Wasteland 2 Beta – PC performance graphics benchmarks of Graphics Cards

BASIC GAME INFORMATION

 

Release date: 13 Dec 2013
Genre: RPG / 3D / Isometric
developer: inXile entertainment and Obsidian Entertainment
Publishing house: inXile entertainment and Deep Silver

Wasteland 2 is a post-apocalyptic role-playing game that continues the story of the first part, created back in 1988. This game is developed on the Unity engine while maintaining an isometric view and the gameplay itself. The action of the game develops around 4 rangers who escaped after the disaster and are now trying to survive in the middle of the desert surrounded by terrible monsters.

All the actions that you take during the game will influence its further development.

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

Wasteland 2 Beta is supported by the major Windows operating systems, which include XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. Other operating systems are not currently supported by the developers and will not receive support. 

 

The priority and primary graphics API for Wasteland 2 Beta is DirectX 9. 

Game engine

The game is based on the Unity game engine. Unity is a multi-platform tool for developing 3D and 360D applications and games, running on the Windows and OS X operating systems. Applications created using Unity run on the Windows, OS X, Windows Phone, Android, Apple iOS, Linux operating systems, as well as on game consoles Wii, PlayStation XNUMX and Xbox XNUMX.

It is possible to create Internet applications using a special plug-in for the Unity browser, as well as using an experimental implementation within the Adobe Flash Player module. Flash support was later dropped. Applications built with Unity support DirectX and OpenGL.

Advanced Game Settings

Wasteland 2 Beta has several levels of graphics quality available for all types of settings: fantastic, high, medium, low and very low. Certain settings are not implemented in the game.

 

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

Very high settings

The differences between the various quality settings in the game are almost invisible. We have only minor improvements, which is somewhat puzzling – why did they choose the name of the highest graphics option as “fantastic”?

General visual design and game physics

Wasteland 2 Beta is a rather controversial product. On the one hand, we have a PC exclusive, which will only be available on the most advanced gaming system today, and on the other hand, the graphics in the game are quite mediocre, which somewhat does not fit in with the identified system requirements.

But again, do not forget that the game is being developed using money collected from players, only a beta version was released, and before the full release it is quite possible that we will get more advanced graphics and optimization.

  

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 MSI Afterburner. 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 different screen sizes of 1920×1080, 2560×1600 and 3840×2160 at the maximum graphics quality settings allowed by Wasteland 2 Beta. Multi-chip configurations  NVIDIA and AMD are not currently supported by the game. The test for processors and video cards was carried out in various camera removal modes. At the maximum distance from the game characters, the load on the processors is greatest.

Testing at 1920×1080 resolution

  

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920×1080

 

With these settings an acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon HD 6870 or GeForce GTX 560 level. The optimal video cards will be solutions Radeon HD 6970 or GeForce GTX 570 and above. 

Testing at 2560×1600 resolution

 

Testing at maximum quality settings 2560×1600

 

With these settings an acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon HD 7850 or GeForce GTX 580 level. The optimal video cards would be Radeon HD 7950 or GeForce GTX 680 and above.

Testing at 3840×2160 resolution

 

Testing at maximum quality settings 3840×2560

 

With these settings An acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the level of Radeon R9 290X or GeForce GTX 780. There are no optimal video cards for this resolution.

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 a resolution of 1920×1080 will be 1024 MB of video memory, for a resolution of 2560×1600 – 1024 MB of video memory and for a resolution of 3840×2160 there is also 1024 MB of video memory.

Micro-Stuttering Test

Introducing our testing of FPS output latency on a Micro-Stuttering monitor. The indicator was based on the results on video cards from AMD ARES II and NVIDIA GTX 780 at a resolution of 1920×1080 with maximum image quality settings.

Testing at maximum quality settings Micro-Stuttering GPU 

 

Micro-Stuttering latency performance is good across a variety of modes. 

CPU test

 

We tested processor dependence on 15 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.   Below is a video of the test segment:

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920×1080 

 

The processor performance in Wasteland 2 Beta is simply deplorable, we hope this omission will be corrected by release… 

Loading of processor coresat maximum quality settings 1920×1080 Intel%

 

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

 

Wasteland 2 Beta uses 4 processor cores, but does not have the ability to use their full performance.

RAM test

The test was carried out on the basic configuration of Core i 7 [email protected] GHz with 16GB DDR3 2400 MGz pre-installed memory. The entire used operational memory was taken as an indicator. The RAM test on the entire system was carried out on various test benches without launching third-party 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 Wasteland 2 Beta is at the level of 1000-1400 megabytes. 

Testing system RAM consumption 

 

On a 4GB system, Wasteland 2 Beta consumes about 2.7GB of RAM. In the presence of a system with 8 gigabytes, the RAM consumption of all RAM was 3.2 gigabytes. With a 16 GB system, system memory consumption was almost 3.7 gigabytes.