Counter Strike: Source
We recently decided to reintroduce CSS as one of the standard tests in our graphics card reviews. While the game is a bit dated by now and other than some nice looking pixel shaded walls can’t deliver much more in terms of looks it is one of the most popular games out there. Because of that it allows us to show you the performance in a game you most likely not just own, but regularly play as well. In the tests so far we have been testing the cards performance at different resolutions, so we decided to change our direction a bit here and see how much the IQ settings affected the scores.
It is no secret that the Source engine has been ATI’s forte since the very beginning. The results confirm this with the HD2400 taking a huge lead in CSS, regardless of the IQ settings used. The two nVidia cards didn’t perform half bad either, as they both delivered a smooth experience when no AA was being used. This is where things get interesting though. If you look at the figures you will notice that the ATI card took the biggest hit when turning on some IQ, namely a 22fps drop. The nVidia cards on the other hand only suffered a 10fps performance drop. We looked closely at what the cards were drawing and couldn’t find any shortcuts taken by nVidia, so it looks like they simply have more effective methods in play than the competition.
