One final item to discuss before we get to the pretty graphs is the benchmarking procedure. The good news is that most games are far more dependent on GPU performance rather than CPU/APU performance, so our three test CPUs should at least give a good idea of what to expect. Besides, testing every desirable configuration is a rabbit hole with no end in sight-we would have to look at A10-7850K, A8-7650K, FX-8350, FX-6300, and more to really check out the CPU side of the equation. The Gigabyte BIOS allows us to disable cores and Hyper-Threading, and while the larger 元 cache is still a factor, at least we can get some idea of how mainstream parts like the i5-4690K and i3-4350 perform. Rather than trying to test multiple systems-which would be ideal if you want to know exactly how a particular configuration performs-we're electing to simulate slower processors using our i7-5930K. The second item we want to note is the choice of CPUs.
It may not always be perfect (see Batman: Arkham Knight), but more often than not, having a driver tuned for a new game helps a lot.
But let's be clear: If you're a gamer eagerly awaiting a new release, Nvidia's approach to drivers is far better you get to play the game at launch with what should be a reasonably optimized experience. AMD meanwhile reports that they are working on an optimized driver, but for the time being it is not ready-it may come out next week, or perhaps later in the month, and we'll see about testing and updating our findings when that happens. However, Rise of the Tomb Raider is an Nvidia title ("The Way It's Meant To Be Played") and Nvidia released a Game Ready driver a couple of days ago. First, we're running the latest graphics drivers for both AMD and Nvidia GPUs. Since that's the only pair of AMD GPUs we currently have for CrossFire testing, we don't have any results right now, but you'll see in a moment that there are other items that AMD needs to address.Ī few final items before we depart. On the AMD side, we tried to test a pair of R9 290X GPUs in CrossFire, but things didn't go so well as one of our GPUs has gone belly up. We've also included results for two 980 Ti cards in SLI for some of the more demanding settings. If you want to pixel hunt, there are differences between the two modes, and HBAO+ looks better, but in motion we feel most gamers are unlikely to notice or even appreciate the finer nuances of HBAO+. The catch is that it's optimized for Nvidia hardware, resulting in a larger hit to frame rates on AMD cards for this reason, we've elected to test with HBAO+ turned off (using the "On" setting for ambient occlusion), even at the Very High preset. Nvidia developed HBAO+, but unlike some previous titles, you can use the setting with both Nvidia and AMD GPUs. Something else to mention is the game's use of HBAO+ for ambient occlusion, as opposed to the more pedestrian SSAO.
Bottom line here is that you shouldn't feel bad if you have to start at the Medium setting and start tweaking, as Rise of the Tomb Raider still looks quite nice. Medium screenshots, you might wonder if the drop in frame rates is worth the slightly better visuals. In fact, even looking at the Very High vs. The penalty for going from Very High to Maximum (minus SSAA) looks to be around 25 percent, however, and the minor improvements in image quality generally aren't worth the trouble. OMG! The Lowest preset turns off all shadows, and Lara's eyes look a bit cray-cray.Įven the Very High preset doesn't actually represent the maximum image quality-you can still enable things like SSAA, along with higher quality shadows and hair.