NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX 512: More Than Just More Memory

Black & White 2 Performance

Black & White 2 is one of the most graphically taxing games to come out lately. This game is just as much fun as its predecessor and looks amazing to boot. This game features many cutting edge graphical effects like depth of field and HDR. Because of the aggressive nature with which Lionhead attacked graphics in Black & White 2, MSAA (Multisample Antialiasing) couldn't be employed. But due to the vibrant and high contrast nature of the game, FSAA can have a big impact on visual quality. In order to make up for the lack of MSAA support, Lionhead implemented SSAA (Supersample Antialiasing) in their game. While SSAA can trash performance on low-end to midrange hardware (even at modest resolutions), high performance cards can generally handle it.

Playability with Black & White 2 extends down to around 20 fps. The fast paced responsiveness required by an FPS is not really needed here, but dropping below 20 fps can cramp your style when you're trying to hurl boulders or fireballs at enemy troops. It is clear the SLI has a good impact on performance, and the 7800 GTX 512 maintains incredible framerates (for B&W2 with all the settings at their highest level).

When setting AA to high, only SLI solutions can touch the 7800 GTX 512 in performance. Even through 2048x1536 with high AA the 7800 GTX 512 remains playable. On a side note, it is very interesting to see that ATI cards perform horribly under Black & White 2 at the highest settings, especially since a huge ATI logo splash screen pops up while the game is loading. It seems that the Achilles heel for ATI parts is processing large numbers of units at a time. Of course, the worse possible time for playability to go down hill is when a large number of enemy troops appear.