The Elder Scrolls V Dragonborn – PC performance graphics benchmarks of Graphics Cards

BASIC GAME INFORMATION

 

Release date: 2013 year
Genre: Action, RPG
developer: Bethesda Softworks
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

 

In Dragonborn, the new official expansion pack for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, you’ll travel to the shores of Morrowind on the island of Solstheim. You will encounter new cities, dungeons and quests located in the ash wastes and icy valleys of Solstheim. Harness the power of new screams to break the will of your enemies and even tame dragons.

Your life and the fate of Solstheim hang in the balance as you face a mortal enemy – the first Dragonborn. Explore lands outside of Skyrim. Leave the northern province and go to the island of Solstheim. Along the way to unraveling the mystery of the return of the Dragonborn, you will meet the dark elves who settled in the city of Dragon Rock and the Skaal, the indigenous inhabitants of the island.

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

The Elder Scrolls V 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 main graphics API for the multiplayer game The Elder Scrolls V is DirectX 9. The game is distributed through the Steam digital store.

Game engine

The game is based on the Creation Engine, which was developed primarily for use in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the latest installment in The Elder Scrolls role-playing game series. Previous games in the series (The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion from 2006 and several addons for it), as well as other games from the company (for example, Fallout 3 from 2008) worked using the licensed Gamebryo engine. Since Skyrim is a role-playing game that involves a large game location open for free movement, when developing the engine, the authors paid great attention to the ability to display territories with a large drawing distance.

 

The graphics engine was created so that objects were lit more realistically than before, and water rendering was of higher quality. Considering that the province of Skyrim, in which the game of the same name takes place, is located in the north, the authors paid attention to the realistic treatment of snow. The system automatically, depending on the terrain, generates the right amount of snow for trees, stones and bushes. Instead of SpeedTree, a third-party technology that was used in the previous game in the series to visualize trees, the authors of the engine created their own software solution.

 

The company’s own Radiant AI system, which was also used in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, is responsible for the artificial intelligence of the characters encountered in the game. For the new part, the authors have significantly improved artificial intelligence, intending to create the illusion of the life of the citizens of Skyrim: they have breakfast, go to work, go to a pub, etc. The story management system, called Radiant Story, allows creators to mix hand-crafted quests with quests that the game can randomly generate from different environments, and quests can appear in different orders and vary depending on playstyle.

 

Third-party Havok Behavior technology is integrated for character animation. On February 7, the developers also released the Creation Kit level editor, which allows users to create their own modifications for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The editor is created in a version only for a personal computer

Advanced Game Settings

The Elder Scrolls V Dragonborn has a fairly wide range of graphic settings, which are set directly in the game launcher before starting the game. We can flexibly manipulate various graphic settings, setting them to low, medium, high and maximum quality levels. 

 

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

Medium quality settings

High quality settings

Maximum quality settings

As we can see, the difference in the picture between different graphic quality settings in the desert locations of The Elder Scrolls V Dragonborn is not significant, so for weak systems you can reduce the quality settings without a critical loss in quality.

General visual design and game physics

The Elder Scrolls V Dragonborn is not a standalone game and is a story-driven addition to the main game The Elder Scrolls V. Therefore, all graphical aspects, visual quality and effects remain at the level of the original game, which was released more than a year ago.

 

And if in 2011 the game looked more or less advanced in graphic terms, today The Elder Scrolls V can surprise few people, and even upset some users, so we pay less attention to various visual simplifications and enjoy the gameplay.

Next, we will move directly to 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 using an in-game benchmark. 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 with maximum graphics quality settings allowed by The Elder Scrolls V. Multi-chip configurations from NVIDIA and AMD showed a good increase in scalability, which is a consequence of quite a long development and optimization.

 

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920×1080

 

At a resolution of 1920×1080 at maximum settings, video cards showed an acceptable level of performance Radeon HD 7750 or GeForce GTS 560. The optimal video cards will be solutions Radeon HD 6850 or GRFORCE GTX 650.

Testing at maximum quality settings 2560×1600

 

At a resolution of 2560×1600 at maximum settings an acceptable level of performance was shown by video cards Radeon HD 5850 or GeForce GTX 460. The optimal video cards will be solutions Radeon HD 5870 or GRFORCE GTX 650 Ti. 

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 1024 MB for basic graphics quality settings. For ultra resolutions and maximum settings, you will need about 1280 megabytes of video memory.

CPU test

 

We tested processor dependence on 17 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 Elder Scrolls V showed quite good optimization in terms of processor dependence. As expected, Intel processors showed the most significant performance.

Loading of processor cores at maximum quality settings 1920×1080 Intel%

 

Loading of processor cores at maximum quality settings 1920×1080 AMD%

 

Multi-threading optimization is again significantly higher for Intel processors than for AMD, which explains their higher performance.

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 The Elder Scrolls V is at the level of 700 megabytes. Thus, for a comfortable game you need to have minimum 2 GB of RAM installed in your PC.