Just Cause 2 (2010): PC Performance Benchmarks for Graphics Cards and Processors

BASIC INFORMATION ON THE GAME

 

Year of release : 2010
Genre : Action / Arcade / Racing (Cars) / 3D
Developer : Avalanche Studios
Publisher : Eidos Interactive

The reckless and desperate lone hero is back to shake up the rotten corrupt regime once again! After a brilliant job of establishing a "democratic" order, the real macho Rico Rodriguez decided to break away in full. Tequila, beaches, beauties in bikinis - what else does a tired but happy hero need? But there was no long vacation. The former boss hastened to hide on the tropical island of Panau, taking with him a considerable amount of government money. The traitor hid under the warm wing of the local dictator, which means it's time for a "banana revolution"! 

We'll have to find and roughly punish the villain, and at the same time have a good time in an atmosphere of general chaos. Shootouts, chases, skydiving, car and military equipment theft - Rico is ready for any, even the most dangerous situation. At his service - an impressive arsenal of small arms. He is able to perform the most spectacular stunts, up to the capture of a flying helicopter! Compared to the first part, the game has become much more weapons and equipment.

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

Just Cause 2 only runs on Windows Vista/7 and Windows 8/10. Other operating systems are currently not supported and are unlikely to receive support.

 

The priority and main graphics API for the multiplayer game Just Cause 2 is DirectX 10. The game works through the digital game sale service Steam.

Game engine

Just Cause 2 is based on the game engine Avalanche Engine 2.0. The game engine is an in-house product of Avalanche Studios. Havok Physics was taken as the physics engine.

We have not been able to find detailed information other than our own visual observations.

 

Advanced game settings

 

Just Cause 2 has a wide range of graphics settings to accommodate the use of different gaming hardware. 

  

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

 The difference between the various quality settings is visible to the naked eye.

Comparison of FullHD and 4K

Comparison of anti-aliasing modes

Activating anti-aliasing improves the picture, but does not make it perfect.

 

Comparison of water quality regimes

 

The use of NVIDIA CUDA at one time gave an unsurpassed effect - such water quality had never been seen in open world games before.

General visual design and game physics

Just Cause 2 was a significant game that had simply stunning gameplay and very good visuals that took full advantage of DirectX 10. In fact, at the time of release, the game was one of the most beautiful representatives of its genre.

 

  

Next, we will go directly to the gaming tests and determine what impact this game has on modern computer hardware. 

TEST PART

GPU test

All video cards were tested at maximum graphics quality by MSI Afterburner. The purpose of the test is to determine how video cards from different manufacturers behave under the same conditions. Below is a video of a test segment of the gaming benchmark:   

Our video cards were tested at resolutions of 1920x1080, 2560x1600 and 3840x2160 at the maximum graphics quality settings allowed by Just Cause 2. SLI and AMD CrossFireX are supported by the game. The tests were carried out with and without CUDA emulation (for NVIDIA video cards). Our test Core i7 5960X ran at 4 threads without HT.

Fury AMD video cards have been recalled, so they are not in the tests again. You can read our first review at this link.

Testing at 1920x1080 resolution

 

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 

 

With these settings, video cards of the Radeon HD 7850 or GeForce GTX 750 Ti level showed an acceptable FPS.

  

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 CUDA

 

With these settings, video cards of the GeForce GTX 750 Ti level showed an acceptable FPS  . 

Testing at 2560x1440 resolution

  

Testing at maximum quality settings 2560x1440

 

With these settings, video cards of the Radeon HD 7850 or GeForce GTX 750 Ti level showed an acceptable FPS. The best solutions would be    the Radeon HD 7850 or GeForce GTX 760.

  

Testing at maximum quality settings 2560x1440  CUDA

 

With these settings, video cards of the GeForce GTX 660  level showed an acceptable FPS.  GeForce GTX 950 and higher will be the best solutions.

Testing at 3840x2160 resolution

 

Testing at maximum quality settings 3840x2160

 

With these settings, video cards of the Radeon HD 7970 or GeForce GTX 780 level showed an acceptable FPS.  Radeon R9 280X or GeForce GTX 780 Ti would be the best solutions.

  

Testing at maximum quality settings 3840x2160  CUDA

 

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

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 the indicator at resolutions of  1920x1080 and 2560x1440 with various anti-aliasing settings.

Testing at maximum memory GPU quality settings

 

The recommended amount of video memory usage for 1920x1080 resolution will be 1024 MB of video memory, for 2560x1440 resolution - 1280 MB of video memory and for 3840x2160 resolution about 2048 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 the given graphics quality settings without anti-aliasing.  

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 

 

The CPU performance in the game is sufficient for all models. But the fact that on Intel, with more than 4 cores, performance drops on some models is striking.

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

 

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

 

Just Cause 2 uses up to 4 threads.

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 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 Just Cause 2 is within 400 megabytes.

Testing system RAM consumption  

 

With a 6 GB system, Just Cause 2 consumes about 2.3 GB of RAM. In the presence of a system with 8 gigabytes, the RAM consumption of all RAM was 2.7 gigabytes. With a 16 GB system, total memory consumption was almost 3 GB. And with 32 gigabytes of RAM, the system consumes 3.3  gigabytes of RAM.