Is Halo v2.0.2/2.0.1 (Universal) Faster than v2.0 on Nvidia Graphics?

The short answer is yes.

We heard from Ken Cobb of Destineer, the main developer of Halo (Universal), who was surprised that our speed tests revealed that version 2.0.2 (and v2.0.1) of Halo's Universal Binary ran more slowly than v2.0 on our 24" iMac Core 2 Duo with Nvidia GeForce 7600GT graphics. Our performance tests showed an increase of 25 percent for the ATI Radeon X1600 graphics in our MacBook Pro C2D.

He looked into why we got different results between the Nvidia and ATI graphics and discovered the reason. Our standard Halo test configuration includes enabling 2X Full Scene Anti-Aliasing (2X FSAA). In the initial release of Halo 2.0 (Universal), FSAA was not working on the Nvidia graphics in our 24" iMac Core 2 Duo but it is in versions 2.0.1 and v2.0.2 giving the appearance of a speed reduction. In fact, if we had tested without 2X FSAA enabled we would have seen a speed improvement between v2.0 and version 2.0.1/2.0.2 similar to that experienced with the ATI graphics.

Ken included in his note to us the following performance data on the 24" iMac with FSAA not enabled:

1. 1280x960, Vertex + Pixel shaders, Medium lens flare, detail objects, all other settings at "high":
   
   2.0 ==> 65.5 fps
   2.0.2 ==> 79.6 fps
2. 1280x960, Advanced shaders, High lens flare, detail objects, all other settings at "high":
   
   2.0 ==> 58.7 fps
   2.0.2 ==> 76.6 fps
3. 800x600, Vertex + Pixel shaders, Medium lens flare, detail objects, all other settings at "high":
   
   2.0 ==> 113.6 fps
   2.0.2 ==> 127.2 fps
4. 1900x1200, Vertex + Pixel shaders, Medium lens flare, detail objects, all other settings at "high":
   
   2.0 ==> 39.4 fps
   2.0.2 ==> 48.7 fps
5. 1900x1200, Vertex + Pixel shaders, Extreme lens flare, detail objects, all other settings at "high":
   
   2.0 ==> 36.4 fps
   2.0.2 ==> 47.1 fps

The performance improvement ranges from 12 to 30 percent.

We re-ran our v2.0.2 benchmarks using our speed test settings but with FSAA turned off and got these results:

Halo 2.0.x Speed Benchmarks with and without FSAA

Computer	Halo 2.0.2 No FSAA	Halo 2.0.2 2X FSAA	Halo 2.0 No FSAA	2.0.2 vs 2.0 % Improvement
iMac C2D	110	70	94	17
MacBook Pro C2D-LED	99	86	--	--

There are several interesting results. First, the improvement of version 2.0.2 over 2.0 of Halo (Universal) with FSAA off is a middling 17 percent but it is an improvement. Second, 2X FSAA has a major effect on the frame rate of Halo 2.0.x running on the iMac's Nvidia GeForce 7600GT graphics. With 2X FSAA turned on in version 2.0.2, the iMac's frame rate drops by 36 percent (110 vs 70) and is less than the MacBook Pro's by 19 percent (70 vs 86). However, with FSAA off the iMac beats the MacBook Pro by 11 percent (110 vs 99). [Bill Fox]