Dragon Age: Inquisition PC performance thread
- Thread starter Krappadizzle
- Start date
ISee
Member
Thank you 
Now I can post the benchmark. Please keep in mind those benchmarks aren't final!
Source: pcgameshardware.de
http://i.imgur.com/ikHdaIg.png
EDIT:
a rough, quick and dirty translation...
There is more, but genrealy they sound very impresed. And most of the time they aren't impressed at all.
EDIT 2:
Mantle and DX11 benchmarks (still unoptimized drivers)
http://i.imgur.com/bxEN00d.png
Now I can post the benchmark. Please keep in mind those benchmarks aren't final!
Source: pcgameshardware.de
http://i.imgur.com/ikHdaIg.png
EDIT:
a rough, quick and dirty translation...
There is more, but genrealy they sound very impresed. And most of the time they aren't impressed at all.
EDIT 2:
Mantle and DX11 benchmarks (still unoptimized drivers)
http://i.imgur.com/bxEN00d.png
Krappadizzle
Member
Yeah, they're not great. But them being unoptimized I bet plays a bigger role than anything. I imagine those who can run BF4 will probably get comparable performance when drivers are actually updated.
deeptech
Member
SMAA it is. Plus drivers and 60fps should be easy with 970 i hope.
MaddenNFL64
Member
I hate post processing aa, but i'll deal. Sampling the image vs framerate, I always go framerate.
veggiesaurus
Member
what other AA modes are available?
Krappadizzle
Member
Yeah. Performance will be substantially better in final release I'd wager. If at 4MSAA and unop'd drivers, I'd say that's pretty damn good.
deeptech
Member
We still don't know , but its frostbite so i expect same kind of post-process like we got in BF4.
I really need to upgrade my PC. Still running that GTX 260 I got like 5 years ago. Well, my specs are still more than the minimum and as long as I can get a stable 30 on low/med settings, I'll be happy with that. Just playing PC for those M+K controls.
New PC setup is the first thing I'm doing when I get some cash in the next couple years, though. Really pushed this one as far as it can go.
New PC setup is the first thing I'm doing when I get some cash in the next couple years, though. Really pushed this one as far as it can go.
veggiesaurus
Member
is that FXAA or SMAA?
deeptech
Member
No idea really, PCgamer review says "Anti-aliasing: Post-Processing and MSAA"
So that must be same like in BF4. Fine by me , i think it was decent, cheap alternative
ISee
Member
You should be fine with new nvidia drivers down the road.
Also the games seems to be beatuiful on max settings.
a rough translation... (sorry for my bad english here)
There is more, but genrealy they sound very impresed. And most of the time they aren't impressed at all.
SargerusBR
I love Pokken!
I need to retire my 650ti ASAP
Rwinterhalter
Neo Member
I was really hoping my wife's i3-2100 would last until next year, but she's dying to play this and it doesn't look like two cores are going to cut it. Of course with the processor upgrade comes a new mobo and power supply. This is going to be an expensive game.
ISee
Member
They just updatetd the benchmarks with DX11 vs. Mantle
http://i.imgur.com/bxEN00d.png
@ Krappadizzle could you please swap the images? Thank you.
http://i.imgur.com/bxEN00d.png
@ Krappadizzle could you please swap the images? Thank you.
MaddenNFL64
Member
If you're a cheapo like me, you can scrape by without getting hurt too much. Get dem deals!
Looks like Mantle really making a difference at the high end(290/290X). Good to see. Hopefully DX12 can achieve something similar.
Rwinterhalter
Neo Member
I living in Korea, and hardware is ridiculous here. Intel especially so. Very few deals to be found and draconian import duty makes ordering from the states just as expensive.
ISee
Member
Also they are using MSAA 4x... I think even a 750Ti is going to reach at least stable 30fps on high settings with fxaa.
Wheelatron
Member
my 550 TI is crying.
Dictator93
Member
It is frostbite 4XMSAA. Frostbite already has a horrible MSAA resolve, completely unnecessary for a good experience IMO. I wonder if this game will hold on to FXAA though, seems like a lot of teams don't use SMAA just so they do not have to pay homage to Crytek/Tiago Sousa or Jorge Jiminiez.
The VRAM requirements sound strange.
This means in English: The game uses 2,6GB with Direct X in 1080p while mantle uses 4,1GB, causing especially with mantle memory access stuttering even with GPUs with 4GB VRAM. Increasing the resolution will increase the VRAM requirements significantly beyond 4GB. In addition occacional CPU spikes with both, DX and mantle, more so with mantle.
Hopefully this gets fixed fast.
This means in English: The game uses 2,6GB with Direct X in 1080p while mantle uses 4,1GB, causing especially with mantle memory access stuttering even with GPUs with 4GB VRAM. Increasing the resolution will increase the VRAM requirements significantly beyond 4GB. In addition occacional CPU spikes with both, DX and mantle, more so with mantle.
Hopefully this gets fixed fast.
alexandros
Banned
Frostbite scales very nicely across a range of machines, I am not worried at all about DA's performance.
That chart at OP is at max settings, which is really demanding.
You should be fine I think.
alexandros
Banned
Nope. Wait for better benchmarks, you should be fine.
I'll probably still get it on PS4, I bet the DRM on this one is not very good, being from EA?
ISee
Member
Is there any kind of special DRM besides Origin?
It's Origins, take it or leave it :/
icecold1983
Member
they incorrectly stated that this title uses PBR, it doesnt.
Will it be better on my PC or on PS4, do you think. My PC is better than last-gen consoles, lots better in some cases, but my PS4 is probably better for a game like this?
ISee
Member
Your PC is about as strong as a PS4. I bet you'll get the PC version running @1080p, FXXA, High Settings with, at least, 30fps.
It's also cheaper on PC, you can choose between gamepad (more action orientated gameplay) and mouse+keyboard (better for the tactical-view combat). with SSDs your loading times are going to be better. There are things like mods etc. (even for Dragon age 1 and 2) for PC.
When in doubt go PC.
Poetic.Injustice
Member
Looks like I'll have to retire my GTX 580 soon, but I'll wait for next year's GPU's before doing so.
I'm leaning towards PC because Frostbite engine tends to scale well on PC and looks good even on lower settings.
But maybe you could wait for benchmarks and DF analysis this week.
masterkajo
Member
Any info if my HD 7850 and i5 2500 can handle this game at an acceptable Level (1080p)?
Dhruv_hanom
Member
I hope I can run this with my 660gtx and i54440.
Might have to lower the settings to get a stable 30 fps. I am starting to regret investing in an anemic processor.
Might have to lower the settings to get a stable 30 fps. I am starting to regret investing in an anemic processor.
dampflokfreund
Banned
Just as I expected from Frostbite 3, great optimized.
ScepticMatt
Member
Some parts quickly translated by me:
Introduction:
Now, with the engine known from the online-shooter Battlefield 4, the studio shows that it has answered to fan criticism. Technically Dragon Age: Inquisition has succeeded brilliantly and is sure to be the best looking role playing game thus far.
It only takes seconds to show us clearly, that Bioware wants to distance itself as far as possible from the heavily criticised second part of the franchise. While the constantly repeating levels in Dragon Age 2 were still small and mostly kept in boring red-brown, the sheer complexity of the outside scenes nearly overwhelm us and now every upcoming role playing game must measure itself with the unbelievable view distance and graphical finesse. Yes, even The Witcher 3. Bioware strikingly demonstrates what it can accomplish with new (console-) hardware, modern technology and most of all enough time on their hands. Wow!
[...] (battlefield 4)
Features:
For the Bioware role playing game the lightning and shading model was changed to Physically Based Rendering, additionally the developers consistently use all modern engine features. Including high resolution, albeit subtle textures, Soft Cascading Shadows, Volumetric Lighting, Parallax-Mapping, Tessellation, Imaged Based Lighting as well as Sub Surface Scattering and so forth. And the AMD-API Mantle, that especially helps older processors and those with rather below average performance-per-watt along. In some cases this is sorely needed, because the gigantic levels including scarcely perceptible level of detail and a lot of small finesses cause rather high hardware hunger that can't be satisfied with just a fast GPU.
[...] (character creation and depth of field)
Almost every texture is high resolution, and not only just two meters around the character, but rather until the horizon. Even the mountains in the backdrop are covered by exceptionally high resolution textures. Many of the surfaces are covered by parallax-maps, often in combination with tessellation. The plastic depth is by and large excellent. Okay, with a bit of effort you can find a few blurry textures or low-poly level objects, but those are really high-level nitpicks.
Issues:
One annoyance is the 30 fps lock during cutscenes that always feel quite suttery while the game runs with a 200 fps lock (that can be disabled). Additionally the lip movements aren't synced to the german localisation and some of the animations feel a bit wooden, even though the characters react very nicely to outer circumstances like the slant of the ground, and pronounced specular flickering.Sadly this isn't easily solvable. The many and maybe a little exaggerated glossy and reflecting surfaces are thanks to Physically Based Shading very beautiful in most cases, but have a severe downside: Typical anti aliasing methods like MSAA or FXAA don't or only insufficiently reduce shader aliasing. Bokeh-Depth of field in cut scenes amplify the issue. Some of few methods that work are only partly functional. In Dragon Age: Inquisition the resolution can only be upscaled from a lower to the native resolution. Internal resolutions above 100% don't work, not even per console command. That is irritating, but regarding the system requirements not dramatic, because those are steep.
Requirements:
On the highest settings Dragon Age: Inquisition is quite the hardware devourer. While the graphics card requirements are understandable for every gamer, it is first and foremost the CPU that is challenged. For hardware-affine gamers this might be reasonable, after all the wide view, level of detail and number of NPCs is quite impressive. But after many years of stagnation in this area the demand of the role playing game on the processor will surprise one or two. Gamers with a moderate Intel Quadcore with 3 GHz need to bring little sorrow, older or weaker processors with outdated performance-per-cycle circumstances will perhaps get into a pretty pickle. For instance, the Intel Core i7-920 of the author doesn't even get 30 fps at max details in Full-HD despite a overclock to 3.8 GHz. And even our test PC, a Intel Core i7-4790 @ 4.5 Ghz has using DX11 one thread near maximum load. Admittedly it is possible to distribute the load a bit, if we reduce the resolution and anti-aliasing - the Haswell manages 120 fps in 720p - but each and every additional Megahertz expresses itself in additional fps even in 1080p with 4xMSAA.
Enters AMDs low-level API Mantle. Especially impressive are the performance improvements of Mantle for old or weak CPUs like the author uses. In combination with a R9 290X can the aged Bloomfield gain 45% performance compared to DX11. That is the difference between a intolerable Stutterfest and an adequately fluid game experience. Even with a Core i7-4790K @ 4.5 Ghz the low-level API can gain 10% compared to the overhead-plagued microsoft API. Thus the R9 290x can clearly pull ahead of the much stronger overclocked GTX 980.
[...] (Benchmarks and conclusion)
Introduction:
Now, with the engine known from the online-shooter Battlefield 4, the studio shows that it has answered to fan criticism. Technically Dragon Age: Inquisition has succeeded brilliantly and is sure to be the best looking role playing game thus far.
It only takes seconds to show us clearly, that Bioware wants to distance itself as far as possible from the heavily criticised second part of the franchise. While the constantly repeating levels in Dragon Age 2 were still small and mostly kept in boring red-brown, the sheer complexity of the outside scenes nearly overwhelm us and now every upcoming role playing game must measure itself with the unbelievable view distance and graphical finesse. Yes, even The Witcher 3. Bioware strikingly demonstrates what it can accomplish with new (console-) hardware, modern technology and most of all enough time on their hands. Wow!
[...] (battlefield 4)
Features:
For the Bioware role playing game the lightning and shading model was changed to Physically Based Rendering, additionally the developers consistently use all modern engine features. Including high resolution, albeit subtle textures, Soft Cascading Shadows, Volumetric Lighting, Parallax-Mapping, Tessellation, Imaged Based Lighting as well as Sub Surface Scattering and so forth. And the AMD-API Mantle, that especially helps older processors and those with rather below average performance-per-watt along. In some cases this is sorely needed, because the gigantic levels including scarcely perceptible level of detail and a lot of small finesses cause rather high hardware hunger that can't be satisfied with just a fast GPU.
[...] (character creation and depth of field)
Almost every texture is high resolution, and not only just two meters around the character, but rather until the horizon. Even the mountains in the backdrop are covered by exceptionally high resolution textures. Many of the surfaces are covered by parallax-maps, often in combination with tessellation. The plastic depth is by and large excellent. Okay, with a bit of effort you can find a few blurry textures or low-poly level objects, but those are really high-level nitpicks.
Issues:
One annoyance is the 30 fps lock during cutscenes that always feel quite suttery while the game runs with a 200 fps lock (that can be disabled). Additionally the lip movements aren't synced to the german localisation and some of the animations feel a bit wooden, even though the characters react very nicely to outer circumstances like the slant of the ground, and pronounced specular flickering.Sadly this isn't easily solvable. The many and maybe a little exaggerated glossy and reflecting surfaces are thanks to Physically Based Shading very beautiful in most cases, but have a severe downside: Typical anti aliasing methods like MSAA or FXAA don't or only insufficiently reduce shader aliasing. Bokeh-Depth of field in cut scenes amplify the issue. Some of few methods that work are only partly functional. In Dragon Age: Inquisition the resolution can only be upscaled from a lower to the native resolution. Internal resolutions above 100% don't work, not even per console command. That is irritating, but regarding the system requirements not dramatic, because those are steep.
Requirements:
On the highest settings Dragon Age: Inquisition is quite the hardware devourer. While the graphics card requirements are understandable for every gamer, it is first and foremost the CPU that is challenged. For hardware-affine gamers this might be reasonable, after all the wide view, level of detail and number of NPCs is quite impressive. But after many years of stagnation in this area the demand of the role playing game on the processor will surprise one or two. Gamers with a moderate Intel Quadcore with 3 GHz need to bring little sorrow, older or weaker processors with outdated performance-per-cycle circumstances will perhaps get into a pretty pickle. For instance, the Intel Core i7-920 of the author doesn't even get 30 fps at max details in Full-HD despite a overclock to 3.8 GHz. And even our test PC, a Intel Core i7-4790 @ 4.5 Ghz has using DX11 one thread near maximum load. Admittedly it is possible to distribute the load a bit, if we reduce the resolution and anti-aliasing - the Haswell manages 120 fps in 720p - but each and every additional Megahertz expresses itself in additional fps even in 1080p with 4xMSAA.
Enters AMDs low-level API Mantle. Especially impressive are the performance improvements of Mantle for old or weak CPUs like the author uses. In combination with a R9 290X can the aged Bloomfield gain 45% performance compared to DX11. That is the difference between a intolerable Stutterfest and an adequately fluid game experience. Even with a Core i7-4790K @ 4.5 Ghz the low-level API can gain 10% compared to the overhead-plagued microsoft API. Thus the R9 290x can clearly pull ahead of the much stronger overclocked GTX 980.
[...] (Benchmarks and conclusion)
neurosisxeno
Member
These numbers don't really make sense. How can the 290X beat a GTX980 in DX11 at 1080p when even a GTX970 can beat it in Battlefield 4 which uses the exact same engine? And it's not like the 290X is right on the heels of the GTX980 in BF4, it's like 20 fps lower at that resolution.
alexandros
Banned
Why would a PS4 be better for a game like this?