Benchmark Results: Medium Detail, DirectX 9
This is what we'd consider the baseline of how Resident Evil 5 should be played, with shadows, decent textures, and good performance on slower hardware.
At 1280x1024, all of the graphics cards are performing well. Clearly there is a CPU bottleneck occurring at just under 130 frames per second (FPS), but with the Radeon HD 4650 pulling over 50 FPS, all of these cards will deliver very smooth gameplay at this setting and resolution.
At 1680x1050, the Radeon HD 4650 still manages to muster a playable 40 FPS, but all of the other cards are achieving more than double that.
A resolution of 1920x1200 brings the Radeon HD 4650 to the edge of playability. An average of 30 FPS might be passable, but it implies that during slowdowns, the frame rate will drop lower than this and become a little choppy. Once again, all of the other contenders are managing to at least double this 30 FPS minimum level.
Finally, at 2560x1600, the Radeon HD 4650 is delivering an unplayable 19 FPS, while the other cards are still managing smooth playability. While the GeForce 9600 GT is a bit slower than the rest of the pack, it can handle an average of 42 FPS, which is reasonable.
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.