 1.0

Such performance drop is caused by two factors: 

• As there is only one texture unit, operation gets slower with each new texture, instead of a pair of textures like in the other chips. 
• All the other chips have pixel stages and implement shaders 1.X twice or four times faster than an instruction per clock, while the R300 works with shaders instruction by instruction, though 8 pipelines are used simultaneously. We mentioned it in the analytical article on the R300 and in the review on the P10, and this time our analytical ideas are proven in the synthetic tests. 

Remember that the R300 will be competing against the NV30 whose performance is quite vague yet; we just know its approximate clock speed, that it has two texture units per pipeline and works with shaders instruction by instruction (like in the R300). 

3D graphics, MS DirectX 9 SDK (beta 2) - synthetic tests

GPU Speed

1. Constant (ambient lighting) 
2. Diffuse (1 point source) 
3. Diffuse (2 point sources) 
4. Diffuse (3 point sources) 
5. Diffuse + Specular (1 point source) 
6. Diffuse + Specular (2 point sources) 
7. Diffuse + Specular (3 point sources) 

1. Traditional TCL (Fixed-Function Pipeline) 
2. Vertex shaders 1.1 
3. Vertex shaders 1.1 and pixel shaders 1.1 
4. Vertex shaders 2.0 and pixel shaders 2.0 

The test minimizes dependence on all factors except the geometrical performance and a triangle transfer speed (parameters delivery into shaders). It renders a lot of small and detailed models whose triangles are very small (comparable to a pixel) in order to eliminate dependence on HSR or shading. 

Here are results of the traditional TCL both in the hardware mode and in the software vertex processing: 

But this was a test of the old TCL. The previous chips without even a dedicated fixed TCL unit supported its effective emulation. Probably it wasn't the aim for the developers of the R300. Let's how transformation and lighting based on vertex shaders look like: 

In the software mode the NV25 aces the others. The software emulation is rather slow on more or less complicated shaders. But it's hard to image a real application able to draw 30 or 40 million of triangles, that is why in real tasks the emulation remains acceptable. 

And now let's see how the test depends on a resolution: 

Point Sprites

When the lighting is enabled the general dependence looks the same, but now the difference is not so striking, especially on small sprites. It seems that the transformation and lighting are the limiting factors. As the size becomes greater, the R300 goes further ahead, again thanks to a considerable advantage in speed of operation with the frame buffer. Besides, 9M particles is not a very great figure - effects based on particles are actually limited by blending, not a geometrical performance of the modern chips. 

Texturing Rate

First of all, let's see how the fillrate depends on the number of textures (bilinear filtering): 

1. 8 texture units at 325 MHz are comparable in the extreme performance of the bilinear filtering to 8 units at 300 MHz of the NV25 or to 8 units working at 275 MHz of the R200. 
2. The R300 has no combination stages. Our test gathers all textures together, and evidently in the R300 the stage settings are emulated by the respective pixel shader. On the new architecture of pixel pipelines of the R300 each sampling takes one instruction, and each combination takes one more. And the R300 turns out to be inferior to the old stage-based pipelines, like in case of the fixed TCL! 

And now let's see how the test depends on a texture size (we'll take 4 textures in a pass as all today's chips are able to use such quantity): 

3D graphics, 3DMark2001 SE - synthetic tests

Fillrate

Scene with a lot of polygons

Bump mapping

Vertex shaders

Pixel shader

Sprites

So, let's sum it up. In the synthetic tests the R300 card looks differently. In the geometry processing it takes a firm leading position, and in the shading tests everything depends on a task. At least we can complain of just one texture unit per pipeline. As compared with the other cards, the R300 certainly leaves an impression of a strong leader developed for complex tasks of future applications. On the other hand, we must wait for the normal DX9 drivers to make final conclusions on the synthetic tests. Besides, we were not able to test new formats of textures and a frame buffer and the second version of the pixel and vertex shaders. Besides, the NV30, which is the main competitor for the R300 wasn't tested here yet. 

Before we turn to the games I must notice that the tests were carried out not only at the normal and overclocked frequencies but also at reduced to 300/600 MHz to estimate a performance of the slowest cards of this series (see the freqeuncy range on the cards from the ATI's partners). 

3D graphics, 3DMark2001 - games tests

• Rendered triangles per frame (min/avg/max): 19773/33753/143422 
• Rendered textures per frame with 16 bit textures (min/avg/max): 7.5/8.8/16.5 MB 
• Rendered textures per frame with 32 bit textures (min/avg/max): 15.1/17.7/30.3 MB 
• Rendered textures per frame with texture compression (min/avg/max): 10.7/12.2/21.0 MB 

When the AA is enabled it performs better than the Ti 4600 (AA4x) by 121%, than the Parhelia (FAA16x) by 94% and it surpasses the RADEON 8500 (AA4xP) by 265%. 

The anisotropic filtering (quality mode) brings the following numbers: the gain over the Ti 4600 (ANIS 8) is 60% and over the RADEON 8500 (ANIS 16) is 19%. 

When the AA and anisotropy are both switched on the new Canadian product has the following gain (in 1280x1024): 75% over Ti 4600, 44% over the Parhelia and 163% over the RADEON 8500. 
 

• Rendered triangles per frame (min/avg/max): 46159/51440/147828 
• Rendered textures per frame with 16 bit textures (min/avg/max): 8.0/8.8/10.1 MB 
• Rendered textures per frame with 32 bit textures (min/avg/max): 15.6/17.2/19.8 MB 
• Rendered textures per frame with texture compression (min/avg/max): 9.3/10.9/13.5 MB 

With the AA the gain over the Ti 4600 (AA4x) is 171%, over the Parhelia (FAA16x) it's 104%, and over the RADEON 8500 (AA4xP) it makes 311%. 

With the anisotropic filtering (quality mode) the gain over the Ti 4600 (ANIS 8) is 195%, over the RADEON 8500 (ANIS 16) it makes 69%. 

When the AA and anisotropy are both switched on the new Canadian product has the following gain (in 1280x1024): 181% over Ti 4600, 105% over Parhelia and 283% over RADEON 8500. 
 
 

• Rendered triangles per frame (min/avg/max): 16681/21746/39890 
• Rendered textures per frame with 16 bit textures (min/avg/max): 2.8/4.1/4.7 MB 
• Rendered textures per frame with 32 bit textures (min/avg/max): 5.7/8.2/9.4 MB 
• Rendered textures per frame with texture compression (min/avg/max): 5.0/7.2/8.4 MB 

With the AA the gain over the Ti 4600 (AA4x) is 188%, over Parhelia (FAA16x) - 76%, and over RADEON 8500 (AA4xP) - 338%. 

With the anisotropic filtering (quality mode) the gain over the Ti 4600 (ANIS 8) is 153%, and over the RADEON 8500 (ANIS 16) - 74%. 

When the AA and anisotropy are both switched on the new Canadian product has the following gain (in 1280x1024): 192% over Ti 4600, 65% over Parhelia, and 297% over RADEON 8500. 
 
 

• Rendered triangles per frame (min/avg/max): 55601/81714/180938 
• Rendered textures per frame with 16 bit textures (min/avg/max): 14.9/17.4/20.7 MB 
• Rendered textures per frame with 32 bit textures (min/avg/max): 28.4/33.5/40.0 MB 
• Rendered textures per frame with texture compression (min/avg/max): 28.4/33.5/40.0 MB 

With the AA the gain over the Ti 4600 (AA4x) is 146%, over the Parhelia (FAA16x) - 133%, and over the RADEON 8500 (AA4xP) - 276%. 

With the anisotropic filtering (quality mode) the gain over the Ti 4600 (ANIS 8) is 90%, and over the RADEON 8500 (ANIS 16) - 51%. 

When the AA and anisotropy are both switched on the new Canadian product has the following gain (in 1280x1024): 116% over the Ti 4600, 155% over the Parhelia, and 187% over the RADEON 8500. 

In the 3DMark2001SE benchmarks the new ATI's product has the greater gain in the tough modes of AA and anisotropy. It should be expected because of a limiting performance of the CPU's frequency (and of the platform despite 2.2 GHz) with a low load. The 256-bit memory bus has a positive effect on the overall speed with the AA. As for anisotropy, the performance doesn't fall down drastically in the quality mode. Later we will speak about it in depth. 

3D graphics, game tests

• Return to Castle Wolfenstein (MultiPlayer) (id Software/Activision) - OpenGL, multitexturing, Checkpoint-demo, test settings - maximum, S3TC OFF, the configurations can be downloaded from here 

• Serious Sam: The Second Encounter v.1.05 (Croteam/GodGames) - OpenGL, multitexturing, Grand Cathedral demo, test settings: quality, S3TC OFF 

 
• Quake3 Arena v.1.17 (id Software/Activision) - OpenGL, multitexturing, Quaver, test settings - maximum: detailing level - High, texture detailing level - #4, S3TC OFF, smoothness of curves is much increased through variables r_subdivisions "1" and r_lodCurveError "30000" (at default r_lodCurveError is 250 !), the configurations can be downloaded from here 

 
• Comanche4 Benchmark Demo (NovaLogic) - Direct3D, Shaders, Hardware T&L, Dot3, cube texturing, highest quality

 
• Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo v.927 (Digital Extreme/Epic Games) - Direct3D, Vertex Shaders, Hardware T&L, Dot3, cube texturing, default quality

 
• Code Creatures Benchmark Pro (CodeCult) is a game that demonstrates operation of cards in the DirectX 8.1, Shaders, HW T&L. 

 
• AquaMark (Massive Development) is a game that demonstrates operation of cards in the DirectX 8.1, Shaders, HW T&L. 

 
• RightMark Video Analyzer v.0.4 (Philip Gerasimov) - DirectX 8.1, Dot3, cube texturing, shadow buffers, vertex and pixel shaders (1.1, 1.4). 

Quake3 Arena, Quaver

With the AA the gain over the Ti 4600 (AA4x) is 113%, over Parhelia (FAA16x) - 137%, and over RADEON 8500 (AA4xP) - 327%. 

With the anisotropic filtering (quality mode) the gain over the Ti 4600 (ANIS 8) is 94%, and over the RADEON 8500 (ANIS 16) - 49%. 

When the AA and anisotropy are both switched on the new Canadian product has the following gain (in 1280x1024): 146% over Ti 4600, 169% over Parhelia, and 429% over RADEON 8500. 

Without AA and anisotropy the speed is limited by the platform and CPU, but when these functions get enabled, the RADEON 9700 goes far ahead. Surely, the OpenGL driver is far imperfect, though it's a trifle as compared with what we will see in the next test. 

Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, Grand Cathedral

With the AA the gain over the Ti 4600 (AA4x) is 26%, and over Parhelia (FAA16x) - -4% (loses)/ We don't take the scores of the RADEON 8500 (AA4xP) into account because it has a clear bug in this test with the AA. Such a small gap is impossible; we carried out the test several times: the results were the same and we ignored them. 

With the anisotropic filtering (quality mode) the gain over the Ti 4600 (ANIS 8) is 0%, and over the RADEON 8500 (ANIS 16) - 0%. 

When the AA and anisotropy are both switched on the new Canadian product has the following gain (in 1280x1024): 0% over Ti 4600, -23% over Parhelia, and no results for the RADEON 8500. 

Well, it's either the ATI's driver that works terribly in this game, or there is something else that prevents the RADEON 9700 from showing its might. I pin my hopes on the new drivers or at least on an explanation from ATI. 

Return to Castle Wolfenstein (Multiplayer), Checkpoint

With the AA the gain over the Ti 4600 (AA4x) is 131%, over Parhelia (FAA16x) - 378%, and over RADEON 8500 (AA4xP) - 262%. 

With the anisotropic filtering (quality mode) the gain over the Ti 4600 (ANIS 8) is 116%, and over the RADEON 8500 (ANIS 16) - 26%. 

When the AA and anisotropy are both switched on the new Canadian product has the following gain (in 1280x1024): 177% over Ti 4600, 400% over Parhelia, and 315% over RADEON 8500. 

In this test (which depends more on the platform than the Quake3 does) the new solution shows brilliant scores when the load is heavy. Such a low speed of the Parhelia is probably on the account of the same factors as it was in case of the RADEON 9700: bugs in software or incompatibility (a patch is probably needed).

Code Creatures

The engine uses almost all modern capabilities of video cards of the latest generation. And the demo program based on this engine contains quite tough scenes as to the texture size, geometry and effects used. 

As you can see, the test is quite tough even for the super-accelerator, that is why it makes no sense to run the card with the AA and/or anisotropy. 

Comanche4 DEMO

With the AA the gain over the Ti 4600 (AA4x) is 58%, over Parhelia (FAA16x) - 113%, and over RADEON 8500 (AA4xP) - 149%. 

With the anisotropic filtering (quality mode) the gain over the Ti 4600 (ANIS 8) is 35%, and over the RADEON 8500 (ANIS 16) - 23%. 

When the AA and anisotropy are both switched on the new Canadian product has the following gain (in 1280x1024): 37% over Ti 4600, 100% over Parhelia, and 100% over RADEON 8500. 

A processor affects much this test, and the load on the cards is very high, that is why the overall performance is low at the maximum quality level. That is why even a 50% gain is a great achievement. 

Unreal Tournament 2003 DEMO b.927

With the AA the gain over the Ti 4600 (AA4x) is not accounted as AA4x doesn't work here for some reason, over Parhelia (FAA16x) - 25%, and over RADEON 8500 (AA4xP) - 364%. 

With the anisotropic filtering (quality mode) the gain over the Ti 4600 (ANIS 8) is 12%, and over the RADEON 8500 (ANIS 16) - 76%. 

When the AA and anisotropy are both switched on the new Canadian product has the following gain (in 1280x1024): no results for the Ti 4600, -7% over Parhelia, and 165% over RADEON 8500. 

This test puzzles many, but we decided to leave it here until the final DEMO version is released. Yet in our 3Digest we wrote that performance of the ATI's cards was unexplainable. We are inclined to think that the ATI's drivers are to blame here. 

AquaMark

With the AA the gain over the Ti 4600 (AA4x) is 101%, over Parhelia (FAA16x) - 66%, and over RADEON 8500 (AA4xP) - 169%. 

With the anisotropic filtering (quality mode) the gain over the Ti 4600 (ANIS 8) is 278%, and over the RADEON 8500 (ANIS 16) - 38%. 

When the AA and anisotropy are both switched on the new Canadian product has the following gain (in 1280x1024): 157% over the Ti 4600, 40% over Parhelia, and 142% over RADEON 8500. 

This test was released in 2001 when the GeForce3 based card just appeared, and at that time it was very difficult. And even the current leader doesn't strike with the speeds, though the performance is tenfold better. Note that the speed of the GeForce4 falls down dramatically when anisotropy is enabled (this filtering type processes all textures without distinction, and this test uses a lot of semitransparent textures). 

RightMark 3D

This test is also very difficult to estimate not only operation of modern accelerators with the DX8.1 functions enabled but also how fast they work with them. 

3D quality

ANISOTROPIC FILTERING

We know that different VPU makers implement this function in their own way. And speed characteristics of anisotropy, say from ATI and from NVIDIA, are very different. Only the output quality is similar. 

Till recently this postulate was true (at least for implementation of this function from ATI). Now it's different. Now the Canadian developers give you a choice: either pure anisotropy or together with trilinear filtering. 

What do the "Performance/Quality" switches mean, which are located in the section related to the anisotropic filtering? Let's take a look at the Fillrate test from the future RightMark 3D. We will enable trilinear filtering (the usual mode is on the left, and with MIP levels shading on the right): 

Now let's return to the difference in operation of this "Performance/Quality" function. We saw above that although the anisotropy quality grew and didn't depend on angles anymore, it is still unable to coexist with the trilinear filtering. Quality mode. 

It's OK in the OpenGL as well. Let's test it in the Quake3. Performance mode: 

At the end of the anisotropy section look at some screenshots: 

RADEON 8500	RADEON 9700
3DMark2001, Game 1
ANIS 0
ANIS 16
3DMark2001, Game 2
ANIS 0
ANIS 16
Serious Sam: TSE
ANIS 0
ANIS 16

ANTI-ALIASING (AA) In the very beginning we studied some aspects of operation of AA for the RADEON 9700, the performance was estimated in the previous section and here we are going to look at quality.

Example 1	Example 2
3DMark2001, Game 1
No AA
AA 4x
AA 6x
3DMark2001, Game 3
No AA
AA 4x
AA 6x
3DMark2001, Game 4
No AA
AA 4x
AA 6x
Serious Sam: TSE
No AA
AA 4x
AA 6x

1. Almost lacking difference in the 4x and 6x modes. So, why to pay more? 
2. As expected, the MSAA doesn't work when transparent textures are used (look at the leaves in the Game4). 
3. On the whole, the AA quality is very good and it corresponds to the respective level of the GeForce4 Ti. In the Direct3D with AA the LOD BIAS shifts to negative, that is why the images get sharper. 

3D quality in large

Conclusion

1. In general, ATI managed to make a good card in spite of such a sophisticated chip and a high temperature mode (without additional cooling the chip's temperature can reach 85 degrees (!), the PCB heats as much as 68-70. But it doesn't affect stability of operation of the card (we ran the 3DMark2001 during 6 hours without a break). 
2. The RADEON 9700 is absolutely the king today. But the cards will start shipping only in September; besides, soon NVIDIA will release its NV30 which might become a leader this autumn. It will probably not kill the RADEON 9700, but it will be able to move ATI off the throne or make it cut prices. 
3. As far as operation of the card is concerned, we are currently unable to estimate DirectX 9 functions because the DX9 is not released yet, even the beta version of the DX9 drivers. That is why we will continue the RADEON 9700 review quite soon, it will be the third part. In the second part we will deal with video functions, TV-out, AGP8x (today we took measurements at AGP4x). 
4. It should be noted that when the ATI RADEON 9700 Pro is installed into the Soltek 75DRV5 (VIA KT333) mainboard only AGP 1x and 2x (!) modes are available for some reason (maybe because of the BIOS). The 4x mode doesn't work, though the board can enable it with other cards. As the 2x mode is obviously unsupported by the video card (!), any 3D application causes hang-ups. 
5. The software has still a long way to develop, in particular, in the drivers' panel one must switch some settings 2-3 times to make them work as required. Well, the ATI's programmers have something to work at (although the 6.143 version is certified). 
6. Although the 3D speed of the card is quite low in the synthetic tests, the performance is good enough. The 8x1 will definitely tell upon future games greedy for the fillrate. But now I can see that such card is not worth using without AA and/or anisotropy! That is why if you are ready to pay $400 for this super accelerator you should start learn basic 3D graphics to adjust functions affecting 3D quality correctly. 
7. We have already mentioned the downsides (low fillrate because of 8x1, high prices, not available on the market, artifacts in some games), the advantages, apart from the speed, also include the improved anisotropic filtering and modern features of AA (high quality at a moderate speed cost). 

Once again I must say that the current performance of the card may change dramatically after the release of the DirectX 9 and the respective drivers, that is why the subject is still open. Besides, soon we will publish the second part concerning aspects of operation of the RADEON 9700 with DVD, TV-out and some tests on the KT400 (AGP8x). 
 

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