Quake 2 crusher was ran with all options set to their defaults except for 16 bit textures, low quality sound, and v-sync disabled. Tests were run three times and the scores were averaged.

We must admit, we were surprised to find how the TNT2 M64 of the Cougar performed in Quake 2 timedemo 1, even at the low resolution of 640x480. Not only is the Cougar running 17.5 FPS behind the normal TNT2, it's 13 FPS behind the Savage 4 Pro Extreme. The speed difference gets even wider at 800x600 and 1024x768. In Quake II Crusher, the situation is not nearly as spread. But Quake II Crusher is more CPU intensive, so the cards all have similar performance at 640x480. The Savage 4 Pro Extreme does fall behind at 640x480, and we're not sure why, but at 800x600 it is slightly ahead of the rapidly slowing Cougar. Meanwhile, the normal TNT2 stays strong. At 1024x768, with memory bandwidth needs going through the roof, the Cougar's FPS falls drastically while the 128bit TNT2 and Savage 4 Pro Extreme hold their own. With the lower bandwidth of its 64bit memory bus, it seems the Cougar just cannot keep up with a normal TNT2 or the Savage 4 Pro Extreme in Quake 2, especially at high resolutions. It is very important to keep this in perspective though. The Cougar with its TNT2 M64 is still very fast and impressive compared to last generation's cards like the TNT1, but it does fall behind by a significant degree. It certainly dishes out strong performance for the low-end sector and brings many of the TNT2's image quality and reliability to the low-end (and that's a good thing). It's also much speedier than the old Vanta…