Last Gen Games - Max IQ and Perf on Today's GPUs Pt. 2

FrgMstr

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Last Gen Games - Max IQ and Perf on Today's GPUs Pt. 2

It is time once again to play some older PC games on the latest GPUs of today using the latest drivers. We pull from three 5-year-old games and one 8-year-old game today and see if we can maximize the IQ settings in those games at 1440p and 4K. The theme of the day: Older games that still hold up today in terms of IQ.

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Thanks for revisiting these! Amazing the drop off from 1440P to 4K, its like 60% in a lot of cases. I have the same monitor, PB278Q, can I ask what settings you are using please for gaming? I've tried so many different combinations its ridiculous.
 
Thanks Kyle and team for this awesome article and testing. I do so much of my own that I do have some understanding of the time involved. Even more so since I use all these games in my own tests. I guess I was feeling the vibe because this weekend I decided to swap displays on my 1080TI rig. Usually I just use 1440p with it but I was really curious to see it strut its stuff in 4k, 4096x2160 even.

I pretty much had near identical results in 4k as you. The other reason I still use these games is that all also support SLI and 3dVision. For those lucky, crazy, or committed enough to still run SLI the numbers only get better. I know I've probably mentioned it way too many times but at the height of my own complicated insanity I was running 2 G1 OC970's SLI(x16 PCIe 3.0) and a EVGA SC780(x8 PCIe Physx). Totally rocked Metro Last Light in 4k being somewhere between the Vega64 and 1080TI using the same settings. I know I'm like the last guy on the planet still gaming 3d but the performance drops are nearly identical to 4k for what its worth. Also noticed a few weeks back the the Metro redux's seemed to either drop or totally screw up SLI and 3d. Reinstalled the originals and was amazed at how much better they performed.
 
Thanks for revisiting these! Amazing the drop off from 1440P to 4K, its like 60% in a lot of cases. I have the same monitor, PB278Q, can I ask what settings you are using please for gaming? I've tried so many different combinations its ridiculous.

Just the default settings
 
Thanks Kyle and team for this awesome article and testing. I do so much of my own that I do have some understanding of the time involved. Even more so since I use all these games in my own tests. I guess I was feeling the vibe because this weekend I decided to swap displays on my 1080TI rig. Usually I just use 1440p with it but I was really curious to see it strut its stuff in 4k, 4096x2160 even.

I pretty much had near identical results in 4k as you. The other reason I still use these games is that all also support SLI and 3dVision. For those lucky, crazy, or committed enough to still run SLI the numbers only get better. I know I've probably mentioned it way too many times but at the height of my own complicated insanity I was running 2 G1 OC970's SLI(x16 PCIe 3.0) and a EVGA SC780(x8 PCIe Physx). Totally rocked Metro Last Light in 4k being somewhere between the Vega64 and 1080TI using the same settings. I know I'm like the last guy on the planet still gaming 3d but the performance drops are nearly identical to 4k for what its worth. Also noticed a few weeks back the the Metro redux's seemed to either drop or totally screw up SLI and 3d. Reinstalled the originals and was amazed at how much better they performed.

Nice, thanks for the feedback. I have both Metro 2033 Redux and Metro Last Light Redux, but I haven't played them, nor have I looked to see what all the new additions or differences are. Perhaps in the future I'll take a look at them.
 
After 10 Years away from gaming and having recently built a new x299 machine with a 1080Ti, I decided to play again even though time is so limited. No problem though I made time - zero TV hours or movie hours and here is time.

So having missed a lot of games all these years I decided to go back in time and play those and older titles and damn how smooth and great they run compared to my Q9550 with a GTX780. I know I could jump straight to new titles but there are so many amazing games released during the last 10 years that by the time I done with those it will be time for a new GPU anyway and the 1080Ti going straight to my little son's PC.

Playing top rated older titles with latest hardware is great and allows one to get the maximum each title has to offer probably in ways not possible (for most) back then when they were released.
 
This revisit reviews are awesome - thank you, and great work, [H]!

This further solidifies my choice for moving to a 1440p 144Hz monitor and at least a closeout/used 1080Ti when the next gen from both AMD and nV come out.
 
I'm enjoying this article series! Thanks for the mention under Metro 2033.

I'm trying to think of other older titles that would be interesting to test with today's hardware, but not having any ideas right now.

Deus Ex HR came to mind, but while it was a fun game, on the graphics side of things it was essentially a previous gen console port. I recently replayed it and it didn't even cause my Titan X to break a sweat. Going to have to scan through my library when I get home and see if there are any titles I'm not thinking of right now.
 
Great article guys. Dying Light would be a cool game to revisit since the sequel should be releasing soon-ish.

Also Dragon Age 3 was pretty beastly when there were a lot of enemies on the screen.
 
I too have been wondering since 2013 why no game has implemented SMAA the way Crysis 3 does. I figured after Crysis 3 I was gonna be seeing SMAA used all over the place, but nope. Crysis 3 is still the best example of SMAA use I have ever seen. Thanks a ton Brent and Kyle for the testing, always much appreciated. I love going back to older titles with newer hardware and seeing how they look and run (and playing them with way the fuck higher resolutions). Usually a good opportunity to play through games again, especially if I had to restrict graphics settings or deal with lower performance the first time around. Even better with super-old titles. UT2K4 and UT3 for example run with the framerate in the few hundreds to several hundreds on modern hardware. The frametimes are so fucking low (like 2-3 ms, sometimes even 1 ms), it gives the games such a fucking sick feel with the input response. With VSYNC off I barely see screen tearing cuz the frames are being drawn and pumped out at such a ridiculously fast rate. Too bad Doom 4 has a cap of 200 fps/5 ms, cuz like 10 years from now it would be awesome if I could run it with extremely low frametimes, and framerates well above 200. Well, it's a good thing that game's input response already feels freakin' awesome. Yeah though, running older games on newer hardware is always a blast. Ah, the beauty of PC gaming. I see you over there Microsoft, trying to do almost the same thing with the Xbone X and Xbox "Scarlett." No thanks. Upgrading hardware and playing older games on newer hardware works best on PC. Indrema can tell you that (or at least I seem to remember them wanting to do PC-like hardware upgrades for their console. That was like almost 2 decades ago so my memory is fuzzy). Haha, every time I remember Indrema, I also remember Phantom, and well every member of the [H] community remembers what happened to those assclowns. I wonder what this industry would've been like if devs focused on truly developing and optimizing for PC first, before porting down to consoles. Maybe then we'd get some decent DX12 and Vulkan usage.
 
May I suggest testing older games with "HD" mods?

I'm currently playing MAFIA with HDmod and its awesome, also Doom3.

I know there are dozens of mods for many games. Just GTA V and Crysis have lots of them and many good ones that don't tax you card that much.
 
Sorry what. Did you read my question.

I meant monitor settings, like brightness/contrast/preset RGB all that. In fact, monitor reviews would be pretty cool if you guys have time, even if it was A simple review.
 
Was inspired to fire up Crysis 3 because of this article. Oh the joys of SLI when it's supported. I was noticing about 80 FPS average and went to check on this original performance review of this game here and back in the good old days of 2013 [H] did test this game with SLI and it scaled well and apparently still does. Looks very nice all cranked up in 4k and running well over 60 FPS.
 
Was inspired to fire up Crysis 3 because of this article. Oh the joys of SLI when it's supported. I was noticing about 80 FPS average and went to check on this original performance review of this game here and back in the good old days of 2013 [H] did test this game with SLI and it scaled well and apparently still does. Looks very nice all cranked up in 4k and running well over 60 FPS.
Yeah that was an interesting coincidence I noticed with this article. Nearly every game has great SLI support. Can only imagine how you're TI SLI kicks butt with 'em but my G1 1080's don't slouch either for these.

Had to say that my single TI was working just a little too hard at 4k for the games I mostly play and I'm completely spoiled to 144hz 1440p/g-sync so I swapped my monitors back.
 
Thanks for the detailed review and especially the Crysis 3 results. I hope your next retrospective will include it again.

To me the Crysis games remain the pinnacle of single-player FPS. In all the years since I have never found a game with comparable combat fluidity, weapons refinement and polish, ranged AI smarts and maneuver, level design, and production quality (music, voice and oh yeah graphics beauty). Or any two of those, though UT is a contender. It's hard enough to find even one of those qualities.

Someday, maybe.

Here's a typical Crysis 2 screenshot, at 2560x1440. Shadows are real-time, with those on the pavement moving with unseen trees behind. Smoke billows, flags wave, the gun rises and falls with breathing, and even the reflection in the scope eyepiece (not well captured here) is calculated.
 

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After 10 Years away from gaming and having recently built a new x299 machine with a 1080Ti, I decided to play again even though time is so limited. No problem though I made time - zero TV hours or movie hours and here is time.

So having missed a lot of games all these years I decided to go back in time and play those and older titles and damn how smooth and great they run compared to my Q9550 with a GTX780. I know I could jump straight to new titles but there are so many amazing games released during the last 10 years that by the time I done with those it will be time for a new GPU anyway and the 1080Ti going straight to my little son's PC.

Playing top rated older titles with latest hardware is great and allows one to get the maximum each title has to offer probably in ways not possible (for most) back then when they were released.
Hell, stick that 780 with even a Sandy or Ivy Bridge based i7 and that will feel like a whole new machine for your boy now and there won't be much he can't play. Welcome back to PC gaming
 
I'd like to see how current hardware would handle Stalker: Clear Sky at 4K. That game was always hard on video cards, only problem is I think the engine only used 1 or 2 threads.
 
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