Apache Air Assault: PC Performance Benchmarks for Graphics Cards and Processors

Written by Boldson on 29 November 2010. Posted in Racing Simulators / Race

Overview: Playability

Helicopter combat simulators are rarely released, and those made at a decent level are even rarer. Gaijin Entertainment decided to give all the fans of this genre a surprise and released Apache Air Assault. Apache: Air Assault is a new simulation of the ultimate ApacheAH-64DLongbow attack helicopter. You are one of the members of an elite counter-terrorism team. Your task is to destroy the enemy and not give him a chance to carry out his cunning plans.

Throughout the game, we take part in a wide variety of tasks, divided into three separate game episodes. The plot of the game is primitive and built on the principle of find and destroy the enemies of the United States. As the game progresses, we will be allowed to fly over the picturesque regions of Africa, the Middle East and South America.

In the development of Apache: Air Assault, all the most modern technologies of foreign aviation were involved. Thanks to the advanced difficulty selection mode, you can set the desired level of play depending on your skills. "Training Mode" - intuitive control, immediately allow you to try yourself in the center of the war. We can safely say that this is an arcade mode that does not require much effort and skill.

"Realistic Mode" is a game mode that is as close to reality as possible and allows you to experience all the features of controlling a combat helicopter. To do this, stock up with the appropriate manipulator, and the opponents become quite toothy. In this case, you have to act more carefully, cunningly and secretly.

We bring to your attention to evaluate part of the Apache Air Assault game walkthrough, where you can see for yourself the quality of this product:

Fans of the games in the Apache Air Assault series will definitely love it - the breathtaking combat operations, which include a variety of life situations, deserve all the praise. However, minor gameplay flaws and problems with control settings still reduce the playability score to 70%.

Review: Game Graphics

Apache Air Assault has a rather mediocre graphic filling and the only more or less detailed object in the game can be considered only our combat helicopter, which we directly play with. The rest of the environment is quite primitive and is only suitable for viewing from a decent distance, when it is almost impossible to make out anything.

Explosions and destruction physics are rather mediocre and barely reach the average level of implementation in modern games. Like all cross-platform projects, the game uses only DirectX 9 in its arsenal. But despite this poor content, the developers managed to make a pretty nice picture, and in some places simply breathtaking, using stuffing from modern post-effects.

This allowed us to put an overall rating of 80% on the quality of visualization, and then we proceed directly to our testing.

Review: Game resource intensive

For Apache Air Assault you will need a Core 2 Duo E6550 2.33 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 5500 2.8 GHz processor and 2 gigabytes of RAM. So the hardware configurations of two or three years ago will be able to cope with the game, and then we will proceed directly to testing video cards.

Hardware configuration
Processors	Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550@ 4.25GHz 12MB L2 Cache Intel® Core™ This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 8MB L3 Cache Intel® Core™ This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 8MB L3 Cache
motherboards	Maximus II Formula socket LGA775 product provided by Asus MSI X58 Pro socket LGA1366 product provided by MSI MSI P55-GD55 socket LGA1156 product provided by MSI
Memory	GOODRAM PLAY 1600MHz (8-8-8-24) product provided by GOODRAM GOODRAM Pro 2000MHz (8-8-8-29) product provided by GOODRAM
Video cards
Hard disks	3x2 RAID0 Western Digital Caivar WD2500GL 250 GB, 7200 rpm, SATA 3 Gb/s
Power supplies	FSP GROUP EVEREST 800W 2xSeaSonic S12D 850 Silver 850 W product provided by SeaSonic
System software and drivers
operating system	Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition x64
DirectX	DirectX 11
Platform driver	Intel INF Chipset Update Utility 9.1.0.1012
Graphics driver	Nvidia GeForce/ION Driver Release 260.99 AMD Catalyst 10.10

All video cards were tested at maximum graphics quality by the Fraps program in the most resource-intensive part of the game. Lower performance cards up to the GeForce GTS 250 and Radeon HD 4830 are tested with the Core 2 Quad Q9550 processor, while higher performance cards are tested with the Core™ i7 processor.

Our video cards are tested in general at all resolutions, and you can evaluate how your video card behaves relative to other modern solutions in almost all gaming resolutions.

Testing at maximum quality settings 1024x768

apache_1024

With a resolution of 1024x768 in Apache Air Assault at maximum graphics settings, you will need video cards of the same level as the Radeon HD 2900 XT or GeForce 9600 GT and higher. But if we take into account the minimum FPS of 25 frames, then we consider the Radeon HD 4830 or GeForce 8800 GT recommended for the game.

Testing at maximum quality settings 1280x1024

apache_1280

When the resolution is increased to 1280x1024, it will already be necessary to have a minimum of video cards of the Radeon HD 3870 or GeForce GT 240 level. The recommended video cards can be considered the Radeon HD 4770 or GeForce GTS 250 and higher.

Testing at maximum quality settings 1680x1050

At a resolution of 1680x1050, to ensure comfortable performance, you will need video cards of the Radeon HD 4750 or GeForce 8800 GTS 512 mb level. The most optimal for these settings are cards of the Radeon HD 5770 or GeForce GTX 260 level.

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080

apache_1920

With an HD resolution of 1920x1080, a minimum of video cards such as the Radeon HD 4770 or GeForce GTS 250 will be required. Again, video cards of such a level as the Radeon HD 5770 or GeForce GTS 450 should be considered the most optimal cards for Apache Air Assault. Based on the purchase of a video card specifically for this game, the same Radeon HD 5770 or GeForce GTS 450 currently look the most preferable.

Conclusion: Apache Air Assault is a pretty good combat helicopter simulator, with a nice graphical component. The game is quite loyal to the performance of the central processor and the amount of RAM, but as for the graphics stuffing, it should be at the level of modern mid-priced solutions.