Here's your chance to influence our future graphics card testing. Right now, our list of nine games that we use for GPU benchmarks consists of the following (parenthetical comments are API we use, and whether a game has AMD or Nvidia branding):
Borderlands 3 (DX12 AMD)
The Division 2 (DX12 AMD)
Far Cry 5 (DX11 AMD)
Final Fantasy XIV (DX11 Nvidia)
Forza Horizon 4 (DX12)
Metro Exodus (DX12 Nvidia)
Red Dead Redemption 2 (Vulkan)
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12 Nvidia)
Strange Brigade (Vulkan AMD)
A few quick notes:
My short list of games I may include when they become available:
Assassin's Creed Valhalla (AC games are usually very demanding and decently popular, but potentially buggy)
Cyberpunk 2077 (duh)
Dirt 5 (could be a reasonable swap out for FH4)
Doom Eternal (it's out, I've tested it already, but it takes more effort to benchmark)
Dying Light 2 (maybe -- the last one was a pain to benchmark)
Microsoft Flight Simulator (if there's a reliable way to test that's not a complete PITA)
Rainbow Six Quarantine (another big maybe)
Star Wars Squadrons (maybe -- Jedi Fallen Order was merely okay, didn't warrant inclusion IMO)
Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines 2 (if it doesn't suck)
Watchdogs: Legion (possibly)
Lots of other games I probably won't include, unless they end up being 'better' for testing GPUs:
Death Stranding (already out, not sure how 'relevant' it is -- weird game, pretty repetitive IMO, but maybe?)
Diablo 4 (probably not coming for a while, may not be very demanding graphically)
Gods and Monsters (maybe?)
Horizon Zero Dawn (belated PS4 port)
Marvel's Avengers (likely to be too 'light' IMO)
Project Cars 3 (I didn't do much with the previous 2, but maybe third time's the charm)
Serious Sam 4 (will it be any good, and will it push GPUs at all?)
Wasteland 3 (Unity engine, not super demanding most likely)
Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood (probably not going to be demanding or popular?
I'd like to keep the final list to no more than 10 games total. Games with built-in benchmarks are also lovely, because that can remove a lot of the difficulty of repeated testing and variability -- but I get why some prefer 'real' benchmarking. Anyway, that's it. Sound off and I'll be looking at responses to see if I need to seriously rethink anything I've listed above.
Borderlands 3 (DX12 AMD)
The Division 2 (DX12 AMD)
Far Cry 5 (DX11 AMD)
Final Fantasy XIV (DX11 Nvidia)
Forza Horizon 4 (DX12)
Metro Exodus (DX12 Nvidia)
Red Dead Redemption 2 (Vulkan)
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12 Nvidia)
Strange Brigade (Vulkan AMD)
A few quick notes:
- I really want to ditch Far Cry 5, FFXIV, and Strange Brigade -- I feel all are older and less meaningful representations of modern games. FFXIV in particular has got to go IMO.
- I haven't been testing with any ray tracing or DLSS modes in the two games that support those features (Metro and SotTR), but when AMD's Big Navi arrives I'll very likely be looking to include at least two ray tracing games.
- The final list of games should include a mix of AMD and Nvidia promoted titles, different APIs if possible (DX12 + Vulkan for sure, and a major DX11 game would be nice as well). It should also include a mix of genres if possible -- so Forza is currently my "car racing" benchmark, and I still feel it's better than the F1 20xx games ... but if you have strong feelings and want to argue the case for a different racing game, I'm open.
- Ideally, I want games that are more demanding (on the GPU), better looking, and more popular -- so if a game is more demanding but no one plays it, I'd prefer not to use it.
My short list of games I may include when they become available:
Assassin's Creed Valhalla (AC games are usually very demanding and decently popular, but potentially buggy)
Cyberpunk 2077 (duh)
Dirt 5 (could be a reasonable swap out for FH4)
Doom Eternal (it's out, I've tested it already, but it takes more effort to benchmark)
Dying Light 2 (maybe -- the last one was a pain to benchmark)
Microsoft Flight Simulator (if there's a reliable way to test that's not a complete PITA)
Rainbow Six Quarantine (another big maybe)
Star Wars Squadrons (maybe -- Jedi Fallen Order was merely okay, didn't warrant inclusion IMO)
Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines 2 (if it doesn't suck)
Watchdogs: Legion (possibly)
Lots of other games I probably won't include, unless they end up being 'better' for testing GPUs:
Death Stranding (already out, not sure how 'relevant' it is -- weird game, pretty repetitive IMO, but maybe?)
Diablo 4 (probably not coming for a while, may not be very demanding graphically)
Gods and Monsters (maybe?)
Horizon Zero Dawn (belated PS4 port)
Marvel's Avengers (likely to be too 'light' IMO)
Project Cars 3 (I didn't do much with the previous 2, but maybe third time's the charm)
Serious Sam 4 (will it be any good, and will it push GPUs at all?)
Wasteland 3 (Unity engine, not super demanding most likely)
Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood (probably not going to be demanding or popular?
I'd like to keep the final list to no more than 10 games total. Games with built-in benchmarks are also lovely, because that can remove a lot of the difficulty of repeated testing and variability -- but I get why some prefer 'real' benchmarking. Anyway, that's it. Sound off and I'll be looking at responses to see if I need to seriously rethink anything I've listed above.