Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box, Performance Analysis

[Guest]

"Finally, at the ultra-high 2560x1600 resolution, our Radeon HD 4650 DDR2 is rendered unplayable."

I would not see why you'd call this performance unplayable when the minimum fps is above 22fps, and avg fps is 26fps!
As long as your fps don't go below 20fps during gameplay it is very playable!

 

[KyleSTL]

Nice review, cleeve. I feel like the racing segment is often ignored by most gaming sites, which is a shame, because it's my favorite genre (along with turn-based RPG, which is all but dead).

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]Have you tested your claim? It's a very fast paced game, and I believe that is a too low frame rate for such game. Can't say for sure though, cause I've got no system with a directx level high enough but performance poor enough.[/citation]

I have tested this claim, yes; though not with this game.
I know enough about gaming to know that the human eye-brain coordination is not able to view faster than 20fps on a moving image, and perceive about 70fps when seeing black and white flashes.

Test for yourself, take an old pc, with low graphics card, and play a game at high resolutions high quality.
at 18fps you get the impression the game loses snappyness.
while below 15fps the image starts lagging, and you can see frames instead of fluid motion.

I only go after the results posted here. I know there are games out there with Average fps of 50, yet in some scenes they only get 15fps.
Then the game would in some scenes not be playable, but if the bench is true, and the minimum fps is 22, you would perceive the game to be as playable as with 100+fps avg; you would not notice any difference at all.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]ProDigit80[/nom]As long as your fps don't go below 20fps during gameplay it is very playable![/citation]

Well, I tested it and played it, and IMHO 22-26 fps isn't fast enough to play this twitch game comfortably.

But, like everything else that involves personal taste, your mileage may vary.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]IzzyCraft[/nom]A roll over png or jpg would have probably done better then the color restrivie .gif that was used, Shame that IE8 doesn't support APNG like opera and ff does, it would def make the format much more popular.[/citation]

Yeah. Unfortunately, I don't think our CMS supports rollover images but I'll find out.

Having said that, I think the GIF image quality was sufficient to represent the differences well.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]DjEaZy[/nom]... tha 100fps iz rear in the hills... just turned v-sync off and turn up tha AMD fusion tool... it's rear, that it drops below 50fps...[/citation]

I'll happily revise the article if I can recreate a scenario where I can turn the vsync limit off on this title. How are you measuring FPS? And more importantly, how are you shutting Vsync off? Shutting it off in the driver had no efect for me.

Please let us know how you accomplished this.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]IzzyCraft[/nom]I was wonding why no 4870 like above.[/citation]

Unfortunately I didn't have one onhand when I started, and after doing the benches I didn't think it would be all that necessary. The 4850 and GTX 260 are more than capable of handling this at 1920x1200.

As far as 2560x1600, the three people in north america with 30" monitors will have to come to their own conclusions, but I reckon performance would be similar to the GTX260.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]harshahorizon[/nom]plz do more of these kind of reviews[/citation]

Thanks! That's the plan, I'm going to try and get one done monthly.
Any suggestions as to the next game title I should go after?

 

[DjEaZy]

... it's waz a glitch... i apologize!!! i hope YOU all can forgive me ... in FRAPS it iz 60fps and rarely drops to 58fps...
settings: 1680x1050, all settings @ highest, AAx8, AASO off.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]DjEaZy[/nom]... it's waz a glitch... i apologize!!! [/citation]

No worries man. Actually I'm very relieved I didn't have to redo an entire review.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]Thanks! That's the plan, I'm going to try and get one done monthly.Any suggestions as to the next game title I should go after?[/citation]
forged alliance
bloodbowl (due next month)
saints row 2 (port from console)

 

[Guest]

Tomshardware need to do this exact thing for Grand theft auto 4 Id like to know exactly what makes it playable and im sure many others would too.

 

[bustapr]

The SSAO thing in this game makes it look like crap.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]erloas[/nom]Well the 60Hz V-sync limit is only the limit if that is what your monitor refreshed at. If someone has a good quality CRT still its very possible to have them with refresh rates in the 75-85Hz range. [/citation]

You can get hundreds of FPS regardless of the monitor's refresh rate as long as vsync is forced off. Yes, a 60 Hz monitor can only refresh 60 times per second, but that doesn't stop the video card from pumping out higher FPS.

On a side note, I believe there are some 100 Hz+ LCD monitors out there now. Nvidia's new 3d glasses depend on them...

 

[yourhighness]

How is it driving with a keyboard and mouse?

I had to get a logitech Rumble Pad to play Grid on my PC.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]yourhighness[/nom]How is it driving with a keyboard and mouse?I had to get a logitech Rumble Pad to play Grid on my PC.[/citation]

I guess you could do it with a keyboard, but really driving games are best with a joypad. The rumblepad is excellent with this game.

 

[Shadow703793]

With other ports running poorly on the PC (such as Halo)

Correction, should be Halo[b 2[/b]. Many PC gamers still play Halo (aka Halo CE) and there are countless mods and a following for it.

 

[IzzyCraft]

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]You can get hundreds of FPS regardless of the monitor's refresh rate as long as vsync is forced off. Yes, a 60 Hz monitor can only refresh 60 times per second, but that doesn't stop the video card from pumping out higher FPS.On a side note, I believe there are some 100 Hz+ LCD monitors out there now. Nvidia's new 3d glasses depend on them...[/citation]
Yeah i think there are 2 monitors one by viewsonic and one by samsung i think that officially work with those glasses and work at 120 double the fps with quadruple the hit on your wallet probably.

 

[cletus_slackjawd]

Selfish post: Looks good yeah! I have a Q6600 and 9600GT at 1680x1050
Looks like I'm more than good to go. Yeppie!

 

[sandmanwn]

ATI imagery was much better but the Nvidia definitely excelled with the shadows.

Really interesting port to PC. Finally have a use for that old add game pad sitting in a box collecting dust.

 

[theangrygimp]

I hope that Nvidia gets their own version of the SSAO shader working with this game, as its much less of a resource hog than the built in one. Whats with the crazy banding around the telephone lines and such? It is the biggest killer of the effect I think. Anyways, I love this game and have been playing since the day it came out on PC, one of the most fun arcade racers I've ever played, definitely a keeper.

 

[cletus_slackjawd]

[citation][nom]demonhorde665[/nom]"It turns out that 8x MSAA and 2560x1600 represent the magic combination. Although it has put up a good fight, the GeForce 9600 GT can no longer render a smooth, playable minimum frame rate."why do all reviewers consider any thing below 30fps "unplayable" 27 fps minimum is hardly what i'd call "unplayable" minimum frames are only really bad when tehy drop below 24 fps , this IS a minimum frame rate wea re tallkign aobut the avaerage on this test was much higher , that suggest that in RARE cases the frame rate will drop to 27 which is not any where near unplayable especially if the frames only stay there breifly for a second. back in 1998 (or was it 99) i ahve alow end machine and used to se frames as low as 18 fps on NFS: HS now that was unplayable , the next vid card upgrade got me seeing mins of 26-28 and the gamewas just fine play wise. not sure if this game uses it or not but many racing gmaes use motion blyur trhese days and they are VERY playble at frame rate miniums of 23 fps secomnd even due the motion blur effect distoring the image to where the dropped frames arn not noticable. so agian i say 27 minimum is quite respectable (and playable) for a vid card that can be had at 100 bucks or less. that's aof coruse assumign that a rich gamer would be idiot enough to use a cheap card on a monitor big enough for that resolution that you got this frame rate on LOL[/citation]
I agree completely with your well stated response. Consider that these types of websites are basically online magazines. A magazine makes it's money selling advertisement space so of course it's going to sell you on the idea of purchasing new hardware. Nothing wrong with that, you just have to put that into perspective when digesting the articles. The resolutions they are testing are unrealistic. You simply don't find those resolutions in monitors under US $2,000.00

 

[curnel_D]

I tested the demo and absolutely hated it. Not only couldnt I find any options to change my keymap/graphics/audio settings, but I cant stand game pads and this game is no where close to keyboard friendly. The graphics are 'average' but I think this game would do a whole lot for me if it was better tuned for keyboard players. I played for two hours and was still missing keys and hitting akward positions.

As for games to review, I'd prefer to see games that arent often reviewed. Perhaps something like the new neverwinter Nights 2 adventure pack?

 

[hustler539]

If ever there were a kickass candidate for some PhysX this woulda been it. Just imagine those crashes

 

[Draven35]

The 'dark halo' is seen in the areas it is because the SSAO is interpolating the ambient occlusion results. Got results just like it for years in pro 3d software when i set the sampling too low for a GI calculation.