Quake 4
To get a good idea of the performance gains that are generated, it is necessary that we first test the game with the variables that will give us the “lowest” performance: Catalyst 5.10 and SMP disabled. Our testing of the Quake 4 patch consisted of the creation of a NETDEMO in a fast-paced multiplayer setting, then using the console command “playNetTimeDemo” to obtain scores. So starting off we have a direct performance comparison between having the patch and not having the patch on the lowest in-game performance settings while using Catalyst 5.10 drivers


You can see from the test that the 1.0.5.0 patch does in fact increase performance. The question is: By how much? Well, according to the test, the SMP patch increased the systems frame rates in Quake 4 at low quality on Catalyst 5.10 drivers by an average of 15.8%. In the world of competitive FPS gaming, 15.8% is HUGE.

The next thing we want to find out is how performance is affected by the SMP patch on high quality settings. So, for this test we again used the Catalyst 5.10 drivers and turned the Quake 4 in-game quality settings all the way up.


This test also shows a significant performance increase when using the SMP patch. You can see that the effects of the SMP patch trickle off as the resolution increases, but this is more than likely the result of the video card having a harder time pumping out frames at high resolution and the highest detail. Overall, at the resolutions that gamers use, the average performance increase from the SMP patch was 14.0%. Not quite as high as on low settings, but impressive nonetheless.