Oblivion is the latest Role-Playing Game (RPG) from Bathsheba Software, the makers of Morrowind. The game uses Shader Model 2.0 programs for nearly everything surfaces, water, textures, buildings, animation etc.. One of the big pushes of Oblivion is the extensive use of HDR in every area of the game. Oblivion was not stable on two cards in SLI mode using 97.02 drivers. Frame rate was inconsistent with fluctuations of over 20% in some cases. I believe it is the fault of the PSU not providing enough juice to the video card, as the video cards worked perfectly fine with a single card installed. Once I switched to the AMD system, everything was wonderful with SLI providing much higher framerates over a single card.
Battlefield 2142 is the latest game in the Battlefield series from Electronic Arts that started with Battlefield 1942. This game is a resource hog, I would suggest a high-end card like the 8800GTX in this game. The resolution that matters, 2048x1536 with 16xQ AA and 16x AF was mostly playable, but 8xQ 16x AF is the most playable (true 8x MSAA). As you can see from our benchmarks, the frame rate increase from one card to the second is nearly 70%.
FEAR was one of the best games of 2005 with incredible graphics, realistic physics and using Pixel Shader 2.0 programs throughout the game. The game spawned an expansion pack F.E.A.R. Extraction Point which continued the story. The game makes use of Stencil Shadows, which the new CSAA doesn't work well with, causing huge performance drops. I would recommend using 8XQ (true 8x MSAA) with this game. The 8800GTX performs best at that mode with 2048x1536 resolution in SLI mode, garnering framerates in the 50s with two cards.
Star Trek Legacy is the latest game I've been playing from Bethsheda Softworks. This game runs absolutely horrid on the first generation NVIDIA Shader Model 2.0 hardware, ala the 5950 card. Even on a 6800GT, this game is not recommended as the card barely hits the 30s in frame rate with 800x600 resolution. Thankfully, the 8800GTX has 0 problems running this game and two run this game absolutely fabulously.
Game screenshots
