The Games of Christmas '08: GPU Performance Part 1

Fallout 3: GPU Performance

For these Fallout 3 benchmarks we decided to use one of the more graphically intensive portions of the game: a gameplay session which starts at the exit from Vault 101, through Springvale, over a small hill towards Washington and then back towards Megaton. Within this session two ants were fought near Springvale. All in all, the gameplay time is about 6 minutes.

1680 X 1050



2560 X 1600

Like we saw with Far Cry 2, Fallout 3’s graphics engine really benefits the extra memory on the HD 4870 1GB, especially at higher resolutions. It is able to stay ahead of the GTX 260 216 and even takes on the GTX 280 in some instances. Unfortunately, the HD 4850 doesn’t fare quite too well against the 9800 GTX+ and the HD 4870 X2 seems capped at a max of around 80 FPS for some reason.

On the Nvidia side of things, things don’t look nearly as rosy. One instance of this is the fact that the GTX 260 looses out in nearly every test to the HD 4870 512MB with its lone saving grace being at 2560 X 1600 with 4xAA where its larger framebuffer size comes into play.