Desolation of Mordor: PC Performance Benchmarks for Graphics Cards and Processors
| BASIC INFORMATION ON THE GAME |
Developer : Monolith Productions
Publisher : Warner Bros. Interactive
Release Dates : October 10, 2017
Genres : Action / RPG / 3D / 3rd Person / Stealth
Desolation of Mordor is an add-on for the third-person action slasher Middle-earth: Shadow of War. In addition, you will be able to play as Baranor, the captain of Minas Ithil, who survived the death of the city. Baranor, after escaping from the fortress, joined his brother, who for a long time was considered missing. The brothers are gathering an army of mercenaries to head east and fight the orc forces. The heroes have to go through the dangerous lands of Lithlad and eventually capture Shindram's fortress.
| THE GRAFICAL PART |
In this subsection of our review, the main graphical aspects of this game are revealed. Particular attention is paid to the version of the graphics engine used, the version of the API used, graphics settings and the quality of the development of the main visual aspects.
| SUPPORTED OC AND GRAPHICS API |
Desolation of Mordor is supported by Windows 7/8 and Windows 10.
The priority and primary graphics API for Middle-earth: Shadow of War is DirectX 11 .
| GAME ENGINE |
The Jupiter EX game engine is an in-house product developed by Monolith Productions. This engine was used to develop the 2005 game FEAR, which at the time of release was noted as using the most advanced artificial intelligence system.
In this version, rendering (output) of the image is carried out using DirectX 9 (later newer APIs were added). Supports high-resolution textures, various methods of bump mapping, pixel shaders version 3.0. Many post-processing effects have been added, including: blur, motion blur, depth of field, etc. Third-party technology Havok is used as a physics engine.
Due to the specific work with some functions, the engine - at the time of its release - was quite demanding on the resources of the user's computer. This mainly concerned working with soft dynamic shadows: in order to draw a soft shadow, the engine mixes several identical shadows with sharp edges at once, applying a blur effect to each of them. For the PC game FEAR, the FEAR Public Tools SDK was released as a freely available set, which includes a level editor that allows players to create locations for the game.
As of 2015, the engine's official website with licensing information is unavailable, presumably the engine may be withdrawn from sale; nevertheless, the developer Monolith Productions continues to actively apply the technology, constantly refining it; so, on the latest version of Jupiter EX, heavily modified, the open-world game Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is built.
In the variation of the engine used in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, the game engine, in particular, its graphical component, has undergone significant revisions: on the PC, the main API is DirectX 11, tessellation has been added, the rendering of shadows, water, the lighting system, etc. P.
| ADVANCED GAME SETTINGS |
Middle-earth: Shadow of War has the widest range of graphics settings. You can also change the settings for four main sub-items - low medium and high. Basic and advanced settings are located in two different sub-items of the graphical menus.
Below we have provided screenshots of the game at various graphics settings, where our readers can see the difference between the minimum and maximum graphics quality settings.
| DIFFERENT QUALITY MODES |
The difference in quality is visible to the naked eye.
| COMPARISON OF SMOOTHING MODES |
The work of anti-aliasing in the game blurs the picture a little...
| GENERAL VISUAL DESIGN AND GAME PHYSICS |
Desolation of Mordor is a story addition to the main Middle-earth: Shadow of War game, so the graphics are completely identical to the original.
Well, then we will go directly to the gaming tests and determine what impact this game has on modern computer hardware.
| TEST PART |
| Test configuration | |
| test stands |
Benchmark #1 based on the Intel Socket 2011 v3 Testbed #2 based on the Intel Socket 2011 platform Test stand #3 based on the Intel Socket 1155 platform Test Bench #4 Based on AMD Socket AM3+ Platform Testbed #5 based on the Intel Socket 1150 platform |
| multimedia equipment | Monitor Philips 241P6 |
| Software configuration |
|
| operating system | Windows 10 Pro |
| Graphics driver |
Nvidia GeForce/ION Driver Release 397.64 AMD Radeon Crimson Edition 18.3.4 |
| Monitoring program |
MSI Afterburner 4.4.2 FRAPS |
Our video cards were tested at resolutions of 1920x1080, 2560x1600 and 3840x2160 with the maximum graphics quality settings selected (ultra by default).
| GPU TEST |
In the test of video cards, the default resolution is 1920x1080, other resolutions are added and removed manually. You can also remove and add any positions of video cards. You can also choose any of our test processors from the list in the drop-down menu, comparing its performance with the given video card tests (by default, the most productive solution is selected).
At a resolution of 1920x1080, an average FPS of 25 frames was shown by video cards of the Radeon RX 460 or GeForce GTX 780 level. A minimum FPS of at least 25 frames can be provided by video cards of the Radeon R9 380 X or GeForce GTX 780 level . A comfortable average FPS of 60 frames can be provided by solutions of the Radeon level RX 480 or GeForce GTX 980.
At a resolution of 2560x1440 , an average FPS of 25 frames was shown by video cards of the Radeon R9 380X or GeForce GTX 960 level . A minimum FPS of at least 25 frames can be provided by video cards of the Radeon R9 290 or GeForce GTX 970 level . A comfortable average FPS of 60 frames can be provided by solutions of the Radeon RX level Vega 56 or GeForce GTX 1070.
At a resolution of 3840x2160, an average FPS of 25 frames was shown by video cards of the Radeon RX 480 or GeForce GTX 1060 level . A minimum FPS of at least 25 frames can be provided by video cards of the Radeon RX Vega 56 or GeForce GTX 1070 level . GTX 1080 Ti.
| VIDEO MEMORY CONSUMPTION |
Testing of the video memory consumed by the game was carried out by the MSI Afterburner program. The results on video cards from AMD and NVIDIA at resolutions of 1920x1080 and 2560x1440 with various anti-aliasing settings were taken as the indicator. By default, the graph displays the most up-to-date solutions. Other graphics cards are added and removed from the chart at the reader's request.
GameGPU
At a resolution of 1920x1080, video memory consumption for video cards with 3 gigabytes of onboard memory is 3000 megabytes, with 4 gigabytes 4000 megabytes, with 6 gigabytes 6000 megabytes, with 8 gigabytes 8000 megabytes and with 11 gigabytes 9100 megabytes.
At a resolution of 2560x1440, video memory consumption for video cards with 3 gigabytes of onboard memory is 3000 megabytes, with 4 gigabytes 4000 megabytes, with 6 gigabytes 6000 megabytes, with 8 gigabytes 8000 megabytes and with 11 gigabytes 9300 megabytes.
At a resolution of 3840x2160, video memory consumption for video cards with 3 gigabytes of onboard memory is 3000 megabytes, with 4 gigabytes 4000 megabytes, with 6 gigabytes 6000 megabytes, with 8 gigabytes 8000 megabytes and with 11 gigabytes 9600 megabytes.
| CPU TEST |
Testing was carried out at a resolution of 1920x1080. In the processor test, you can remove and add any positions of the processors. You can also select any tested video card from the list in the drop-down menu, comparing its performance to the given processor tests (by default, the most productive solution from NVIDIA is selected).
When using NVIDIA video cards , FX-4100 or Core i 3 2100 processors showed an acceptable rate of at least 25 frames, and solutions of the FX-4100 or Core i 3 2100 level can provide an average FPS of 60 frames .
When using AMD video cards , FX-4100 or Core i 3 2100 processors showed an acceptable rate of at least 25 frames , and solutions of the FX-6100 or Core i 3 2100 level can provide an average FPS of 60 frames .
GameGPU
The game uses a maximum of 8 computing threads. But still, only 4 threads are effectively involved.
| RAM TEST |
The test was conducted on the base configuration Core i 7 5960X @ 4.6 GHz with the amount of pre-installed memory 32 GB DDR4 2400 MGz. All used RAM was taken as an indicator. The RAM test on the entire system was carried out on various video cards without running extraneous applications (browsers, etc.). In the graphics, you can add and remove any resolutions and video cards as desired.
GameGPU
At a resolution of 1920x1080, the RAM consumption of the system by a video card with 3 gigabytes of on-board memory is 12500 megabytes, with 4 gigabytes 10800 megabytes, with 6 gigabytes 9500 megabytes, with 8 gigabytes 6200 megabytes and with 11 gigabytes 6200 megabytes .
At a resolution of 2560x1440, the RAM consumption of the system by a video card with 3 gigabytes of on-board memory is 13200 megabytes, with 4 gigabytes 11800 megabytes, with 6 gigabytes 9800 megabytes, with 8 gigabytes 6800 megabytes and with 11 gigabytes 6200 megabytes .
At a resolution of 3840x2160, the RAM consumption of the system by a video card with 3 gigabytes of on-board memory is 13500 megabytes, with 4 gigabytes 12100 megabytes, with 6 gigabytes 10100 megabytes, with 8 gigabytes 7100 megabytes and with 11 gigabytes 6200 megabytes .
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