Video cards

Lost Planet DirectX 9/10 Widescreen Performance

Since we are evaluating a DirectX 10 video card, the use of Windows Vista is a virtual requirement, but we also need some updated DirectX 10 game benchmarks as well. One of the best is the Lost Planet performance test, which comes in both DirectX 9 and 10 flavors, which allow across-the-board comparisons against last-generation graphics cards. The benchmark is also extremely tough on the hardware, and the resultant scores can be quite hard on the mainstream graphics cards, showing unplayable framerates in many cases. Since this is a high-end DirectX 9/10 game benchmark, we've utilized widescreen resolutions from the start, choosing 1600x1000 and 1920x1200.

To say that Lost Planet is a demanding game benchmark would be the understatement of the year, as you can almost hear the system grinding as it completes the testing. You can see this in the scores, as even the powerful PNY GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB can offer framerates no higher than 54 fps in the initial Cave test area. Lost Planet may offer dual DirectX 9 and 10 environments, but the PNY GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB posts higher scores in the DirectX 9 test.

If the Cave portion of the Lost Planet benchmark is tough, then the Snow section is downright evil. The framerates drop considerably, and now the DirectX 9 and 10 scores of the PNY GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB are much closer together.

Lost Planet DirectX 9/10 AA and AF Widescreen Performance

Once we enabled 4X anti-aliasing and 16X anisotropic filtering, the Lost Planet framerates took a corresponding dip. Now, even a relatively powerful card like the GeForce 7900 GT 256MB can't even hit 10 fps at any of the resolutions, and even the higher-end models are hard-pressed to stay in the 20's. The Cave scores hold one notable surprise, as the PNY card's DirectX 10 score at 1920x1200 are noticeably better than the same DirectX 9 result.

This scenario is repeated in the Snow portion of the Lost Planet benchmark, and again, the PNY GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB shows a DirectX 10 performance advantage at 1920x1200. This could mean that in order for the high-end features of DirectX 10 to produce better framerates, you need to be pushing a lot of graphics data.