PC Tech World: performance

Showing posts with label performance. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

BioShock Infinite Performance, Benchmarked

Developed using a modified version of Unreal Engine 2.5 and enhanced with Havok Physics, we were blown away by the original BioShock when it launched back in September 2007. Our performance review at the time concluded that the title had "jaw-dropping visual effects" and that you'd need one of the finest graphics cards of the day if you intended on playing at 1920x1200 -- or even 1600x1200 for that matter.

Given our first impression with the first entry, we didn't hesitate to take BioShock 2 for a spin a couple years later. However, as is often the case, the second title was less of a technical showpiece. It also used a modified build of Unreal Engine 2.5 and looked similar to its predecessor with no major improvements. In turn, the game could be run on max quality at 1920x1200 with a relatively affordable graphics card.

Another three years having passed since BioShock 2 and the dawn of a new console generation on the horizon, BioShock Infinite has taken the opportunity to mix things up. Although it's still a first-person shooter published by 2K Games and contains similar concepts and themes, the third installment doesn't follow the same story, being set decades before the previous entries in a floating city called Columbia.

We won't be delving too deep into the gameplay side of things here, but critics seem to approve of the title's fresh perspective given its metascore of 95/100. Naturally, we're mostly interested in the graphics side of things today, and plenty has changed here, too. For starters, BioShock Infinite uses a DirectX 11-enabled, modified version of Unreal Engine 3, which gives hope of a quality PC port.

Along with DX11 effects, folks playing on PC can look forward to higher resolution textures and a healthy range of customization. Infinite comes with six graphical presets from "very low" to "ultra" that should hopefully cover a broad performance spectrum, not to mention individual control over settings like anti-aliasing, texture detail and filtering, dynamic shadows, post-processing, and so on.

As the cherry on top, the developer has fully embraced widescreen gaming with what it calls "horizontal plus" widescreen support, so the wider you go, the more you'll see of Columbia?s gorgeous vistas. In that same vein, it should be noted that there's also multi-monitor support for AMD Eyefinity, Nvidia Surround and Matrox TripleHead2Go. Plenty to see for sure, and we're eager to dig in.

Our test comprises 24 DirectX 11 graphics card configurations from AMD and Nvidia covering a wide range of prices, from the affordable to the ultra-expensive. The latest drivers have been used, and every card has been paired with an Intel Core i7-3960X to remove CPU bottlenecks that could influence high-end GPU scores.

The developer has included a benchmark tool that works very well as we found it to be an accurate representation of the kind of performance you can expect to see when playing BioShock Infinite.

While the benchmark allows to test all six quality presets, we decided to benchmark the Ultra preset with diffusion depth of field enabled. This is the maximum quality setting for BioShock Infinite which we tested at 1680x1050, 1920x1200 and 2560x1600.

Because we tested just a single quality preset and the benchmark tool streamlined the process, we had time to include frame time performance as well. Using Fraps in conjunction with the benchmark tool, we measured in milliseconds the time it takes to render each frame individually. These results will be displayed in our "99th Percentile Frame Time" graphs.

HIS Radeon HD 7970 GHz (3072MB)HIS Radeon HD 7970 (3072MB)HIS Radeon HD 7950 Boost (3072MB)HIS Radeon HD 7950 (3072MB)HIS Radeon HD 7870 (2048MB)HIS Radeon HD 7850 (2048MB)HIS Radeon HD 7770 (1024MB)HIS Radeon HD 7750 (1024MB)HIS Radeon HD 6970 (2048MB)HIS Radeon HD 6870 (1024MB)HIS Radeon HD 6850 (1024MB)HIS Radeon HD 6790 (1024MB)HIS Radeon HD 6770 (1024MB)HIS Radeon HD 6750 (1024MB)HIS Radeon HD 5870 (2048MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX Titan (6144MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 680 (2048MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 (2048MB)Gainward GeForce GTX 660 Ti (2048MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 (2048MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 650 Ti (2048MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti (1024MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 (1024MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 550 Ti (1024MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 480 (1536MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 (1024MB)Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition (3.30GHz)x4 4GB G.Skill DDR3-1600 (CAS 8-8-8-20)Gigabyte G1.Assassin2 (Intel X79)OCZ ZX Series 1250wCrucial m4 512GB (SATA 6Gb/s)Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 64-bitNvidia Forceware 314.22AMD Catalyst 13.3 (Beta 3)

View the original article here

By: Unknown On 10:02 PM

SimCity Performance, Benchmarked

Going down the memory lane, I can remember two computer games being responsible for getting me so interested in PCs. The original Command & Conquer was the first around 1995. Running on the venerable MS-DOS, I spent quite a bit of time playing that game at the ripe old age of 9 on our pokey HP powered i486.

Shortly after that I discovered SimCity 2000. The first SimCity title, which was released back in 1989, was before my time so I never played or laid eyes on the original. At the time SimCity 2000 was incredible, it was extremely detailed and offered what seemed like endless hours of gameplay. Some five years later SimCity 3000 was released (1999) and again much of my childhood was spent playing it.

For reasons that I cannot recall I never got into SimCity 4 (2003). I know I played it but for some reason it just didn?t speak to me like the previous two titles. Then along came SimCity Societies and at that point I thought my days of enjoying the SimCity games were over and for the better part of a decade they were.

But when Maxis announced last year that a sixth installment in the SimCity franchise was coming the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. From the announcement, it looked to be a dramatic overhaul from previous titles featuring full 3d graphics, online multiplayer gameplay, a new engine as well as several new features and gameplay changes.

One year of waiting later, like so many others I pre-ordered the game and sat waiting for it to become available for download. Unfortunately like everyone else, once the game became available and I finally managed to download it, I wasn?t actually able to play.

As you've probably heard for the past couple of weeks, the game requires an internet connection to play, meaning there is no offline mode. That in itself is extremely annoying but it?s much worse when the servers you are meant to play on cannot cope with demand and shut you out.

It took me several days of trying, as did the thousands of outraged fans. Since we planned to test SimCity I really needed to get in and work out how we were going to test the game. Thankfully by Sunday things improved and for the next three days I set about building our test environment.

Normally when we benchmark a first person shooter, finding a good portion of the game to test with is simply a matter of playing through the game until we find a section that is rather demanding. This generally requires an hour or two of gameplay and then we get to test in full. It?s a similar process when we test real-time strategy games such as StarCraft II, for example. In that instance we chose to play a 4v4 game, record the replay and use that for benchmarking.

But with SimCity things were considerably more complex and time consuming. Because the game's progress is stored on EA servers it?s not possible to just download and use someone else?s saved game of a massive city. While it is possible to load up the leaderboard within SimCity, see who has the biggest city, and check it out, we couldn't use that for testing either since it's a live city being played, thus forever changing and hardly a controlled-enough test environment.

There are a few pre-built cities, such as the one used in the tutorial ?Summer Shoals? but with a population of less than 4000 it doesn?t exactly make for the most demanding test environment. Therefore we created a city that has a population of half a million sims with three more cities just like it on the map.

When testing StarCraft II some readers were upset that we tested using a large 8-player map, claiming that they only play 1v1 and therefore get better performance. That is fine, but we wanted to show what it took to play the game in its most demanding state so that you'd never run into performance issues.

Getting back to SimCity, it?s a slightly different situation as all the regions are the same size. Some maps have more regions than others, but they are all 2x2 kilometers (comparable to SimCity 4's medium size). For testing we loaded one of our custom created cities (the same one each time) and increased the game speed to maximum, as this is how I always play anyway. Once that was done, we started a 60 second test using Fraps and in that time zoomed in and out multiple times while scrolling around the city.

As usual we tested at three different resolutions: 1680x1050, 1920x1200 and 2560x1600. The game was tested using two quality configurations, which we are calling maximum and medium. Normally we would test three different quality settings, but there was virtually no difference between 'max' and 'high' so we scrapped the latter.

View the original article here

By: Unknown On 8:24 PM

Monday, April 1, 2013

Skype for Windows 8 gains contact blocking and performance improvements

Skype for Windows 8 gains contact blocking and performances improvements

Those of you using Skype in Windows 8 will be happy to know that Microsoft's just bumped the app to version 1.6. It's been a few months since the last update, and this revision brings more features to the table, including contact blocking and a slew of performance tweaks. You're now able to block users, with an option to remove or report the offending party. Speed and reliability have been improved, especially when loading contacts, and a number of bugs have been fixed, including one where the outgoing video was not always displayed after switching cameras. The update's available in Windows Store, so what are you waiting for?

Source: Skype Blogs

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Xbox Music update adds volume control, cloud syncing and performance boost

DNP Xbox Music update adds volume control,

Several Windows 8 apps, including Calendar, Mail and People, received updates just yesterday, and today Microsoft's Xbox Music is getting a refresh of its own. The music app's update brings both performance improvements to Windows RT devices and some new functionality. Among the new features is a volume control that sets the app's volume independent of the system's volume. The update also brings the ability to automatically sync your music collection to the cloud and add songs from your collection to other devices running Xbox music. Finally, as you can see in the screen grab above, there's a new playing UI that displays all tracks from an album in addition to the song currently playing. You can check out the update yourself by clicking through to the Windows Store via the source link.

Via: The Verge

Source: Windows Store

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Verizon FiOS, ViaSat Exede lead FCC broadband performance report

How do you pick your broadband internet provider? For many of us, the market dictates our selection, but a few lucky subscribers get to make their own call, rather than opting for the one and only service available in a particular locale. FiOS, Verizon's fiber-optic solution, and Exede, ViaSat's high-bandwidth satellite service -- two common secondary offerings -- happen to be the two frontrunners in the FCC's latest broadband performance report, which rates companies based on actual download and upload speeds compared to advertised bandwidth, among other metrics. More often than not, providers fall short of promised performance, with companies like AT&T and Qwest leading the naughty list. But Verizon and ViaSat are both motivated to maintain subscribers, and exceeding expectations is certainly not a bad way to accomplish that.

This is ViaSat's first appearance in such a report, due in no small part to the company's recent Exede broadband introduction, which followed the ViaSat-1 satellite launch in late 2011. We experienced speedy performance during our own test last year, though latency remained an issue. The FCC covers this major downside as well, reporting a measured latency of 638 ms, compared to an average 29.6 ms figure for terrestrial services -- but overall impressions seem quite positive. The FCC has published some 10,000 words on the topic, so if you do in fact have an opportunity to elect your own broadband provider, it might be worth your while to comb through the agency's full report. It's ready for your perusal over at the source link below.

Source: FCC

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Microsoft pushing Surface RT update to tackle WiFi and performance issues

Microsoft pushing Surface RT update to tackle WiFi, performance issues

If you've had any sustained glitches with your Surface RT, check for a software update -- Microsoft might just have sorted it out. A February refresh pushing out today should mend problems with WiFi reliability that have led to the tablet showing "Limited" access. It also eliminates sluggishness in the power and volume controls, as well as Windows as a whole. Is your Surface snappier after the update? Let fellow owners know in the comments.

Source: Microsoft

Under Armour launches Armour39 performance tracking system, we go hands-on

Under Armour has always touted the scientific underpinnings of its sports apparel. From moisture wicking to heat trapping and everything in between, the company is quick to assert that it isn't just another athletic clothing company. But, performance enhancing shirts and pants have their limitations and, arguably, performance monitoring is a far more interesting and burgeoning field. In 2011 it dabbled with E39, a compression shirt with a space to insert a "bug" that included and accelerometer and heart rate monitor. Today, at an event in beautiful, chilly New York City, it officially unveiled the next evolution of that toe-dipping, Armour39. While there may be a shirt in the future, for now the system consists of a traditional chest strap, an iPhone app and an optional watch for those that don't like to carry their expensive smartphone with them on runs.

Armour39 hands-onSee all photoswhen.eng("eng.galleries.init")

The only essential piece of equipment is the module itself and the strap. The new bug is quite a bit smaller than the original, which means you won't be able to pop it into an E39 shirt if you happen to have one. Inside the tiny, light monitor is a dedicated CPU, an accelerometer, storage and a Bluetooth 4.0 radio. Along one edge are a pair of metal probes that connect to receptacles in the strap that feed it data from the heart rate sensors. It clips in with a satisfying click and requires a decent amount of force to remove. Not so much that it's annoying, but enough that you feel confident it won't fall out while you're sprinting around the track. The strap itself feels stunningly soft and comfortable. Having worn a few different fitness monitoring solutions in my day, this seemingly small detail lent the whole package a seriously premium feel. Plus, who wants to deal with chaffing or lost chest hair while trying work their guns? The bug operates on a standard watch-style battery, which the company claims should last for up to a year.

The Armour39 app, which is iOS only for the moment, gives you a quick way to monitor information like heart rate, calories burned and intensity. The latter, which sounds pretty abstract, is determined by things like your maximum heart rate and other metrics that you can enter into the app, making it a performance measurement specific to you. Lastly, there's WILLpower, an holistic score of how hard you're pushing yourself on a scale of 1-10. The app uses a proprietary algorithm that takes into account not only your heart rate and position, but also past performances to determine your level of effort.

The last piece of the puzzle is the watch, which we were a little disappointed to find out didn't include GPS for proper run tracking. Instead it just gives athletes a way to keep tabs on all the data generated by the bug without having to take their delicate iPhone with them to the gym. While runners would probably enjoy the addition of location monitoring, its absence does mean you can expect up to a year of use on a standard watch battery. The Armour39 system will hit shelves on March 20th, with the module and strap bundle costing $150 and the watch $199.

Edgar Alvarez contributed to this report.

Source

By: Unknown On 1:19 PM

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Hitman: Absolution GPU/CPU Performance Review

Founded in 1998 and currently a subsidiary of Square Enix, IO Interactive is best known for creating the critically acclaimed stealth action series Hitman, which began with 2000's Hitman: Codename 47, a PC exclusive developed using the Glacier game engine and one of the earliest titles to feature ragdoll physics.

IO followed up on the success of its first title by releasing a sequel, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, in 2002 for PC and major consoles, as well as a third entry, Hitman: Contracts, in 2004, and a fourth, Hitman: Blood Money, in 2006. Due for a break from the Hitman franchise, IO shifted to other projects for the next half a decade.

Fast-forward six years and it seems the developer is ready to revive the infamous Agent 47 in Hitman's fifth game, which crept onto shelves last Tuesday, November 20 -- or the 47th week of the year. Among its other advancements, Hitman: Absolution is the first game to be developed using the new Glacier 2 engine.

The updated engine was specifically built for Hitman, with a strong emphasis on enabling very dense crowds and allowing players to not only interact with characters but also to influence their behavior. The engine is said to be able to handle up to crowds of 1200 characters, which makes Absolution unlike any other game.

Along with that, Glacier 2 also takes advantage of DirectX 11 and many of its key features, such as global illumination, bokeh and tesselation. As is often the case, this means the PC version will offer better visuals, including increased texture resolution, gesture resolution and shadow map resolution.

Having seen gameplay screenshots of Hitman: Absolution prior to its release, we knew the game would demanding -- how demanding, of course, is what we're here to discover, and there's only one way to find out...

We'll be testing 28 DirectX 11 graphics card configurations from AMD and Nvidia across all price ranges. The latest beta drivers will be used, and every card will be paired with an Intel Core i7-3960X to remove CPU bottlenecks that could influence high-end GPU scores.

IO Interactive has been kind enough to include a benchmark that showcases a detailed scene using a large crowd in Hitman: Absolution. Rather than use Fraps to record our own scene from one of the levels within the game we decided to use the benchmark as it does accurately represent an action-packed situation. Furthermore, it also makes it easier for you to compare your system's results with ours.

We tested Hitman: Absolution at three common desktop display resolutions: 1680x1050, 1920x1200 and 2560x1600, using the High (2xAA/8xAF) and Ultra (4xAA/16xAF) quality settings with in the DX11 mode.

Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition (3072MB)Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 (3072MB)Gigabyte Radeon HD 7950 (3072MB)AMD Radeon HD 7870 (2048MB)AMD Radeon HD 7850 (2048MB)HIS Radeon HD 7770 (1024MB)HIS Radeon HD 7750 (1024MB)HIS Radeon HD 6970 (2048MB)HIS Radeon HD 6950 (2048MB)HIS Radeon HD 6870 (1024MB)HIS Radeon HD 6850 (1024MB)HIS Radeon HD 6790 (1024MB) HIS Radeon HD 6770 (1024MB)HIS Radeon HD 6750 (1024MB)AMD Radeon HD 5870 (2048MB)AMD Radeon HD 5830 (1024MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 680 (4096MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 680 (2048MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 (2048MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti (2048MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 (2048MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 650 Ti (2048MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti (1024MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 (1024MB)Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 (1536MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 (1024MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 550 Ti (1024MB)Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition (3.30GHz)x4 4GB G.Skill DDR3-1600 (CAS 8-8-8-20)Gigabyte G1.Assassin2 (Intel X79)OCZ ZX Series 1250wCrucial m4 512GB (SATA 6Gb/s)Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 64-bitNvidia Forceware 310.61AMD Catalyst 12.11 (Beta 8)

View the original article here

By: Dilusha On 1:20 PM

Review: Scan 3XS Z77 Performance GTK3

Excellent service and warrantyDecent component choice (although some we would swap)240GB SSDWeak GPU (in comparison to competition)By Dave James from PCFormat Issue 271 December 12th 2012

When you're putting together a machine for a thousand of your Earth pounds, there are many options to consider and many different configurations. We don't have any identikit builds in this test, though there are threads that run throughout, like the use of Intel CPUs.

Balance is important, but the chances are you're going to have to make a compromise or a sacrifice somewhere.

Like the Cyberpower Infinity Apollo, you can plainly see where the sacrifices have been made in this rig before even looking at the benchmarks. We are, of course, talking about the decision to opt for a GTX 660 Ti in the graphics card slot.

Where it differs from the Cyberpower is that we've got a lot more in return for giving up some straight-line graphics performance. That 240GB SSD is a real bonus, and something we'd be pleased to find in any rig. With 240GB of space on your OS boot drive, you can fit in a healthy Steam collection, and it will all boot and respond just as you'd expect from a solid state starting point.

That ubiquitous Intel CPU is once again given the 4.6GHz treatment, and comes with an absolutely mammoth air-cooler strapped to it to keep it running happily with its chunky clockspeed. The Gigabyte Z77X-D3H is one of the two mobos of choice in this test - the other being Asus' similarly budget-oriented P8Z77-V LX - and both are excellent value choices for an all-round PC build.

The difficulty is that we're going to keep coming back to that GPU choice. Performance is (almost) everything, and when a rig is giving gaming benchmark numbers this far off the pace, it becomes tough to recommend.

This 3XS machine leaves you with a stark decision to make: is the chunky SSD worth the relative lack of gaming prowess? For us PC gamers, the answer has to be no.

The SSD may make your games and PC boot quickly, but by the time you're in-game, mowing down zomboids from a Huey or engaging in massive skirmishes planetside, it's all about frame rates. You don't want to be thinking about upgrades straight away when you've just spent £1K on a gaming PC, but dropping in an SSD later is going to be a cheaper upgrade path than throwing away your GTX 660 Ti and buying a new, faster graphics card.

From a starting point then we'd much rather have a speedier GPU and a HDD, or a low-capacity SSD that we can upgrade at a later date.

Specs are only part of the build though. Almost as important is the service you get. Sure, if everything works perfectly for three years you'll have no need of SI back up, but that's a situation that rarely happens.

Scan has easily the best standard warranty of all the SIs in the test. If it was just a three-year parts and labour warranty it would be great, but when the first year is on-site, it takes it to another level.

While we wouldn't necessarily recommend this spec for a £1K build because of the focus on SSD rather than GPU, we would have no hesitation recommending Scan build you a rig of your choosing.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Nintendo promises to improve Wii U's slow performance

Fixes incoming

Nintendo has admitted there are some problems with the Wii U console and has vowed to fix them.

In a video on the company website, president Satoru Iwata acknowledged the console was a little sluggish in switching between apps, and that the long update needed to get online wasn't exactly ideal.

He said the company will work to address the issues, though he didn't give a timeframe.

Iwata also apologised for the low stock of the Wii U Premium Set in Japan, saying stocks were being replenished every week.

The Wii U went on sale on November 18 in the US, November 30 in Europe and Australia, and December 8 in Japan. In order to get online using the console, users have to install a software patch. The Wii U also launched without the streaming services that were promised.

Iwata apologised for the software patch a few weeks ago as well. "Personally I think that users should be able to use all the functions of a console video game machine as soon as they open the box," he said in an interview. "So I feel very sorry for the fact that the purchasers of Wii U have to experience a network update which takes such a long time, and that there are the services which were not available at the hardware's launch."

Via The Verge

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Far Cry 3 Performance Test: Graphics & CPU

Designed exclusively for PC, the original Far Cry sold 730,000 copies in the first four months following its March 2004 release and was hailed as one of the best shooters, combining an adventurous plot that followed ex-Army operative Jack Carver's heroic exploits on a mysterious Micronesian archipelago with engaging sandbox combat and some of the period's most advanced graphics courtesy of CryEngine.

Despite Far Cry's success, Crytek shifted gears to a fresh IP, Crysis, instead of focusing on a follow up to its previous hit -- a decision that came at least partly because the studio felt Far Cry's fiction was too restrictive. Nonetheless, Ubisoft (Far Cry's publisher) had no intentions of letting the property fizzle out, and its Montreal outfit released a multi-platform sequel in October 2008.

Having been developed by a different studio, Far Cry 2 was considerably different from its predecessor. Among the most notable changes was the use of a heavily modified version of CryEngine called Dunia. The title also featured new characters, a fresh setting, a more open world and new gameplay mechanics. Some gamers heavily criticized those changes, but Far Cry 2 was still positively received and sold well.

Having passed four years since Far Cry 2's arrival, Ubisoft has revisited the franchise this holiday season with a third entry that more closely resembles the franchise's 2004 debut. Far Cry 3 89 is set on a tropical island, this time found somewhere at the intersection of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and the story involves rescuing your kidnapped friends from the island's unhinged inhabitants.

The latest release is built using an advanced version of the Dunia engine called Dunia 2, which is said to feature new water rendering technology, a realistic weather system, advanced AI technology, a new animation system, realistic facial expressions, motion capture technology and global illumination -- many of which are made possible by the game's adoption of DirectX 11 and can only be experienced on the PC version.

Based on the screenshots we saw leading up to the game's release, we were expecting it to be highly demanding and at least we hope that it can take advantage of the latest and greatest graphics cards and processors. If so, it would join a few other recent releases (namely Hitman: Absolution and Medal of Honor: Warfighter) that also managed to tax our high-end gear. Let's toast some silicon...

We'll be testing 29 DirectX 11 graphics card configurations from AMD and Nvidia. The latest drivers will be used, and every card will be paired with an Intel Core i7-3960X to remove CPU bottlenecks that could influence high-end GPU scores.

We're using Fraps to measure frame rates during 90 seconds of gameplay footage from Far Cry 3's third chapter, Dr. Earnhardt's Mansion. Our test begins on one of the nearby islands under a radio tower. At the start of the test, a nearby patrol vehicle approaches and is taken out using a sniper rifle, then on foot we run through some dense vegetation to a nearby enemy camp where some hostiles are engaged briefly before the test ends.

We'll test Far Cry 3 at three common desktop display resolutions: 1680x1050, 1920x1200 and 2560x1600, using the DX11 mode. For the ultra-quality test, we'll set the 'overall quality' in the video quality menu to ultra while also setting the MSAA level to 4. The high-quality test will be conducted with MSAA disabled with the overall quality setting on high.

Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition (3072MB)Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 (3072MB)Gigabyte Radeon HD 7950 (3072MB)AMD Radeon HD 7870 (2048MB)AMD Radeon HD 7850 (2048MB)HIS Radeon HD 7770 (1024MB)HIS Radeon HD 7750 (1024MB)HIS Radeon HD 6970 (2048MB)HIS Radeon HD 6950 (2048MB)HIS Radeon HD 6870 (1024MB)HIS Radeon HD 6850 (1024MB)HIS Radeon HD 6790 (1024MB) HIS Radeon HD 6770 (1024MB)HIS Radeon HD 6750 (1024MB)AMD Radeon HD 5870 (2048MB)AMD Radeon HD 5830 (1024MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 680 (4096MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 680 (2048MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 (2048MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti (2048MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 (2048MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 650 Ti (2048MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 (1280MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti (1024MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 (1024MB)Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 (1536MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 (1024MB)Gigabyte GeForce GTX 550 Ti (1024MB)Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition (3.30GHz)x4 4GB G.Skill DDR3-1600 (CAS 8-8-8-20)Gigabyte G1.Assassin2 (Intel X79)OCZ ZX Series 1250wCrucial m4 512GB (SATA 6Gb/s)Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 64-bitNvidia Forceware 310.70AMD Catalyst 12.11 (Beta 11 CAP 2)

View the original article here

By: Dilusha On 12:28 PM

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Windows 8 upgrade diary: gaming and performance

It's been a brisk and mostly enjoyable two weeks since the launch of Windows 8 and the start of this diary. Whereas my last entry was all about productivity, there's now been ample opportunity to relax with the new OS, play a few titles in Steam, and run some general performance benchmarks. These not-so-onerous tasks were completed using an AMD FX-based triple-monitor gaming rig upgraded from Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 8 Pro, with all games running at 5,760 x 1,080 and max detail settings, and all the hardware was kept constant to allow a before-and-after comparison. You'll find the results after the break, along with a few broader impressions of what Windows 8 might mean for an early-adopting desktop gamer.

Windows 7
Ultimate

Windows 8 Pro

SunSpider 0.9.1 on Internet Explorer

ATTO storage read at 1,024KB (write)

Cold boot time (shutdown time)

XCOM: Enemy Unknown average fps**

*Futuremark warns that PCMark 7 may under-score Windows 8 performance, so take this figure with a sprinkle of caution. Other sites have found that PCMark 7 actually scores higher in Windows 8 with different hardware configurations.
** This game -- the only game I want to play right now -- runs upside-down on Eyefinity. Aaargh.

A glance at the table will corroborate what other benchmark comparisons (see More Coverage below) have already shown: Windows 8 doesn't currently do much for gaming other than preserving it. If we ignore PCMark 7 for now, which currently comes with a health warning, then gaming-relevant performance is broadly even. Personally, I just carried on running my existing Steam games as normal, and I was pleased that my hardware -- including an ASUS Xonar sound card and Xbox 360 wired controller -- was recognized without issue. But few people will spend money on an upgrade merely to experience what they already had with Windows 7.

Of course, there was that whole Gabe Newell "catastrophe" saga recently, and it had little to do with hardware issues. The Steam founder was mainly worried about the new Windows Store potentially becoming the only way for Windows users to buy and install new games. Politics aside (at least for now), I did explore the Store and a couple of game demos, but I lost interest pretty quickly. For the time being, Microsoft is putting the emphasis on tablet games and cross-compatibility with ARM-based RT tablets, with the result that the selection of games for desktop users is limited and often inappropriate (Fruit Ninja, anyone?). When I'd finally confirmed that it's possible to have a launch-day roster of 40 Xbox Live games and yet not include classics like Fez, Braid or Super Meatboy on that list, I made a polite exit.

Microsoft is putting the emphasis on tablet games

Anyway, returning to the table, the more general indicators of performance show some significant gains as a result of the upgrade -- gains which do seem to make the system snappier when it comes to racking up a game. The FastBoot feature we've seen on some recent Windows 8 laptops was never going to work with my particular motherboard and graphics card, but the wake-up and sleep times were both significantly reduced -- and since I hardly ever switch my PC off, those two measures are more useful to me. ATTO showed a 10 percent gain in storage read and write speeds, running on a 750GB Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive. Internet Explorer 10 also deserves a mention for being blisteringly fast compared to IE9 -- and there's no final version of IE10 for Windows 7 coming any time soon. In large part, this brings me back to the main conclusion of my last post: Windows 8 does some genuinely good things for all-round productivity. But for other, more leisurely pursuits, I don't yet see any compelling reason why the desktop user should upgrade.

My rig, for the record: AMD FX-8350 CPU (tested at stock speeds to keep things simple), Gelid Tranquillo Rev. 2 CPU cooler, AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition graphics card (also at stock speed), ASUS CrossHair V Formula motherboard, ASUS Xonar Phoebus sound card, 8GB Corsair XMS3 RAM, 750GB Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive, NZXT Phantom 410 chassis, three ViewSonic VX2336S 1080p LED monitors.

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By: Dilusha On 5:52 PM