Unreal Tournament 2003 Performance

Unreal Tournament 2003 includes a benchmark program that automatically tests in two separate modes. The one we're going to be looking at is Flyby, which takes a canned tour of the UT game world and then offers up a framerate score and really hammers both the system and video card. The UT 2003 Botmatch results are no longer shown, instead leaving that for the newer Unreal Tournament 2004 to supply.

Unreal Tournament 2003 Flyby benchmarking is the first game test where the Verto GeForce 6800 Ultra fails to take the top spot. ATI posts a higher score in this area, and their Radeon X800 XT moves ahead of the Verto GeForce 6800 Ultra and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT at both 1280x1024 and 1600x1200. This test uses base detail settings, so it will be interesting to see the placement once we rack up the details.

Unreal Tournament 2003 AA and AF Performance

Surprisingly, it's the same story with 4X AA and 8X AF settings enabled, and the Verto GeForce 6800 Ultra is again in second place, just behind the ATI Radeon X800 XT. This is another good place to point out the serious performance advantage these current enthusiast-level video cards have over yesterday's GeForce FX 5950 Ultra and Radeon 9800XT powerhouses.

Unreal Tournament 2004 Performance

Unreal Tournament 2004 is an upgraded version of the popular UT series, and also includes support for Botchmatch demos. This is the next step for Unreal Tournament graphics and performance, and is another serious test for current video cards. For this benchmark, we've used the UMark GUI interface with the following settings: Colossus map, 12 players and High Image Quality graphics.

The UT 2004 Botmatch testing is a very tight race, with the Verto GeForce 6800 Ultra squeezing out a very slight victory. This is, for all intents and purposes, a virtual tie and even the GeForce 6800 GT stays very close to the top NVIDIA and ATI cards.

Unreal Tournament 2004 AA and AF Performance

The higher detail 4X AA/8X AF setting shows us another tight race between the Verto GeForce 6800 Ultra and Radeon X800 XT, and this time it's ATI out to a slim lead. But just as in the standard testing, it's virtually a tie anyway, and both top-end cards do pull away from the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT.