Star Trek Online: Game Performance Analyzed And Benchmarked

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eridani64

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I should have put something to the poster about CrossFire benchmarks... I currently run a pair of 4770 CFX with an i7 920 Proc, and 6Gb 1333 DDR3. I run @ 1920x1080 with pretty much everything maxed out, 8X AF, and AF off due to very inopportune crash moments. With AF on I still have a playable 60fps... I haven't tried Cat 10.2 which came out yesterday so I'm hoping that will fix that issue. My wife runs a pair of GTS250 SLI (yup she is a Nvidia girl), an i7 860 Proc, and 6Gb 1333 DDR3. She's able to run maxed all settings with 8x AF, 2x AA @ approx. 75+ fps. She isn't without problems though as she experiences strange lag in places that I don't along with interesting cursor problems.
 

cleeve

Illustrious
[citation][nom]jennyh[/nom]Agreed. I didn't even realise STO was a TWIMTBP title.That's pretty poor form Cleeve. Are things so desperate for Nvidia now that you aren't allowed to mention TWIMTBP in these 'reviews' you do?[/citation]

The game doesn't show a TWIMTBP logo at the start, and it's not on Nvidia's list:

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_twimtbp_gameslist.html

Where does it say that STO is a TWIMTBP game?


What would make you guys happy? Should I benchmark a whole bunch of games and only publish the ones where Radeons kick GeForce ass?

I thought I should be looking for useful data here. It seems like some of you are more interested in keeping score like it's a football game.
 

cleeve

Illustrious
[citation][nom]DaveUK[/nom]Is there any particular reason why Toms have got into the extremely bad habit of not ordering your benchmarks from top performer > bottom performer in a logical fashion?[/citation]

Yup, the reason is I prefer to list in order of price sometimes.

[citation][nom]DaveUK[/nom]In case you've forgotten, here's how to do it properly.[/citation]

In case you've forgotten, this isn't Anandtech. :)
 

terr281

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I was thinking about buying STO until I saw that your ability to play certain races and have certain ships was determined on where you bought the game from. Thus, if you treat the game as an onling RPG (the way I would have), then all of the "quests" (IE: options) will never be available for you unless you buy several copies of the game.

When the "first expansion" comes out, maybe Atari (IE: Cryptic) will correct this issue.
 

zampolit

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Strange though, they forgot to comment how HORRIBLE this game is. They have already had huge problems(like 30% of its preorders canceling during the pre-launch beta) as well as only 50% of the remaining clients have an active subscription past the 30-days free.(Might be because those are the ones who jumped the gun and bought the lifetime?)

But anyway, this game is already on its way to joining Hellgate:London, Vanguard, and others that were forced to close or sell out to someone else to survive. If you don't believe it, read the forums or play the game.

Luckily, I was able to cancel both my preorder and lifetime subscription.(gotta love paying by credit card)
 

eridani64

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[citation][nom]terr281[/nom]I was thinking about buying STO until I saw that your ability to play certain races and have certain ships was determined on where you bought the game from. Thus, if you treat the game as an onling RPG (the way I would have), then all of the "quests" (IE: options) will never be available for you unless you buy several copies of the game.When the "first expansion" comes out, maybe Atari (IE: Cryptic) will correct this issue.[/citation]

Those were Pre-Order bonuses, and they don't effect the game in any way. As for those bonuses... you are out of those by level 11 anyway. The only "race" you can't play from square one is the Liberated Borg which to my knowledge was only offered to lifetime subscribers. I'm sure they'll offer that in the future in the C-store.
 

Spanky Deluxe

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[citation][nom]eridani64[/nom]Those were Pre-Order bonuses, and they don't effect the game in any way. As for those bonuses... you are out of those by level 11 anyway. The only "race" you can't play from square one is the Liberated Borg which to my knowledge was only offered to lifetime subscribers. I'm sure they'll offer that in the future in the C-store.[/citation]

Yeah you don't miss out on any quests. The only difference are a few of the choosable race looks. Apart from the liberated borg I think the only other one is the Joined Trill - which look identical to the Trill anyway.

[citation][nom]zampolit[/nom]Strange though, they forgot to comment how HORRIBLE this game is. They have already had huge problems(like 30% of its preorders canceling during the pre-launch beta) as well as only 50% of the remaining clients have an active subscription past the 30-days free.(Might be because those are the ones who jumped the gun and bought the lifetime?) But anyway, this game is already on its way to joining Hellgate:London, Vanguard, and others that were forced to close or sell out to someone else to survive. If you don't believe it, read the forums or play the game.Luckily, I was able to cancel both my preorder and lifetime subscription.(gotta love paying by credit card)[/citation]

Where are those official statistics saying 30% of its preorders cancelled and only 50% have active subscriptions? Sounds a bit like you're plucking numbers out of thin air to sound important. Everyone I know that is playing the game likes it on the whole. Sure it isn't perfect but no launch MMORPG ever is. I've hardly heard anyone moan in game like you claim apart from the odd "is XXX still bugged?" and most of the big long rants in the forum are from the same people over and over again - even then for every one person ranting online there are probably a hundred people who are completely happy. It's the same on pretty much any forum. Hardly anyone actually bothers to log in to a forum and post to say that they're actually happy about things and love different features.
 

cleeve

Illustrious
[citation][nom]zampolit[/nom]Strange though, they forgot to comment how HORRIBLE this game is. [/citation]

This is more a case of disagreeing than forgetting. I like the game a lot, so much in fact that I went out and bought a lifetime subscription.

In fact, I'm happy that I did, and I'd do it again in the same circumstance.
 

terr281

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[citation][nom]eridani64[/nom]Those were Pre-Order bonuses, and they don't effect the game in any way. As for those bonuses... you are out of those by level 11 anyway. The only "race" you can't play from square one is the Liberated Borg which to my knowledge was only offered to lifetime subscribers. I'm sure they'll offer that in the future in the C-store.[/citation]

http://www.startrekonline.com/retail

So, from your statement, the additional skill points gained by buying the game from only Wal-Mart, buying the Deluxe edition to get the Joined Trill bonus (an extra talent), and buying from Gamestop to get the Constitution Class Starship have now been made available to all purchasers of the game? (And, this doesn't include the issue of buying the Deluxe Edition, with 500 free Cryptic Points, in order to be able to play Klingons and Ferengi from the beginning via http://www.startrekonline.com/store )

If not, then this is another game where more RL money equals more options for the current "entire game" versus those who purchase the standard game. (In my opinion, there is a difference between giving a RL trinket, a figurine or T-shirt or shinier box, versus giving players in the game itself a useful bonus that still applies at "max level" when they purchase the Deluxe Edition.)

And, from the roleplaying perspective, certain boxes are the only ones that give the TOS uniforms. (Again, according to the website.)

At least with Wow, special in-game items were limited to mini-pets and slow mounts.
 

Spanky Deluxe

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The character bonuses make basically no difference. No, the TOS ship etc aren't available to everyone yet but they probably will be available in the C store in a few months. The 500 free Cryptic Points is a waste of time because you can buy them whenever you want. End game, the only difference will be some innate traits but they have such a little effect that it doesn't really matter. Everything else is cosmetic. The TOS ship is useless when you level past the Lieutenant stage. The cosmetic stuff is what Cryptic do and it's so much nicer than being limited to the stuff in WoW.
 

calranthe

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The special items given at launch do not make you any more powerful the extra points in game are nothing, the amount of bridge officers that you get in game that equal or surpass the borge bridge officer I can't even count (i've started having to get rid of early bridge officers) the trill and anything else like the old constitution class is reclassified as a light cruiser and thus you outgrow it in 5 levels or so.

If you like to rp in ST universe then please try it, it is alot of fun and nothing cryptic gives in store or specials is unbalancing
 

jennyh

Splendid
[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]The game doesn't show a TWIMTBP logo at the start, and it's not on Nvidia's list:http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_ [...] slist.htmlWhere does it say that STO is a TWIMTBP game?What would make you guys happy? Should I benchmark a whole bunch of games and only publish the ones where Radeons kick GeForce ass?I thought I should be looking for useful data here. It seems like some of you are more interested in keeping score like it's a football game.[/citation]

Maybe you should check again because it's clearly on that list.

I'm not syaing 'Only bench the 98/100 games that radeons are ahead of the geforce'. I'm saying 'WHY have you managed to bench the 2/100 that the nvidia's are winning in'.

Do you do the 'Best Gaming Graphics Card' list every month or not?
When you see a gtx260 beating a 5850 that should tell you something is wrong.


There is no physical or logical possibility of a gtx260 beating a 5850 at every resolution without Nvidia's meddling and that is a FACT Cleeve. You know this.

Did Nvidia ask you to do it, like they asked you to do the Batman AA one? Is Nvidia paying you or THG for this service, because if so I don't see anything suggesting this on the 'advert'.

Just get it sorted, we're not stupid.
 

cleeve

Illustrious
[citation][nom]jennyh[/nom]I'm not syaing 'Only bench the 98/100 games that radeons are ahead of the geforce'. I'm saying 'WHY have you managed to bench the 2/100 that the nvidia's are winning in'.[/citation]

Your question belies your personal bias. You aren't interested in seeing learning how new titles perform, you're interested in keeping score.

As for me, I'm interested in benchmarking new titles I think are relevant. I'm not interested in cherry-picking benchmarks I think will be 'won' by either graphics card company. In fact, I couldn't give a rat's hiney which graphics cards company 'wins'. I am interested in seeing how different graphics cards perform in the titles I have found compelling enough to bother benchmarking.

I pick a title and I benchmark it. If Radeons had happened to do better, would your self esteem have taken less of a hit? Why is your self worth attached to a graphics card company?

It is interesting to me that you would prefer I bury this information because it doesn't affect your Radeon vs. GeForce scorekeeping in a manner you would have preferred.


[citation][nom]jennyh[/nom]Do you do the 'Best Gaming Graphics Card' list every month or not? When you see a gtx260 beating a 5850 that should tell you something is wrong.There is no physical or logical possibility of a gtx260 beating a 5850 at every resolution without Nvidia's meddling and that is a FACT Cleeve. You know this.[/citation]

Jenny, I honestly couldn't care less who is meddling with what when benchmarking a specific game title. Yes, it would be great if we lived in a perfect world where a cheaper card never, ever beat out a more expensive card.

However, when I'm writing a game performance analysis I'm more interested in showing people what kind of performance they can expect with their hardware in that particular game title. If someone is interested in this specific game then all the politics, BS, and questionable conduct in the world doesn't help them play the game to their satisfaction.

Has it ever occurred to you that someone interested in this title might find this information useful, wether or not you personally find it distateful? Similarly, someone interested in DiRT2 would be interested in knowing that Radeons perform better.

If you stop treating this like a sport and put down your jersey for a moment, you'll realize that the purpose of these game reviews is to show people how games perform with certain hardware, and to deliver that information in a meaningful way.

I don't do this to satisfy anyone's need to glorify either graphics card company. Not yours, not Nvidias, not anyones.
 

jennyh

Splendid
Cleeve I'd love to believe that but you seem to be arguing against ATI 'fans' with most of your articles.

When I saw STO was being reviewed the first thing I thought was 'What a strange game to review on THG'.

When I saw the 260 ahead of the 5850 that just confirmed every suspicion I had at first. That is a joke - it's like Last Remnant v2.

How does THG manage it? It's like some Nvidia people are benching every game created then phoning up to ensure THG 'review' the ones they win at. I mean come on, where is the Mass Effect 2 or Bioshock 2 review? You can't do two of the biggest games of the year so far yet you can find time to do Star Trek Online and Batman AA last time around because Nvidia 'asked' you to?
 

shmoo1912

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[citation][nom]jennyh[/nom]Cleeve I'd love to believe that but you seem to be arguing against ATI 'fans' with most of your articles.[/citation]

*sigh*. Honestly Jenny, you do read the monthly graphics card article, don't you?

Is it not possible that I can recommend ATI cards and at the same time test a game that shows GeForces aren't always crap?


[citation][nom]jennyh[/nom]When I saw STO was being reviewed the first thing I thought was 'What a strange game to review on THG'. When I saw the 260 ahead of the 5850 that just confirmed every suspicion I had at first. That is a joke - it's like Last Remnant v2. How does THG manage it? It's like some Nvidia people are benching every game created then phoning up to ensure THG 'review' the ones they win at. I mean come on, where is the Mass Effect 2 or Bioshock 2 review? You can't do two of the biggest games of the year so far yet you can find time to do Star Trek Online and Batman AA last time around because Nvidia 'asked' you to?[/citation]

Jenny, I've been a hardcore Star Trek fan for years. I'm a 3d artist and I've actually designed Star trek ships that were used in Interplay/Taldren's series of Starfleet Command games. I run a website called staryards.com that offers playable ship downloads that I design and model in 3d for people who like star trek gaming. I bought a lifetime subscription to Star Trek online. I own all of the original series and next generation episodes on DVD. I could go on and on but I think I've embarrassed myself enough for the sake of proving a point.

Knowing all that, honestly and truly, is it REALLY THAT IMPOSSIBLE that I might have just had a reason other than being paid by Nvidia to review Star Trek Online?
 

Spanky Deluxe

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Jenny, why are you seeing the dark side to everything? Why is it a strange game to review? It's the top of loads of sales charts and looks like it's going to be one of the big boys in the MMORPG world. Sure Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock 2 articles would be nice too and they'll probably come along but some would say this is a 'bigger' game than ME2 or B2. Just because you might not want to play it doesn't mean it's not worth it to others.

Honestly, Tom's can't do anything right it seems. I've seen the site writers be called nVidia haters, ATI haters, Intel haters and AMD haters throughout the years.

I think you're missing the point of this article anyway. It's an article reviewing a game's performance with some different graphics cards not an article reviewing a graphics card running some different games. If someone wants to play this game only (not that far a stretch of the imagination because I've heard of people building "WoW rigs" before) then this will well inform them. If you want an article looking into graphics cards then I suggest you have a look at the graphics charts or one of the review articles talking about the 5870 etc.

I'm an ATI user and I have no issues with this article. I used to be somewhat of an nVidia "fanboy" but these days I go with what's better for me at time of purchase and I don't care too much about who the manufacturer is.
 

jennyh

Splendid
Yes it's possible Don.

It's also possible that you had an interest in Batman AA, even though Nvidia asked you to review it.

What about the 5670 review when you downplayed it because Nvidia told you the gts240 was going to drop in price and didn't? That was ridiculous - you can't downplay an ATI card just because Nvidia lied about their pricing of the 240.

Sooner or later all these little coincidences make people think that you are the biased one. We are the fans, we are allowed to be biased - you are getting paid to be neutral and do the best for us and so far you seem to be doing a lot more for Nvidia.

Anyone who has read your recent reviews would probably believe Nvidia are making better cards from top to bottom. You aren't the only one on THG doing this, Timo 'Last Remnant' Kreiss is another.
 

patchez

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not a very enlightening review of the game performance...
i know that due to time constraints/resources, a more detailed review could not be done, but using the 'in game' default graphics settings doesn't reveal very much.

there are far more settings in the 'advanced settings'. even playing around for a few minutes, you will notice that turning off occlusion bumps frame rates up but 15-25%, even with everything else maxed out.
there are just so many settings to configure.
 

cleeve

Illustrious
[citation][nom]jennyh[/nom]Yes it's possible Don.It's also possible that you had an interest in Batman AA, even though Nvidia asked you to review it.[/citation]

Jenny, the fact that I personally think that Rmost adeons offer a better value than GeForces at this time does not give me the right to automatically discount the possibility that PhysX might offer a value to some people. As a reviewer I have a duty to check these things out. How often have you seen me pushing PhysX in the monthly recommendations? Despite this, I have to keep an open mind and at least try new things out once in a while. it's my job. And you know what? PhysX is pretty cool in Batman. I can say this despite the fact that I'd prefer an open standard and hope thet DirectCompute displaces PhysX. I can say it because I can recognize when something works well, even if it's not an ideal situation. Because there are Batman fans out there who might appreciate knowing this.


[citation][nom]jennyh[/nom]Sooner or later all these little coincidences make people think that you are the biased one. We are the fans, we are allowed to be biased - you are getting paid to be neutral and do the best for us and so far you seem to be doing a lot more for Nvidia. Anyone who has read your recent reviews would probably believe Nvidia are making better cards from top to bottom.[/citation]

After looking over my Best Cards for the Money articles and my Radeon 5000 series reviews, I would disagree with you. In my opinion, I think you are interpreting things with a very heavy Pro-Radeon anti-GeForce slant.

You complain every time I review a game where a GeForce card might not be completely horrible or sport a GeForce only feature like PhysX, yet in the DiRT 2 results I didn't see you complain that the game was too successful on Radeons or that I shouldn't review a Dx11 game because Nvidia doesn't yet have Dx11 hardware yet. I don't think you're going to complain too loudly at the AvP review, either.
 

jennyh

Splendid
Dirt 2 was an obvious review choice Don, because it was the first proper Dx11 title.

Also I don't consider it 'too successful' on the radeons. If anything the Geforce's do really well in that in dx9 mode compared to many other games.

So lets say AvP looks great on the Radeons? You know what Don, IT SHOULD DO because ATI has a clear lead in any games that haven't been cherry picked by Nvidia.

You know what I'm on about - you know there is no possible way for a gtx260 to beat a 5850 withouth Nvidia meddling in it.

Sooner or later you have to accept that Nvidia are simply harming pc gaming with this garbage. This isn't about improving Nvidia cards on STO, it's about hurting ATI cards too. Some of those benchmarks are just a total joke and everybody knows they bear no resemblance to the average gaming benchmark because There is no possibility of a gtx260 beating a 5850 in any game unless Nvidia have deliberately gimped the 5850.
 

cleeve

Illustrious
[citation][nom]jennyh[/nom]So lets say AvP looks great on the Radeons? You know what Don, IT SHOULD DO because ATI has a clear lead in any games that haven't been cherry picked by Nvidia.[/citation]

Also becuse ATI is paying for AvP development in a similar fashion to a TWIMTBP title. but I guess it's OK because it's ATI, and TWIMTBP is Nvidia so it's evil.

And I'm the biased one, right?




[citation][nom]jennyh[/nom]Sooner or later you have to accept that Nvidia are simply harming pc gaming with this garbage. [/citation]

In my opinion there's nothing to accept. My self esteem isn't tied up with either company, and I can recommend Radeons as price/performance leaders while still acknowledging that some games work better with GeForces.

Luckily, I'm not a fan of either sports team so I don't have to get angry if either one does a good job at something. I'm just a fan of the player's stats. :)
 

smokinu

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A very interesting tid bit of info as well. Depending on what part of "space" you are in depends greatly on the FPS you will get on any card. If you are on a ground mission your FPS are higher than in a space battle. If you are in Space Travel which is alot of the time. Then your FPS shoot through the roof. I have a 5750 GPU and my FPS will go from 30-50 FPS in a ground mission to 25-35 fps in a space battle. However in Space travel Im hitting over 100+ FPS. As the previous person posted there are a ton of different settings in the advance menu. Some items are turned off even when you use the default max setting they give you. I was able to run it at a full Max settings (includes AA at 8x) at 1680 resolution pretty much with no issues. It at times depending on which actual space "instance" you are in could be anywhere from 15FPS to 40FPS. That is the odd thing about this game. Every freaking space mission map has a different demand on the GPU. Some have alot of astroids while others have just giant planet in them. It is always a little bit different.

Benchmarking this game would prove to very difficult task. This is not a game that one can simply compare a couple maps while playing since its always changing. For a complete comparison one would have to compare every single map in the game then compile the results. For those that want to even try the game then there is now a 5 day trial they are running.

I enjoy the game but also get frustrated at times. However I do have to remember that this title was released a full year early to when it was supposed to launched. I was there when WoW first started and remember the pain I sat through while Blizzard figured thing out. As far as first launch I woul have to say cryptic has done better in comparison.

The biggest downfall that I have noticed is the lack of hardware they are using to host this game. I do believe that given a little time they will correct this issue. You have to understand that all the game makers are in it to make money and why would a company throw wads of cash into a ton of servers when a game may flop? Blizzard did not have the hardware support either when launched.

Cryptic says that in about a month or two the content will be introduced for the end game play. The problem is they cant get it to the game fast enough for some folks. Could the game be better?? Of course it could .. What game couldnt>? However I give credit where it is due and so far they have done a pretty good job. BTW the story line missions are far more intreging than those in WOW. But then again most just grind away and do not pay attention to the "story" of the games.
 

jennyh

Splendid
What I think is "fair" is that it is mentioned in the review if these games are TWIMTBP or GITG.

This is especially true in a case like this STO here, where you have a total aberration of a result.

If all the ATI cards perform twice as good as you would expect them too in AvP, then that is also something that should be noted. The way things are going we aren't far off from seeing 'Nvidia only' games.
 

cleeve

Illustrious
[citation][nom]jennyh[/nom]What I think is "fair" is that it is mentioned in the review if these games are TWIMTBP or GITG. This is especially true in a case like this STO here, where you have a total aberration of a result.[/citation]

It's only true if you give a crap about the politics or you're keeping score like it's a football game.

For someone who plans to buy Star Trek Online, the sponsor doesn't change their experience with their hardware. Not even one iota.
 
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