ATI Radeon HD 4850 Preview: AMD Delivers Performance for the Masses

The Witcher

Near the beginning of the game, our main character must lift a gate for his friends to run through before a giant praying mantis eats them (or something). Anyway, this is a benchmark of that cut scene using FRAPS. We test with 2xAA at 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 while our tests at 2560x1600 are performed without any antialiasing. This is due to the fact that the game removes the option to enable AA at certain resolutions on some cards. While we understand the need to keep gamers who don't know any better from cranking everything up on crappy hardware and complaining, it would be great if people who knew what they were doing had the option of forcing specific settings.

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The 9800 GTX holds its own against the onslaught of the 4850 under The Witcher. These cards basically perform the same with slightly more difference at lower resolutions in favor of the 4850. The differences aren't large here and for all intents and purposes these cards have the same value for this test.