Benchmarks: Comparing Detail Settings And Performance Impact
With separate DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 render paths, in addition to three levels of detail settings, motion blur, and AA, there are a lot of performance variables.
We decided to examine the results that multiple combinations of these variables had on the slowest card with which we had to test, and use those results to choose the configurations we were most interested in benchmarking:
We can see there's relatively little difference between low and medium settings when it comes to performance, and since the medium settings offer greatly increased texture detail in addition to shadows, we'll consider medium detail to be the lowest recommended settings for running Resident Evil 5.
It is also obvious that there is a notable performance impact when enabling DirectX 10, but since we now know there is no visual advantage with this setting, we will avoid it, except to demonstrate the performance hit that owners of Nvidia's GeForce 3D Vision LCD glasses will experience.
In addition, we have seen that the highest detail settings offer some really impressive visuals. It also appears that enabling motion blur doesn't cause much of a performance hit with this hardware, so we'll leave that feature enabled for the highest detail benchmark runs.
With these observations in mind, we've decided to benchmark DirectX 9 at medium details as a baseline, at high details with motion blur enabled to demonstrate the maximum graphical fidelity, and with high details, motion blur, and 4x AA enabled to show how AA will affect performance.
I got a 10FPS or 17% improvement in windows 7 x64 RTM by disabling Desktop Window Manager Session Manager Service with this demo.
Well researched and written article. Nice to see a subjectuve take on the i7 vs. Q6600 results.
Wouldn't mind seeing the results using an AMD Phenom II x3.
Interesting to see the CPU comparison at the end. Do we think the i7 was so much quicker due to architecture, HT, or both? and weighted how?
Extremely good article guys! I think you've just about covered any computer worth covering.
Anything higher is going to be playable at any resolution or settings, so definatly not worth the time testing.
keep up the good work! and great tip about the DX10!
A helpful article, as far as gaming graphics is concerned. However, it doesn't mention that the PC version still behaves exactly like it does on a console; even on a widescreen monitor you'll have trouble seeing what is around you and the controls are shockingly inadequate. There is no fluidity to the way you control the character making for a frustrating game. That's not to say that the game is jerky. I've run it on my Q6600 with a GeForce 295 GTX and the game averages over 60fps at 1920x1200 at even the highest graphics settings. It looks lovely. Pity it doesn't play the same. I love the Resident Evil series. I've played almost all of them. But this one should have stayed on the console, where it belongs.
Q6600 is a 2.66 not 1.86
Very interesting about there being no difference between DX9c and DX10 in game. I was running the game with DX10, and thinking it looked great, but now switched to DX9 and it does indeed look just as good.
One useful tip I've discovered elsewhere is that you cannot set all game options from within the game's menu. Instead, by going to Documents/CAPCOM/RESIDENT EVIL 5/config.ini and opening that file in notepad you can change and enable more settings.
Of most use is for those with Crossfire or SLI setups as there is an option to enable it by changing from SLI=NO to SLI=YES. It is also reported by some people to also greatly improve dual cards such as the 4870x2 and GTX295.
And for those of you running a 64bit OS, you can switch the game into 64bit mode by changing the HDR from HDR=LOW to HDR=HIGH. Definitely worth doing if you do.
On my system, which is a Q6600, 8GB RAM, XFX 4870 1GB, Vista Ultimate 64bit, I'm running the game at 1280x1024 with everything set to high, and HDR set to high. And using DX9c. It runs very nicely at over 70fps in all the benchmark tests. With an overall average of 77.3fps.