Performance review:
I think all of these have FSAA off. I don't know the impact of having it on yet (I've been avoiding it for so many years, old habits die hard).
HL2: The full shader detail/full model detail/full everything rocks. I have reflections on medium and FSAA off, but HDL on full and it looks great. I get the occasional slow-down, down to 40FPS or so, but this is due to my CPU and RAM I'm afraid. If I turn off the HDL or put it to medium it would probably be better. There are much much better visuals in just the way things are rendered, with effects, transparencies, and the like. The teleport scene and the intro menu screen with citadel background look much better. G-man's intro scene looked MUCH better. The blending and the way he overlayed the background is markedly different from what I saw on the old card.
CSS: I popped onto my fav server the other night, and there was only 1-2 folks on. I'm an okay player, but I'm usually dead to rights after a few rounds. I took out my trusty UMP and totally dominated in 2v1 as a T on cs_italy. I don't think I've ever had better success in my LIFE in that game. Then again I used to get stutter freezes every 60 seconds and the like. Now not only does it LOOK good, it freaking plays good! It did neither before! I remember at least 3 times when I got a kill and thought "Dang, there's no way I would have ever gotten that before."
FEAR: I let the computer auto-detect, then checked the settings. Most video settings turned to max (except FSAA off and 2 things on medium) at 1024x768 resolution. Also the PC settings had water at medium and a couple of things at medium instead of max (I'm on a 2.66GHz here, folks, please remember). The minimum on the "test configuration" button was 24fps. I started playing the game and it automatically looked better. No longer do folks have terrible white glows on their eyes because the lighting detail is turned low. Model detail was turned up so the 3-bulb hospital lamp actually looked good (first time ever). The full lighting allowed me to understand what the music was for when the shadow blocked out the light -- I'd never seen that before because the lighting and shadow details were turned down. The amazing GLOW around folks while in slow motion scenes, it wasn't there before! All in all "kick ass" is the term that came to mind.
Aces High II: I think I left it at 512 texture res for now, either 1024 or 1280 screen resolution (I can't check, I'm at work), all details except animated water were enabled, and I moved the detail sliders 95% of the way to the end (I just grabbed and pulled I was in a hurry. I'll try fully maxed out later). I upped and didn't have any problems. I was at 60FPS almost the entire time (monitor refresh rate), with fires and smoke and quite a few planes all in the same area. Much better with the far detail sliders (the trees don't stop as abruptly on the terrain at a set range), but I didn't notice any extra "eye candy" or anything.
Well that's my review of the 7600 GTS and the few games I tested it on.
