Introduction and Test Bed Setup

History tells no lie

Electronic Arts has been around for many years, starting out with their first Need for Speed game (one of the best I must add), and recently releasing their fifty-millionth game in the series - Need for Speed: Underground. These games have made their place in car enthusiasts and PC gamer’s hearts because of the realistic game engine (at least in Porsche Unleashed), and simply for being a great car racing game. This newest addition brings customizability (Hood scoops, 20” Yokohama Chrome Rims, Nitrous Oxide, etc...), a great slew of cars from the past and present, and a new look at street racing. In this article, I plan to show everyone the various settings in this newest addition, along with explanations of what these settings do and the performance hit associated with these settings.

Testbed setup and explaination

Since here at Firingsquad we are the “Home of the Hardcore Gamer”, we like to give you the reader a deeper glimpse as to what hardware we are using and what settings we have when playing the latest and greatest games. So in doing this, I give you my machine, its contents, and it’s pre-game attributes.

Isn’t she pretty!

System Setup

Intel Pentium 4 2.8Ghz

ASUS P4S8X

768MB DDR333 Memory

80GB Western Digital Hard Drive (7200 RPM)

Windows XP Professional SP1

DirectX 9.0b

Need For Speed Underground: Version 1.2.51733

Video Cards used for Testing

ATI Radeon 9800XT with Zalman ZM80C-HP Heatpipe Cooler and ZM-OP1 fan
Tyan Tachyon G9500 Pro (unlocked)
Driver Catalyst Version 4.3

ASUS V9280S Ti4200 8X
Chaintech A-G481 MX440 8X
Driver Forceware Version 56.64

Pre-Game Attributes

I have displayed for you my ATI RADEON 9800XT and my Tyan Tachyon G9500 Pro display properties and settings to give you a better understanding of how this machine is setup prior to initialization of game.

Default settings for Direct3D(9800XT and 9500 Pro).

Same for OpenGL(9800XT and 9500 Pro).

Overdrive disabled for the 9800XT!

Here are the settings for the ASUS V9280S Ti4200 8X and the Chaintech A-G481 MX440 8X cards. They are also set to default to allow for the smoothest gameplay possible respectively.

Settings for the Ti4200 8X

And for the MX440 8X

*Test Notes: Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering were disabled on all cards in this test. Motion Blur and Light Trails will cancel out AA and AF, and since we’re here to get the best performance out of the game while playing it as the developer intended, this is the way to go.