We have made significant changes to the rating calculation method for several reasons. Firstly, there was a number of math errors, so we decided to use geometrical average for all test results. Secondly, the quality value had little to no influence on the results. This was unacceptable due to newer games, in which AA or AF are very important. Thus we made AA and AF influence floating. The geometrical average performance is divided by 60 FPS (as a standard of average minimal sufficient performance) to obtain a coefficient of suitable performance. It's multiplied by a pre-fixed AA or AF coefficient that depends on certain card specs. This gives us a coefficient of card's AA or AF potential, that we finally take into consideration. Otherwise top-end cards would be underestimated, because when you spend $400-500, not only you get frames per second in existing games, but also some potential for higher quality coming in the future. Otherwise $10 cards made in 2002 could get high marks due to their low price.

Calculating ratings, we assume that demand for performance and quality is as follow:

• Performance — 60%
• Quality — 40%

The usability rating K_use is calculated with the following formula and then multiplied by 100 to get more convenient values. The capability rating K_cap is calculated with the same formula, but without dividing by Price and multiplying by 100 in the end.

K_use = 1500 * (K_no-AAA^1/40 + K_AAA^1/40)^0.6 * (P_FQ)^0.4 / Price

The variables are explained below.

K_no-AAA — performance without antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. It is calculated as follows:

K_AAA — performance with antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. It is calculated using the same formula above with corresponding AA+AF performance values.

Benchmark result variables:

• NEX_12XP — Nexuiz at 1280x1024x32
• NEX_16XP — Nexuiz at 1680x1050x32
• NEX_19XP — Nexuiz at 1920x1200x32
• NEX_25XP — Nexuiz at 2560x1600x32
• CR2_12XP — Crysis 2 Maximum Edition at 1280x1024x32
• CR2_16XP — Crysis 2 Maximum Edition at 1680x1050x32
• CR2_19XP — Crysis 2 Maximum Edition at 1920x1200x32
• CR2_25XP — Crysis 2 Maximum Edition at 2560x1600x32
• HR_12XP — Hard Reset at 1280x1024x32
• HR_16XP — Hard Reset at 1680x1050x32
• HR_19XP — Hard Reset at 1920x1200x32
• HR_25XP — Hard Reset at 2560x1600x32
• S2_12XP — Total War: Shogun 2 at 1280x1024x32
• S2_16XP — Total War: Shogun 2 at 1680x1050x32
• S2_19XP — Total War: Shogun 2 at 1920x1200x32
• S2_25XP — Total War: Shogun 2 at 2560x1600x32
• V_12XP — Unigine Valley Benchmark at 1280x1024x32
• V_16XP — Unigine Valley Benchmark at 1680x1050x32
• V_19XP — Unigine Valley Benchmark at 1920x1200x32
• V_25XP — Unigine Valley Benchmark at 2560x1600x32
• H2_12XP — Heaven Benchmark 2.0 at 1280x1024x32
• H2_16XP — Heaven Benchmark 2.0 at 1680x1050x32
• H2_19XP — Heaven Benchmark 2.0 at 1920x1200x32
• H2_25XP — Heaven Benchmark 2.0 at 2560x1600x32
• 3DM11_12XP — 3DMark FireStrike at 1280x1024x32
• 3DM11_16XP — 3DMark FireStrike at 1680x1050x32
• 3DM11_19XP — 3DMark FireStrike at 1920x1200x32
• 3DM11_25XP — 3DMark FireStrike at 2560x1600x32
• DI_12XP — DiRT: Showdown at 1280x1024x32
• DI_16XP — DiRT: Showdown at 1680x1050x32
• DI_19XP — DiRT: Showdown at 1920x1200x32
• DI_25XP — DiRT: Showdown at 2560x1600x32
• ME_12XP — Metro 2033 at 1280x1024x32
• ME_16XP — Metro 2033 at 1680x1050x32
• ME_19XP — Metro 2033 at 1920x1200x32
• ME_25XP — Metro 2033 at 2560x1600x32
• SD_12XP — Sleeping Dogs at 1280x1024x32
• SD_16XP — Sleeping Dogs at 1680x1050x32
• SD_19XP — Sleeping Dogs at 1920x1200x32
• SD_25XP — Sleeping Dogs at 2560x1600x32
• AVP_12XP — Aliens vs. Predator at 1280x1024x32
• AVP_16XP — Aliens vs. Predator at 1680x1050x32
• AVP_19XP — Aliens vs. Predator at 1920x1200x32
• AVP_25XP — Aliens vs. Predator at 2560x1600x32

Price — card's average price for the end of the month.

P_FQ — estimated card's features and quality. It is calculated as follows:

P_FQ = ((AF * AA)^1/2 * (Drivers * VS * PS)^1/3) / 100

Where:

• Drivers — estimated drivers quality (including installation difficulties, etc.) on the 10-point scale.
• AF — anisotropic filtering:
  • 500 * K_AAA^1/68 / 60 fps — regular AF (GeForce 7xxx)
  • 1000 * K_AAA^1/68 / 60 fps — high-quality AF (GeForce 8xxx/RADEON x1xxx)
  • 1500 * K_AAA^1/68 / 60 fps — highest-quality AF (RADEON 5xxx/GeForce GTX 4xx and newer)
• AA — antialiasing (given the game is at least barely playable):
  • 1000 * K_AAA^1/68 / 60 fps — MSAA
  • 2000 * K_AAA^1/68 / 60 fps — MSAA+SSAA
  • 2200 * K_AAA^1/68 / 60 fps — MSAA+SSAA+TAA
  • 2500 * K_AAA^1/68 / 60 fps — MSAA+SSAA+TAA+CSAA
• VS — hardware vertex shaders:
  • 5 — version 5.0
  • 4 — version 4.0
  • 3 — version 3.0
  • 2 — version 2.0
• PS — hardware pixel shaders:
  • 5 — version 5.0
  • 4 — version 4.0
  • 3 — version 3.0
  • 2 — version 2.0

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