Back to Page 2 Most of my comparisons will be based upon what I perceive are the differences between the TrackIR2 and the TrackIR 3-Pro. I have read on the boards that the TrackIR 3-Pro is a significant improvement over the first version of the TrackIR and I will have to take their word […]
Back to Page 1 Evaluating the TrackIR 3-Pro™ The TrackIR3 claims to increase resolution and tracking frequency significantly over earlier models of the TrackIR. The TrackIR3 comes in two versions, the standard version (not reviewed), or for $30 USD more, the Pro version. For $139 USD you get the TrackIR3 device, a sheet of […]
by Thomas “WKLINK” Cofield Introduction A year ago I was introduced to a device that I called the biggest advancement in flight simulation hardware since the introduction of the hat switch. NaturalPoint’s TrackIR™ revolutionized the ability to enter the virtual cockpit, giving the flier the freedom to watch that bogey without the clumsiness of hat switches or […]
Back to Page 6 Gallery Here are some screenshots taken with the test GeForce 6800 GT card. Click on a thumbnail image below to download the original 2.25 MB bmp screenshot in 1024×768 resolution. Lock On: Modern Air Combat Far Cry IL-2 Sturmovik: FB – AEP NASCAR Racing 2003 Season Conclusions The PCIe GeForce […]
Back to Page 5 Overclocking With the 6800 GT’s 350 MHz chip speed and 500 MHz GDDR3 memory, it trails the flagship Ultra settings by some 10%; which, considering the suggested retail pricing for both models makes the GT an attractive product in its price-performance ratio. Yet to see how a 6800 Ultra would […]
Back to Page 4 Image Quality For years NVIDIA GPUs have been limited to an ordered-grid sampling pattern for their 4x anti-aliasing, which produced an inferior quality when dealing with polygon edges running along near-vertical or horizontal angles. Yet the 6800s now employ a rotated-grid pattern, which can be seen below: 4x AA Sampling […]
Back to Page 3 For the sake of consistency, Far Cry (v1.1) was tested with all graphical options placed at their highest settings and sound disabled. The Research map was used, with testing consisting of playing completely through the map in God mode using the same basic path each time. Anti-aliasing was enabled via the game’s […]
Back to Page 2 Benchmarks Note: The High Quality test setting designates benchmark scores for when both 4x AA and 8x AF are enabled. Lock On: Modern Air Combat was tested using the MiG-29 Intercept demo. For readers interested in doing comparison testing, please check the “How SimHQ Tests” page for exact LOMAC settings used […]
Back to Page 1 Test System Setup Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.4 GHz Intel D925XCV motherboard (BIOS CV92510A.86A.0193) 1 GB (2×512 MB) Micron DDR2 533 MHz RAM (4-4-4-12) NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT PCI Express graphics board (ForceWare 61.45) Maxtor MaXLine III (16 MB buffer) native SATA HD (2x) in a RAID 0 array (NTFS) […]
by John Reynolds Introduction NVIDIA’s mantra last year for their GeForce FX chips was the depth of their GPUs’ pipelines, eschewing a wide architecture for a narrow (think four pixel pipelines) yet deep one. With the announcement of the NV40 architecture this spring, NVIDIA revealed a dramatic change in its approach with the GeForce 6800 […]
Back to Page 4 Conclusion The Athlon 64 3800+’s outstanding performance is probably derived from a few key areas. While an extension of the standard 32-bit x86 architecture, AMD64 technology supports 64-bit registers and addresses up to 16 Exabytes of memory (32-bit CPUs are limited to 4 GB) that promise additional performance gains once […]
Back to Page 3 The venerable Falcon 4 has received a recent overhaul with the release of SuperPAK 4.1. Testing was conducted using SimHQ’s demo, a low level, air-to-ground dusk mission that consists of two Falcons using Mk20s and Mavericks. The outbound flight route takes the Falcons over the city and into a hot combat zone. […]
