DOOM 3 mid-range, low-end, and vintage gfx comparo

To find the answer, I’ve assembled an eclectic collection of 17 low-end, mid-range, and former high-end graphics cards and run them through a gauntlet of DOOM 3 performance and image quality tests. I scoured the Benchmarking Sweatshop for cards, and with a little digging and dusting, I was able to come up with two GeForce4 Titaniums, two Radeon 8500 series cards, five GeForce FXs, six Radeon 9000-series cards, one Dustbuster, and even a Parhelia. How do these cards compare in DOOM 3? Read on to find out.

A note on the testing
Because this comparison includes so many different cards, there’s a wide range graphics horsepower available. To segment things a little, I split the cards into two groups like so:

The first set of cards was tested at Medium Quality and resolutions up to 1024×768. On these cards, the game just isn’t playable at higher resolutions or detail levels. The second group of cards has a little more power, so they were tested at Medium Quality at resolutions up to 1280×1024. This second group was also tested at Medium Quality at resolutions up to 1024×768 with 4X antialiasing, and in High Quality mode.

To gain a better understanding of DOOM 3’s image quality modes, you’ll want to read id programmer Robert Duffy’s July 26 .plan update. Duffy explains the differences between the Medium and High Quality modes we used for testing and why things look the way they do. Perhaps the most important thing to take away from that .plan update is that DOOM 3’s High Quality mode uses 8X anisotropic filtering.

A shot from our single-player DOOM 3 demo
High Quality mode, of course

One more thing: although I’ve managed to include 17 different graphics cards in this comparison, this is by no means a complete collection of low-end, mid-range, and former high-end graphics cards. I’m limited by the stock in the Benchmarking Sweatshop, so if you don’t see a specific card tested, it’s because I don’t have one on hand. I do have a couple of DeltaChrome cards in-house, but S3’s current drivers don’t work with DOOM 3, so I couldn’t include the S8 and S4 Pro in the comparison, either.

Our testing methods
All cards were left at their driver default settings for image quality, with the exception that we turned off vertical refresh sync.

Our test system was configured like so:

We used NVIDIA’s ForceWare 61.77 drivers for all of the GeForce cards, and we used ATI’s CATALYST 4.9 beta drivers, intended for DOOM 3, with all the Radeon cards. Matrox’s 107.00.089 drivers were used for Parhelia.

Because this is a graphics performance comparison, I went with an Athlon 64 system with plenty of RAM to make our testing as graphics-bound as possible.

The test systems’ Windows desktop was set at 1280×1024 in 32-bit color at an 75Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.

We used a custom-recorded demo for testing. You can download it here. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.

Medium Quality
We’ll kick things off with Medium Quality mode where all 17 of our cards can play, at least up to 1024×768. I’ve presented scores with both bar and line graphs, so I’ll hold off commenting until the bottom of the page.

After years of ridicule, the Dustbuster is finally vindicated in DOOM 3—not that the card’s obscenely loud cooler will let you enjoy the game’s audio content. The single-slot GeForce FX 5900 XT is quieter, cooler, and nearly as fast. Heck, it even beats out the venerable Radeon 9700 Pro.

After the 9700 Pro, the cards really start to bunch up, with the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra, GeForce FX 5600 Ultra, Radeon 9500 Pro, and Radeon 9600 XT sharing similar scores. The Radeon 9600 Pro and GeForce4 Ti 4600 aren’t far off the pace, though. Curiously, the two perform almost identically here.

Scores for our slower cards are considerably more varied, with the classic GeForce Ti 4200 leading the way. The GeForce FX 5200 Ultra and Radeon 9550 aren’t too far behind, although I wouldn’t want to play at resolutions above 800×600.

Moving along, the vanilla GeForce FX 5200 manages to edge out ATI’s Radeon 8500 series cards and the Radeon 9000 Pro, which in turn give Parhelia a healthy beating. I was impressed that Parhelia actually ran DOOM 3 without issue, but 22.6 frames per second at 640×480 is hardly playable.

Medium Quality + 4X antialiasing
Next up we have Medium Quality results with 4X antialiasing. The slower cards don’t have the power to handle Medium Quality with antialiasing or DOOM 3’s High Quality mode, so they’ve been shelved for the rest of our performance testing.

The GeForce FX 5800 Ultra and 5900 XT are all over the rest of the pack with Medium Quality and 4X antialiasing. The Radeon 9700 Pro doesn’t do too poorly here, but it’s not much faster than the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra.

Interestingly, the Radeon 9600 XT and 9500 Pro are essentially tied, as are the Radeon 9600 Pro and GeForce4 Ti 4600. The Ti 4600’s performance does drop off more dramatically at higher resolutions, though.

High Quality
Although Medium Quality with antialiasing nicely cuts down on jagged edges, especially at lower resolutions, I far prefer the visual goodness that is DOOM 3’s High Quality mode. High Quality mode’s 8X anisotropic filtering does wonders, and the visuals are truly stunning.

The Dustbuster takes a dive in High Quality mode, relinquishing the lead to the GeForce FX 5900 XT. Even the Radeon 9700 Pro pulls out ahead of the 5800 Ultra at higher resolutions, although it’s still a few frames per second behind the 5900 XT. The good news is that all three cards are butter-smooth up to 1024×768.

Our second pack of cards is led by the Radeon 9600 XT and GeForce FX 5700 Ultra, which essentially tie. The GeForce FX 5600 Ultra, Radeon 9500 Pro, and Radeon 9600 Pro are all pretty close, too, although the 9500 Pro’s performance improves as we turn up the resolution.

As for the GeForce4 Ti 4600, well, the results speak for themselves. The card is really only playable in High Quality mode at 640×480, and even then, the average frame rate is under 40 frames per second. Heck, the Ti 4600 isn’t even half as fast as its closest competition, the Radeon 9600 Pro.

Image quality 1 – Medium quality
We usually like to take our screenshots from a game with a minimum of image processing, but DOOM 3’s gamma and brightness settings don’t seem to affect the output of its screen dump routine. As a result, I’ve done a slight gamma correction to the images that follow, consistent across all of the images, in order to make them easier to see.

Because the DOOM 3 guy’s flashlight moves around a little, even when the player is stationary, the shots below aren’t exactly identical. We’re just checking screenshots to make sure there’s no funny business going on with any of the cards, though.

Since we’ll be covering the image quality of our faster cards with Medium quality plus 4X antialiasing and High Quality, I’ve left them out of our Medium Quality screenshot comparison.

You can click on each image to open an uncompressed PNG in a separate window.

GeForce4 Ti 4200

GeForce FX 5200 (shares GPU with GeForce FX 5200 Ultra)

Parhelia

Radeon 8500 (shares GPU with Radeon 8500LE)

Radeon 9000 Pro

Radeon 9550

Although it’s impressive that the card even runs the game, Parhelia doesn’t seem to be drawing this particular scene properly. Notice how the hand, left wall, and girders aren’t lit properly. Also, Parhelia doesn’t seem to be drawing the floor tile’s bump map properly. To be fair, the ridges in the floor tile don’t look right on the GeForce4 Ti 4200, either.

It’s also interesting to note that the Radeon 9000 Pro, 8500 series, and Ti 4200 appear to have slightly sharper texture filtering than their DirectX 9-class successors. The difference is minor at best, though.

Image quality 1 – Medium quality + 4X antialiasing

GeForce4 Ti 4600

GeForce FX 5600 Ultra

GeForce FX 5700 Ultra

GeForce FX 5800 Ultra

GeForce FX 5900 XT

Radeon 9500 Pro (shares GPU with Radeon 9700 Pro)

Radeon 9600 Pro (shares GPU with Radeon 9600 XT)

The GeForce4 Ti 4600 appears to suffer from the same bump map depth problem as the Ti 4200. Other than that, and the fact that ATI’s gamma-corrected SMOOTHVISION generally looks better than NVIDIA’s antialiasing, image quality is pretty consistent across all cards.

Image quality 1 – High quality

GeForce4 Ti 4600

GeForce FX 5600 Ultra

GeForce FX 5700 Ultra

GeForce FX 5800 Ultra

GeForce FX 5900 XT

Radeon 9500 Pro (shares GPU with Radeon 9700 Pro)

Radeon 9600 Pro (shares GPU with Radeon 9600 XT)

All the cards look pretty close in High Quality mode. Although the 5800 Ultra’s floor tiles appear to be more well-lit than the others, that may be an artifact of the extra sparks in the scene.

Image quality 2 – High Quality
This next image is a little more complex. You can see the amazing rock walls of this room. As I said, I suspect normal maps (which are just fancy bump maps) are in use on the walls.

GeForce4 Ti 4200

GeForce FX 5200 (shares GPU with GeForce FX 5200 Ultra)

Parhelia

Radeon 8500 (shares GPU with Radeon 8500LE)

Radeon 9000 Pro

Radeon 9550

Beyond Parhelia’s obvious problems with this scene, all our low-end cards seem to be rendering things properly.

Image quality 2 – Medium quality + 4X antialiasing

GeForce4 Ti 4600

GeForce FX 5600 Ultra

GeForce FX 5700 Ultra

GeForce FX 5800 Ultra

GeForce FX 5900 XT

Radeon 9500 Pro (shares GPU with Radeon 9700 Pro)

Radeon 9600 Pro (shares GPU with Radeon 9600 XT)

Everything looks good with Medium Quality and 4X antialiasing, too.

Image quality 2 – High quality

GeForce4 Ti 4600

GeForce FX 5600 Ultra

GeForce FX 5700 Ultra

GeForce FX 5800 Ultra

GeForce FX 5900 XT

Radeon 9500 Pro (shares GPU with Radeon 9700 Pro)

Radeon 9600 Pro (shares GPU with Radeon 9600 XT)

Everything looks good in High Quality, too.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time summarizing the performance of each of the 17 of the cards we’ve looked at today, but there are a few things worth noting. For starters, I have to single out the GeForce4 Ti 4200. Although it’s two generations behind the curve, it’s quite capable of running DOOM 3 in Medium Quality, and it’s significantly faster than the Radeon 8500, which comes from the same era. Forget about High Quality, though. Even the GeForce4 Ti 4600 choked when we turned up the detail levels.

Among the current generation of low-end cards, the Radeon 9550 stands out as the best choice for DOOM 3, but only because it’s half the price of a GeForce FX 5200 Ultra. The Ultra is faster, but not by anything approaching a big enough margin to justify its significantly higher price tag.

Moving to our assortment of current mid-range graphics cards, the GeForce FX 5900 XT is the clear choice for DOOM 3. ATI’s Radeon 9600s just don’t have it, and not even the eight-pipe Radeon 9500 Pro can bridge the gap. The only cards that give the 5900 XT a run for its money are the former DX9 flagships, the Radeon 9700 Pro and GeForce FX 5800 Ultra. The cards are pretty close in High Quality mode, but the 9700 Pro stumbles a little with Medium Quality and 4X antialiasing.

And there you have it: 17 low-end, mid-range, and former high-end graphics cards in DOOM 3. Now that I have all these cards dug out and dusted, they’re warmed up and ready for Half-Life 2.