| NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 GF106 Video Card |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Video Cards | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by Olin Coles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monday, 13 September 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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DX9+SSAO: Mafia IIMafia II is a single-player third-person action shooter developed by 2K Czech for 2K Games, and is the sequel to Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven released in 2002. Players assume the life of World War II veteran Vito Scaletta, the son of small Sicilian family who immigrates to Empire Bay. Growing up in the slums of Empire Bay teaches Vito about crime, and he's forced to join the Army in lieu of jail time. After sustaining wounds in the war, Vito returns home and quickly finds trouble as he again partners with his childhood friend and accomplice Joe Barbaro. Vito and Joe combine their passion for fame and riches to take on the city, and work their way to the top in Mafia II. Mafia II is a DirectX-9/10/11 compatible PC video game built on 2K Czech's proprietary Illusion game engine, which succeeds the LS3D game engine used in Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. In our Mafia-II Video Game Performance article, Benchmark Reviews explored characters and gameplay while illustrating how well this game delivers APEX PhysX features on both ATI and NVIDIA products. Thanks to DirectX-11 APEX PhysX extensions that can be processed by the system's CPU, Mafia II offers gamers is equal access to high-detail physics regardless of video card manufacturer.
Mafia II GPU-Appropriate Quality SettingsCost Analysis: Mafia II (Normal)Test Summary: Of all the video games presently available for DirectX-11 platforms, Mafia II is by far one of the most details and feature-rich. 2K Games were wise to enable PhysX processing to by done on the CPU for Radeon users, which lets the game look its best regardless of branding. Still, we already know how much better video game physics are calculated by hundreds of GPU cores compared to a pair of CPU cores. As a result, NVIDIA's GeForce GTS 450 allows the Fermi GF106 GPU to produce great quality APEX PhysX effects while displaying frame rates superior to AMD's Radeon HD 5750 and HD 5770. Clearly dominated by the GeForce GTS 450, the overclocked GF106 adds enough extra power to enjoy considerably high-quality settings and post-processing effects that comparable Radeon products cannot. On a side note, Mafia 2 is absolutely phenomenal with 3D-Vision... and with its built-in multi-monitor profiles and bezel correction already factored this game is well suited for 3D-Vision Surround. Combining two GeForce GTS 450's into SLI allowed this game to play at 5760 x 1080 resolution across three monitors using the same settings as tested above, delivering a thoroughly impressive experience. If you already own a 3D Vision kit and 120Hz monitor, Mafia II was built with 3D Vision in mind. If purchasing the equipment is within your reach (I suggest the ASUS VG236H model that comes with a NVIDIA 3D-Vision kit enclosed), you owe to yourself to experience this game the way it was intended: in 3D.
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Comments
thanks for the review
We haven't been able to say this for a few years, but the NVIDIA cards are now the better deal.
Especially with the prices that they're coming in at.
1. Cuda
2. PhysX
3. Better/ easier driver installs/upgrades
4. A lot more stable drivers across the board
5. Ambient occlusion "in the driver update" new features w drivers
6. Folding superiority
7. Dual card scaling superiority, recently from good to outstanding
8. see #3 / no "mouse cursor disappears", no "cursor corruption" (seen since ati's all in wonder pci - a recurring issue for YEARS )
9. no dot net 2.0 requirements
10. superior control panel for a long, long time.
11. Since GTX200 series, LOTS of free software - including free 3d game Warmonger - works wonderfully with instant peer to peer gaming - destructive in game environment via PhysX.
12. Free Ray Tracing Design Garage since GTX200 = 400 series win7.
13. 2 frames 2 bucks and 2 watts
The question will be when AMD will drop prices on the 57XX and when the 6XXX will come to market. If the 6XXX comes Q1-2 NVIDIA could have a big problem but that's a big if.
The GTX 260 is not a DirectX-11 video card, which limits it to only half of the tests. Additionally, this isn't a 5770 review... it's a GTS 450 review. Nobody really cares how the GTX 260 compares with the 5770, and if they did, they could go read those reviews.
Here, I'll review for the great Lord, since I've seen 100 comparisons online, not certain where the great Lord has been, except perhaps in Oblivion.
The GTX260 is faster than the 5770, a bit more so than the 5770 has so far shown a slight advantage against the GTS450.
The deranged online pop culture fan community will scream the 450 competes with the 5750, as usual, pretending someone should listen to the free ati upgrade and nvidia downgrade, despite the available evidence. Do not be fooled, unless of course, you simply cannot help it.
If that's the case scream a few lies in reply.
I will probably have a few good replies but I tried to run ATI but the load times on my games was un-bearable and when ATI was contacted they could only tell me "they are addressing the issue in the next driver update." Sorry I don't have 3 months to wait around for driver fixes. I bought the product so fix it. Plus I remember not to long ago when the ATI 800 AIW came out about 2 months later vista came out and what did ATI do to its loyal fan base. Oh that's right no driver support for any AIW cards in Vista, not that Vista was a good OS to begin with. So those like me that bought the card for nearly $300 dollars were SOL.
Thanks to you I purchased the GTX 460 1GB, and it's a great card, if only I could get it to run Design Garage
It gives me a "not enough memory" error, bah!
Apart from that, just awesome performance for the $$
Anyone else run into this?
It's not that important really, but my old GTX 260 ran it fine with only 768 MB, go figure eh?
Thanks.