XCOM Enemy Unknown Demo – PC performance graphics benchmarks of Graphics Cards

BASIC GAME INFORMATION

 

Release date: 2012
Genre: Strategy / 3D
developer: Firaxis Games
Publisher: 2K Games

 

X-COM: Enemy Unknown is a new game in the X-COM series from the creators of the legendary Civilization. This time, the developers promise to return to the roots of the series, making the project interesting both for the hardcore audience and for people unfamiliar with the first part, released back in 1994.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQzTBpGwNOo

Aliens attack planet Earth and begin an alien invasion. The game is played from the perspective of the commander of a secret organization called XCOM, which owns the most advanced technologies, weapons and scientific developments. It employs the best specialists – military personnel and scientists. The XCOM organization will fight against an extraterrestrial enemy that has already captured most of the territories on Earth and is already threatening the very existence of humanity. Aliens win the war because they are very far ahead of humans in technology and weapons.

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

XCOM Enemy Unknown is supported on major Windows operating systems, including Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7, with more to come Windows 8. Other operating systems are not currently supported by developers.

 

The priority and main graphics API for the game XCOM Enemy Unknown is DirectX 9. 

Game engine

XCOM Enemy Unknown is based on a modified Unreal Engine 3. UE3 was designed with personal computers using modern rendering systems (DirectX 9/10 and OpenGL 2/3) and next-generation consoles (PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360) in mind. Due to the widespread use of multiprocessor systems, the engine uses two parallel main threads – the main thread (responsible primarily for gameplay) and the rendering thread. In addition to the two main threads, secondary threads can be called, which perform one-time tasks. There is now support for multi-threaded dynamic data loading (streaming), for example, loading a “location” directly while moving around it in order to save resources.

 

The updated graphics engine supports most modern technologies, including HDR, per-pixel lighting, dynamic shadows, shader model 4, geometry shaders. The graphics pipeline itself was transferred to the control of shaders. The Karma physics subsystem was abandoned in favor of another called PhysX from AGEIA. Later, AGEIA released a set of additional libraries for the game, allowing you to use all the capabilities of the physical system (such as the effect of “liquid” or fabric). The FaceFX mechanism is responsible for the animation of the characters’ faces.

 

Updated EAX version to 5th. Added SpeedTree support for tree generation. The emphasis was placed on additive geometry, but support for subtractive geometry was not abandoned. The disadvantage of subtractive geometry is primarily the much longer lighting calculation. A new UnrealEd editor has been introduced, rewritten using wxWidgets.

Advanced Game Settings

Video settings and graphics settings are available in XCOM Enemy Unknown. In the video settings we can change the screen resolution and turn on/off vertical sync, and in the video settings we can flexibly manipulate various graphic effects. The amber assault technology is not activated for unknown reasons.

 

Below we have provided screenshots of the game at various graphics settings, where our readers can see the difference between minimum, medium, high and maximum graphics quality settings. 

Low quality settings

Medium quality settings

High quality settings

As we can see, the difference in the picture between the graphic settings in XCOM Enemy Unknown is almost unnoticeable.

General visual design and game physics

XCOM Enemy Unknown is based on Unreal Engine 3 and that says it all – we shouldn’t expect any graphical goodies from the game at the moment. But even despite this, the developers were able to give the game their own visual style, accompanied by a solid arsenal of graphic settings.

The well-known PhysX is responsible for the physics in the game. But the developers decided not to deprive half of the players and installed the processing of physical effects using the central processor. The controls in the game are quite classic, like for an RTS and will not mislead fans of this genre.

 

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 FPS was taken as a performance indicator. Below is a video of the test segment:  

Our video cards were tested at different screen sizes of 1680×1050, 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 only with the maximum graphics quality settings allowed by XCOM Enemy Unknown Demo. Multi-chip configurations from NVIDIA and AMD are not supported by the game at the moment.

 

Testing at maximum quality settings 1680×1050

 

At a resolution of 1680×1050 at maximum settings, an acceptable minimum FPS was shown by video cards of the level  Radeon HD 5750 or GeForce GTS 450. The optimal video cards will be solutions Radeon HD 7750 or GeForce GTS 450 and above.

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920×1080

 

At a resolution of 1920×1080 at maximum settings, video cards of the Radeon HD 5750 or GeForce GTS 450 level showed an acceptable FPS. The optimal video cards will be solutions Radeon HD 7750 or GeForce GTX 550 Ti and above.

Testing at maximum quality settings 2560×1600

 

At a resolution of 2560×1600 at maximum settings, video cards of the Radeon HD 6790 or GeForce GTX 550 Ti level showed an acceptable minimum FPS. The optimal video cards will be Radeon HD 5850 or GeForce GTX 660 and higher.

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 1680×1050, 1920×1080 and 2560×1600.

Testing at maximum memory GPU quality settings 

 

Recommended amount of video memory usage for XCOM Enemy Unknown Demo is its quantity in the size of 600-800 MB for various graphics quality settings.

CPU test

 

We tested processor dependence on 12 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 minimum quality settings 1920×1080

 

The game runs great on two cores. But still, the increase from using two more additional cores will be about 13-18%.

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 8GB DDR3 2400 MGz pre-installed video memory.

Testing at various quality settings

 

As we can see, with different quality settings, the amount of RAM consumed in XCOM Enemy Unknown Demo is at one level 700 megabytes. Thus, for a comfortable game you need to have minimum 2 GB of RAM installed in your PC. 

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