brink and its performance

(kilL_888) #1

yes, i know very well that this topic is discussed a thousand times, but i recently exchanged my graphics card and i want to give you a little conclusion about brink and its performance (issues).

i run a quadcore cpu, intel q9400 @2.67ghz, 4gb ram. i recently exchanged my ati radeon hd4870 with a nvidia gtx560ti (superclocked chip @900mhz).

brink startet with a real terrible performance for pretty much every ati user. there was the gridding bug at the beginning that was fixed pretty fast though. future brink patches further increased the performance pretty nicely for me. driver updates improved the performance, too, but not as much as i expected and hoped.

in its current state and with 11.6 catalyst drivers i was able to run brink at a decent framerate most of the time. shadows and all the eye candy was disabled though. my minimum fps was around 30 at specific maps (security tower, resort). i also want to mention that there are no shadows in resort and aquarium! did you ever notice this? probably has something to do with the atmosphere file and that most of the map is indoor. still weired.

with my new card the average fps doubled in most scenarios. shadows have almost no impact on performance, ambient occlusion reduced fps by almost 50%. so, it still isnt perfect. in some areas the fps drop below 60. in large open spaces with a lot of fighting it goes even down to 40.

i noticed when i pass doors (vis_portals) to enter new rooms, the fps drop shortly.

so, my conclusion is not so pleasant. brink is in fact badly optimized. i assume that the biggest role for this issue plays the leveldesign. maybe there are just too many lightsources rendered per scene, which always was a big problem for idtech4?! the postprocessing effects might also play a huge role?!

i think pushing the hardware requirenment that high at this visual level was a wrong decision. simply put, the look of the game does not justify the hardware requirenments.

i hope we see future improvements for the performance. i hope something can be done to make brink a smooth experience.

a personal sidenote… with brink i see that the visuals of the game dont matter at all. a real shooter person like me wants its constant 60+ fps. framedrops kill your gaming experience. i wish splash damage would have used a slightly improved idtech3 engine. super smooth framerate, super smooth netcode. but i guess its too late for this. :rolleyes:

(Crytiqal) #2

And then you have these console players that whine how the PC version is soo much better :s

(xTriXxy) #3

strange is when you put into rig old GTX 275 game runs smooth in compare with GTX 570 and this is so weird.

(r3fleX) #4

I think last couple of lines summed it up, the majority of PC Players prefer a game that will run smoothly and perform well, above Graphical Quality.

I mean it is nearly impossible for some one to appreciate and enjoy the gameplay when the main feeling is frustration as you stutter/lag around while trying to play. I think performance has been one of, it not the biggest contributor to players leaving this game.

(kilL_888) #5

probably has something to do with cpu/gpu limitation.

it basicly means that you gpu is too fast rendering, so it has to wait for the cpu. so the gpu has to artificially reduce the rendered frames. or something like that.

this might help you understand the issue:

(xTriXxy) #6

[QUOTE=kilL_888;360216]probably has something to do with cpu/gpu limitation.

it basicly means that you gpu is too fast rendering, so it has to wait for the cpu. so the gpu has to artificially reduce the rendered frames. or something like that.

this might help you understand the issue:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/269220-15-dual-core-limit-power-high[/QUOTE]

thats maybe true. rig im playing on it got dualcore E8500.
but… i saw reviews where they compared CPU’s and very few GPU’s used 4cores to maximum.

(TONSCHUH) #7

… get the following with a 2600K (3.4GHz) @ 4450 MHz + Gigabyte GTX570-OC + 8GB RAM: …

1.) 1920 x 1080 + everything turn on / on high => ~ 55 - 65 FPS

2.) 1920 x 1080 + everything turned off / on high => ~ 170 - 195 FPS

… last update brought my FPS-Rate down … without the last update I got: …

1.) ~ 70 - 85 FPS

2.) ~ 200 - 240 FPS

… I only hope that further updates decreases the performance not even further …

… but as I prefer to turn off all the fancy advanced options, I still should be right … it’s strange, that the game even feels with 60 FPS not right … :rolleyes: