Mortal Kombat X: PC Performance Benchmarks for Graphics Cards and Processors

BASIC INFORMATION ON THE GAME

 

Release Year : 2015
Genre : Arcade (Fighting) / 3D
Developer : NetherRealm Studios , High Voltage Software
Publisher : Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Combining cinematic presentation of unprecedented quality and updated game mechanics, Mortal Kombat X brings to the world the most brutal of all Mortal Kombat games. For the first time, players will have the opportunity to choose one of several options for each of the fighters, thereby determining the tactics and style of combat.

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 OS and graphics API

Mortal Kombat X is supported on major Windows operating systems, which include Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 , Mac and Linux . Other operating systems are currently not supported by developers and will not receive support. 

 

The priority and primary graphics API for Mortal Kombat X is  DirectX 11 . 

Game engine

The basis for Mortal Kombat X was a special version of the Unreal Engine 3, developed and supported by Epic Games. this is the first game created on this engine and should simply amaze everyone with stunning graphics. The developers, judging by the screenshots, would have been quite praised for the previous versions of the engine, as well. in the foreground in the horror genre is not a picture. It is important to establish artificial intelligence, called the Director (eng. AI Director), which affects the gameplay, adjusting to the level of the players and changing the game parameters. Thanks to his work, each playthrough of the game is unique and inimitable, which increases the replayability of the game.

The first game created on the engine - Unreal - appeared in 1998. Since then, various versions of this game engine have been used in over a hundred games, including Deus Ex, Dishonored, Lineage II, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Postal 2, the Brothers in Arms series, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, as well as in the well-known game series Unreal and Unreal Tournament from Epic Games themselves. Being adapted primarily for first-person shooters, the engine was also used to create games of other genres. 

Written in the high-level C++ language, Unreal Engine 4 allows you to create games for most operating systems and platforms: Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS and Mac OS X, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, Wii, Dreamcast and Nintendo GameCube. In December, Mark Rein demonstrated Unreal Engine 3 on the iPod Touch and iPhone 3GS. In March 2010, the engine was demonstrated on the Palm Pre communicator based on the webOS mobile platform.

 

To simplify porting, the engine uses a modular system of dependent components: supports various rendering systems (Direct3D, OpenGL, Pixomatic; previously supported Glide API, S3 Metal, PowerVR SGL), sound playback (EAX, OpenAL, DirectSound3D; previously supported A3D), voice playback tools text, speech recognition (only for Xbox360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Windows, also planned for Linux and Mac), modules for networking and support for various input devices.

 

For online play, Windows Live, Xbox Live, and GameSpy technologies are supported, including up to 64 players (clients) at the same time. Despite the fact that the development tools do not officially include support for a large number of clients on a single server, the engine has been used to create MMORPG games. One of the most famous representatives of the genre, Lineage II, uses the Unreal Engine. 

 

Advanced game settings

 

Mortal Kombat X has a not very solid, but sufficient range of graphic settings, as for a fighting game. In total, two points for changing settings are available - main and additional.

  

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. 

Various quality modes

Качество картинки между различными настройками в Mortal Kombat X заметная, но нельзя сказать что существенная.

Сравнение FullHD и 4K

В 4К Mortal Kombat X выглядит вполне неплохо, но не более того.

Сравнение режимов сглаживания

Аактивация полноэкранного сглаживания FXAA практически устраняет все "неровности поверхностей".

Общее визульное оформление и игровая физика

ПК геймеров можно поздравить - Mortal Kombat X добрался до ПК одновременно с релизом и на консолях текущего поколения. Графика в игре вполне неплохая, а сам игровой процесс весьма затягивающий. Однако не обошлось и без неприятных моментов - портирование ПК версии видимо прошло не совсем удачно, так что игра имеет проблемы со стабильностью и производительностью на некоторых системах. 

 

   

Далее мы перейдём непосредственно к игровым тестам и определим, какое влияние оказывает данная игра на современное компьютерное железо. 

ТЕСТОВАЯ ЧАСТЬ

Тест GPU

Все видеокарты тестировались на максимальном качестве графики программой MSI Afterburner. Целью теста является определить, как ведут себя видеокарты от различных производителей при одинаковых условиях. За показатель производительности брался средний и минимальный FPS. Ниже приведено видео тестового отрезка:    

Our video cards were tested at resolutions of 1920x1080, 2560x1600 and 3840x2160 at the maximum graphics quality settings allowed by Mortal Kombat X. AMD CrossFireX and SLI are not currently supported by the game. Based on the above test, we can say that the game is not quite stable. When the screen resolution of video cards was exceeded, we began to experience strange "sags" in performance, bordering on common sense. Reducing the processor cores to 4 and setting the game priority to "real time priority" helps a little, but this problem cannot be completely corrected. also, 4K resolution cannot be set on AMD video cards, since it is not in the settings ...

It is also worth noting that at 30 FPS the game feels extremely uncomfortable and in this case the optimal FPS for Mortal Kombat X should be considered at least 50. 

 

Testing at 1920x1080 resolution

 

      

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 

  

With these settings,  video cards of the Radeon R7 260X or GeForce GTX 750 Ti level showed an acceptable FPS.  The best solutions would be  Radeon R7 260X or GeForce GTX 760 . 

Testing at 2560x1600 resolution

     

Testing at maximum quality settings 2560x1600

 

With these settings,  video cards of the Radeon R7 260X or GeForce GTX 750 Ti level showed an acceptable FPS. The best solutions would be   the Radeon R9 280X or GeForce GTX 780.

Testing at 3840x2160 resolution

        

Testing at maximum quality settings 3840x2160

 

With these settings,  video cards of the GeForce GTX 780 level showed an acceptable FPS.   The GeForce GTX 980 level and higher will be the best solutions  .

Testing of the video memory consumed by the game was carried out by the  MSI Afterburner program. The results on top video cards from AMD and NVIDIA were taken as an indicator at resolutions of  1920x1080 and 2560x1600 with various anti-aliasing settings.

Testing at maximum memory GPU quality settings

 

The recommended amount of video memory usage for a resolution of 1920x1080 will be 2048 MB of video memory, for a resolution of 2560x1600 - 3076 MB of video memory and for a resolution of 3840x2160 about 4096 MB of video memory. 

CPU test

        

We tested processor dependence on 16 models of basic configurations that are relevant today. The test was carried out in those places where the value of the video card for the game is minimal and its load was less than 99%, this time at a resolution of 1920x1080 with maximum graphics quality settings. 

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080

 

The CPU performance in the game is sufficient for all models.

Loading of processor cores at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 Intel % 

 

Loading of processor cores  at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 AMD % 

 

Mortal Kombat X is disproportionately capable of supporting up to 8 processing threads, but fully utilizes 4 processing cores.

RAM test

The test was carried out on the base configuration Core i 7 5960X @ 4.6 GHz with 16GB DDR4 2400 MGz pre-installed memory. All used RAM was taken as an indicator. The RAM test on the entire system was carried out on various test benches without running extraneous applications (browsers, etc.).

Testing the game's RAM consumption at various quality settings 

 

As we can see, with various quality settings, the amount of RAM consumed in Mortal Kombat X is at the level of 1200 megabytes.

Testing system RAM consumption  

 

With a 6 GB system, Mortal Kombat X consumes about 2.8 GB of RAM. In the presence of a system with 8 gigabytes, the RAM consumption of all RAM was 2.9 gigabytes. With a 16 GB system, total memory consumption was almost 3.2 GB. And with 32 gigabytes of RAM, the system consumes 3.8  gigabytes of RAM.