Test Methods
There are two distinct types of testing that we do for graphics cards:
Benchmark testing where we use a scripted or specific benchmark utility that has no user interaction other than setting the graphics properties and hitting ‘start’. The utility then gives us a report of the relevant statistics.
Subjective testing where we try to execute the same passage of game play from a save game or checkpoint with FRAPS running to a log file. This is less reproducible and more prone to variation so we declare this differently. The comparison between cards in the subjective section means less than the true benchmarks but it does provide a good indication of what you would see when gaming with each card.
We also only graph the average frame rates but include the minimum and maximum in the tables for reference. Minimum and maximum frame rates can be misleading, especially on subjective type test runs.
The following tests were all reproducible or scripted benchmarks as opposed to free form gameplay that can be more subjective.
3DMark 11
Unigine Heaven
Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 Basic is one of the programs that we run to temperature test the cards and we also do a benchmark run during the process.
Tomb Raider
For the in-game benchmarking utility, the following graphics settings were used
1920×1080, Motion Blur:On, Screen Effects:On, Quality: Ultimate,Texture Quality: Ultra,Texture Filter: Anisotropic 16X, Hair Quality: TRESSFX, Anti-Aliasing: FXAA Shadows: Normal, Shadow Resolution: High, Level of Detail: Ultra, Reflections: High, Depth of Field: Ultra, SSAO: Ultra, Post Processing: On, Tessellation: On, High Precision: On
Although TRESSFX is an AMD feature we had it enabled because gamers will want to enjoy it in this title and we have other benchmarks so it all evens out in the end.
Batman Arkham City
The settings used for the Arkham City ingame benchmark were:
1920×1080, V-Sync: Off, Anti-Aliasing: FXAA (High), Directx 11 Features: MVSS and HBAO, Dx11 Tessellation: Normal, Detail Level: Very High Dynamic Shadows: Yes, Motion Blur: Yes, Distortion: Yes, Lens Flares: Yes, Light Shafts: Yes, Reflections: Yes, Ambient Occlusion: Yes, Hardware Accelerated PhysX: Normal
Hitman Absolution
The following settings were used in the ingame benchmark:
1920×1080, MSAA:8x, Vsync: Off, Quality Setting: Ultra
Metro 2033
The benchmarking scripter for Metro 2033 was set using the following options
1920×1080, DX11, Quality: Very High, AA: MSAA 4X, Texture Filtering: AF 16X, Advanced PhysX: Disabled, Tessellation: Enabled, DOF: Enabled
