9 - Game Performance: Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway | Call of Duty 4

Gaming: Brothers in arms Hell's Highway

Hells Highway, another WWII shooter some might say. But in reality the setting of war is really just a vehicle for Gearbox to tell the storyline of a Band of Brothers which is led by you, Sergeant Matt Baker, as they deal with the madness and consequences of war. The game tells the story of Operation Market Garden in the country yours truly lives, in the Netherlands (aka Holland). It's about the besieged journey from Eindhoven to Arnhem where tremendous battles were fought.

Exactly that road, Highway 69; the road from Eindhoven to Arnhem was later nicknamed: Hell's Highway.

On of the most impressive details is that the area of Operation Market garden was completely reconstructed by historical documents and images. It's uncanny to see and experience the design of 1944 Holland. Even now in 2008 you can still see striking similarities from our country. Street signs, building structures, clothing and even the clinker bricks on the roads dispense a true authentic mood. This editor is Dutch, so what level would be more appropriate than one of the starting levels, in a field in the Netherlands, moving towards a large windmill ahead of us. Lot's of geometry is to be found here and in fact one of the more complex scenes to render for the GPU. Yes, welcome to Holland.

Since the graphics engine of this game can deal with a lot, we opt the best image quality available in-game. A win for the 4830 over the 9800 GT, a small win though.

** flash chart updated - we copied a GTX+ in there by accident.

Gaming: Call of Duty 4

Activision recently released Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the next installment in the popular war game series. Moving away from the World War II setting, Modern Warfare instead centers around a conflict involving Russia and the Middle East. And hey, you even get to die ... and then continue the game in the past.

Call of Duty 4 -- For this benchmark we use disguise ourselves in the Ghillie suit, load up ACT II - All Ghillied up. Not just for the great gameplay, but also the intense and dense graphics utilized are breathtaking. Massive high-quality texturing, shaders and a serious amount of shadows, fog and debris are applied in this level to mask and hide as best as you can.

Image Quality setting:

• 4x Anti Aliasing
• 16x anisotropic filtering
• All settings maxed out

Performance here between the 4830 and 9800 GT is pretty much dead on with a small lead for the 9800 GT. But with a 129 USD 4830 up-to 1920x1200 is perfectly playable with the very best image quality settings and 4xAA.

As Paris Hilton would say "That's hot".