| BASIC GAME INFORMATION |
Year of construction: 2013
Genre: Racing / 3D
developer: Codemasters Birmingham
Publisher: Codemasters
F1 2013 offers fans of the virtual championship a number of interesting innovations, a lot of improvements and – for the first time in the history of the series – motorsport classics. The game features all the cars, drivers and tracks of the real 2013 racing season, in particular the famous British athlete Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes and, for the first time, the young Mexican racer Sergio Perez, who competes for the McLaren Mercedes team. To recreate the authentic atmosphere of the legendary championship, appropriate changes have been made to the rules of the competition, and the control of the virtual car has been redesigned.
A range of new features and improvements, split-screen competition and online multiplayer, and all the possible game modes – both new and long-established – make F1 2013 the most meaningful edition of virtual Formula 1.
| THE GRAFICAL PART |
This subsection of our review highlights the main graphical aspects of this game. Particular attention is paid to the version of the graphics engine used, the version of the API used, graphic settings and the quality of development of the main visual aspects.
| Supported OS and graphics API |
F1 2013 is supported by major Windows operating systems, which include Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. Other operating systems are not currently supported by the developers.
The preferred and primary graphics API for the F1 2013 multiplayer game is DirectX 9/11. The game is distributed through the digital game sales service Steam.
| Game engine |
The F1 2013 game was developed on a modified EGO engine. EGO is a game engine, a modified version of the Neon engine used in the game Colin McRae: DiRT, developed by Codemasters and Sony Computer Entertainment using Sony’s cross-platform PhyreEngine graphics engine. The engine is targeted at the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 hardware and software platforms.
On July 6, 2009, Brian Marshall, Codemasters’ technical director, officially announced that the PC version of DiRT 2, which would use the “EGO” engine, would add support for DirectX 11. Thus, the “EGO” engine became the first engine for which DirectX 11 support was implemented.
| Advanced Game Settings |
F1 2013 has a very wide range of game settings. We have both basic and advanced graphic settings at our disposal. For all modes, low, medium, high and ultra-high quality levels are available.
Below we have provided screenshots of the game at various graphics settings, where our readers can see the difference between the minimum, medium, and maximum graphics quality settings.
| Low quality settings | ||
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| Medium quality settings | ||
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| High quality settings | ||
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Changing the graphics quality does not significantly affect the resulting image. Only upon careful examination can you see a noticeable difference.
| General visual design and game physics |
F1 2013 resembles a long-running series with the same plot. This applies not only to the gameplay, but also, unfortunately, to the graphics. And if a few years ago the revival of games on this topic was something revolutionary, at the moment we barely managed to cope with this review…
Again, there is nothing to say from a graphical assessment, the game looks exactly the same as its predecessor a year ago, and before that a year ago, and so on… There are practically zero innovations in the game and all of them are only changes in the gameplay.
Next, we will move directly to gaming tests and determine what impact this game has on modern computer hardware.
| TEST PART |
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Test configuration |
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test stands |
Test bench No. 1 based on the Intel Socket 2 platform 011 Test bench No. 2 based on the Intel Socket 2 platform 011 Test bench No. 3 based on the Intel Socket 1155 platform Test bench No. 4 based on the Intel Socket 1366 platform Test bench No. 5 based on the Intel Socket 115 platform 6 |
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Multimedia equipment |
3D monitor LG W2363D Monitor LG E2750 Dell U3010 monitor product provided by the company AMD 3D Vision Kit product provided by the company Nvidia |
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Software configuration |
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Operating system |
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition x64 SP1 |
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Graphics driver |
Nvidia GeForce/ION Driver Release 331.40 AMD Catalyst 13.10 beta 2 |
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Monitoring program |
MSI Afterburner v3 beta 11 |
| GPU test |
All video cards were tested at maximum graphics quality using MSI Afterburner. The purpose of the test is to determine how video cards from different manufacturers behave under the same conditions. The average and minimum FPS were taken as performance indicators. Below is a video of the test segment:
Our video cards were tested at separate screen sizes of 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 at the maximum graphics quality settings allowed by F1 2013. Tests were carried out with MSAA 8X enabled. Multi-chip configurations from NVIDIA and AMD showed some increase in performance. AMD CrossFireX works extremely strangely for us, showing the same results at different screen sizes…
Testing at maximum quality settings 1920×1080
At a resolution of 1920×1080 at maximum settings, video cards of the Radeon HD 5750 or GeForce GTX 550 Ti level showed an acceptable FPS. The optimal video cards will be Radeon HD 6850 or GEFORCE GTX 650 and higher.
Testing at maximum quality settings 2560×1600
At a resolution of 2560×1600 at maximum settings, an acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon HD 6950 level or GeForce GTX 480. The optimal video cards will also be solutions Radeon HD 6950 or GeForce GTX 480 and above.
| VRAM test |
Testing of video memory consumed by the game was carried out by the program MSI Afterburner. The indicator was based on results on top video cards from AMD and NVIDIA with separate screen sizes 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 with different anti-aliasing settings.
Testing at maximum memory GPU quality settings
The recommended amount of video memory usage for this game is about 1 GB for basic graphics quality settings. For ultra resolution you need at least 1536 MB of video memory.
| Micro-Stuttering Test |
Introducing our testing of FPS output latency on a Micro-Stuttering monitor. The indicator was based on the results on video cards from AMD ARES II and NVIDIA GTX 780 at a resolution of 1920×1080 with maximum image quality settings.
Testing at maximum quality settings Micro-Stuttering GPU
Micro-Stuttering latency performance is quite acceptable.
| CPU test |
We tested processor dependence on 19 models of basic configurations that are relevant today. The test was carried out in those places where the value of video cards for the game is minimal and its load was less than 99%, this time at a resolution of 1920×1080 with maximum graphics quality settings.
Testing at maximum quality settings 1920×1080
The processor performance in F1 2013 is not bad, but the game is more optimized for Intel solutions.
Loading of processor coresat maximum quality settings 1920×1080 Intel%
Loading of processor cores at maximum quality settings 1920×1080 AMD%
The game uses up to 4 processor cores; increasing them unevenly distributes the load between them.
| RAM test |
Testing of the RAM consumed by the game was carried out by monitoring directly through the Windows task manager. The test was carried out on the basic configuration of Core i 7 [email protected] GHz with 16GB DDR3 2400 MGz pre-installed memory.
Testing at various quality settings
As we can see, with various basic quality settings, the amount of RAM consumed in F1 2013 is at the level of 650 megabytes. Thus, for a comfortable game you need to have at least 2 GB of RAM installed in your PC.
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Rate the test |
Rate the graphics |
Evaluate optimization |