Very indepth, like it very much. Just wish you could take the time to update the article with lesser GPUs, including integrated. Sure, the Intel one does 6 fps, but that's not surprising, is it? What about the 5700G, or the very successful 3400G? And VRAM, how much is too little? Can I game with less than 4GB?
Yeah, the difficulty is that every GPU tested adds time to the task, anywhere from about 15 minutes to 45 minutes depending on how many different settings and resolutions I test. And testing on more than one system is a pain because I have to copy (or redownload) the game to each system. I'll do a quick test of the GTX 1050, which is one of the few 2GB cards I have that's worth considering. Anyone have another pressing GPU question, LMK and I can see about running a few tests. I'll post results here...
GTX 1050 results (all at native, no upscaling):
1280x720 Very Low: avg: 52.5 fps, 1% low: 34.8 fps
1920x1080 Very Low: avg: 36.3 fps, 1% low: 26.9 fps
1920x1080 Medium: avg: 31.5 fps, 1% low: 21.3 fps
So, 720p is definitely playable, 1080p minimum is okay as well. 1080p medium feels sluggish but you could manage it if you really want.
I also tested the Radeon RX 550 4GB. It has more VRAM but a lower power limit, fewer shader cores, and is generally quite slow. It's basically on par with AMD's integrated Vega 8 graphics. Here are the results:
RX 550 4GB results (all at native, no upscaling):
1280x720 Very Low: avg: 38.6 fps, 1% low: 24.6 fps
1920x1080 Very Low: avg: 25.3 fps, 1% low: 17.6 fps
You can see that 720p minimum is still basically playable, but 1080p proves a bit too much. The game engine starts to slow down when it falls below ~20 fps, maybe 24 fps. So for example, my test sequence consists of running through a section of the city in a loop. It takes about a minute and I end up close to where I started, so that I can repeat the test. On the RX 550, I only made it about 90% of the way back to the normal stopping point.