Splinter Cell: Conviction - Gameplay Performance and IQ @ [H]

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Splinter Cell: Conviction - Gameplay Performance and IQ - We look at performance in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction using four of the hottest video cards on the market. Come with us as we see if Sam Fisher still has what it takes to make our high-end video cards wish they were never born, or if today's GPUs leave Splinter Cell out in the cold.
 
Yeah no kidding. Even with the 5870 one can only get an average of 40 FPS at 1920x1200? And this is with a six-year old engine?
 
Great to hear that everyone is having miserable performance, when I first started the game having just gone red I assumed that the drivers were to blame.

This level is by no means the slowest either, i was getting low 20s for extended periods later on in the game having got similar frames on this level. On a 5850 16x10 8xAA.

Horrid engine.
 
poor Mark having to review such a droll looking game. Hopefully the gameplay is fun. Eh I guess I just won't even bother taking a second look at this game.
 
The reason UE2.5 is used is because this game has been scrapped and rebuilt from scratch. It was originally due to release in late 2007. For whatever reason, Ubisoft decided it wasn't good enough and the developers went back to the drawing board. It's not hard to imagine that there was a lot of pressure on them at the time, and picking up new technology (UE3) was probably not viable from a financial standpoint.

I've played through the game and the performance certainly is bad, but the game itself is pretty fun. Luckily, it's a slow game for the most part and lower framerates do not present as much of a problem as they might in other, faster paced games.
 
When reviewing a game that has a 4 to 6 year old engine, why not pull out a graphics card or 2 from back then and compare the performance with the current crop of cards? That would be interesting if feasible.
 
I actually like this game. Runs great with one 480 at 1920x1200 and it looks pretty good I think, though for what it is it is slower than I think it should be. SLI can be made to work but it causes flashing with the text prompts in the game's environment.

Nothing ground breaking for sure but it is fun. It's overpriced but the DRM isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be, I've never had a problem with it.

Kind of surprised that [H] did a review of this title considering the controversy surrounding the DRM. That's the only the people seem to talk about. The actual game seems to be secondary.
 
anthrex said:
poor Mark having to review such a droll looking game. Hopefully the gameplay is fun. Eh I guess I just won't even bother taking a second look at this game.
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Actually, I rather enjoyed playing the game. It was its performance (relative to the age of the engine) and graphical ingenuity that I found left lacking.

heatlesssun said:
Kind of surprised that [H] did a review of this title considering the controversy surrounding the DRM. That's the only the people seem to talk about. The actual game seems to be secondary.
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I had no real first-hand problems with the game. A couple of times I was held up for a second or two when my cable modem blinked offline and the game lost contact with Ubi's servers, but I didn't find those brief interruptions to be a big deal. To be honest, I was ready to have a big headache with the DRM, and was kind-of looking forward to blasting it if I did. But I didn't, so I justr enjoyed the game.
 
nice review as always

fixed, thanks - Brent
 
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Mark_Warner said:
I had no real first-hand problems with the game. A couple of times I was held up for a second or two when my cable modem blinked offline and the game lost contact with Ubi's servers, but I didn't find those brief interruptions to be a big deal. To be honest, I was ready to have a big headache with the DRM, and was kind-of looking forward to blasting it if I did. But I didn't, so I justr enjoyed the game.
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Thanks for an objective review of game first of all. Your experience is pretty much the same as mine. This is a solid and fun game, nothing special just solid. I'm glad that I didn't listen to all of the DRM critics because I enjoy this title.

I just imagine that there is some pressure on you guys not to review games with controversial DRM for fear of reader backlash which is why I said I was surprised by the review [H]. Some people are practically militant about this type of DRM.
 
ughhh... screw this game. I wouldn't buy it myself (drm), but a friend has it... Not only did the input lag like a SOB but it flat out wouldn't work with a generic 360 controller (madcats). I guess it has to be MS only.

Nice writeup though. Is [H] no longer benchmarking new titles with DX10 cards?
 
dr.stevil said:
Nice writeup though. Is [H] no longer benchmarking new titles with DX10 cards?
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[H] generally benchmarks with the latest generation from particular price points and usually with the high-end in a game review from my experience.
 
dr.stevil said:
ughhh... screw this game. I wouldn't buy it myself (drm), but a friend has it... Not only did the input lag like a SOB but it flat out wouldn't work with a generic 360 controller (madcats). I guess it has to be MS only.

Nice writeup though. Is [H] no longer benchmarking new titles with DX10 cards?
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DX10 cards are not necessarily obsolete, but as we don't really want to recommend anyone buy a brand new non-DX11 card right now, there is no real reason to include them in our reviews.

Sorry to hear about your input problems. I only had that trouble when I had my AA setting cranked beyond what was actually playable.

heatlesssun said:
Thanks for an objective review of game first of all. Your experience is pretty much the same as mine. This is a solid and fun game, nothing special just solid. I'm glad that I didn't listen to all of the DRM critics because I enjoy this title.

I just imagine that there is some pressure on you guys not to review games with controversial DRM for fear of reader backlash which is why I said I was surprised by the review [H]. Some people are practically militant about this type of DRM.
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Nope, no pressure from publishers to avoid controversial games (at least none that I am aware of). In fact, I like to pick fights if I feel it is justified. I just didn't see anything in this game or its DRM worth getting worked up over. I understand that Brent has had a different experience with it, though.

We do sometimes get pressure to look at specific titles, but I find myself instinctively recoiling from those "suggestions" for a number of reasons. Ultimately, which games I look at is up to Kyle and Brent.
 
dr.stevil said:
ughhh... screw this game. I wouldn't buy it myself (drm), but a friend has it... Not only did the input lag like a SOB but it flat out wouldn't work with a generic 360 controller (madcats). I guess it has to be MS only.

Nice writeup though. Is [H] no longer benchmarking new titles with DX10 cards?
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Current generation DX11 cards also support DX10.
 
heatlesssun said:
I actually like this game. Runs great with one 480 at 1920x1200 and it looks pretty good I think, though for what it is it is slower than I think it should be. SLI can be made to work but it causes flashing with the text prompts in the game's environment.
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No kidding. The latest patch was supposed to "fix" SLI, but all it did was make the text prompts flicker annoyingly. And there really wasn't even a decent performance increase with SLI "fixed". :rolleyes:
 
MavericK96 said:
No kidding. The latest patch was supposed to "fix" SLI, but all it did was make the text prompts flicker annoyingly. And there really wasn't even a decent performance increase with SLI "fixed". :rolleyes:
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Actually the performance increase is very good with SLI, but the text flashing makes it a no go.
 
MavericK96 said:
I think he just means that you guys aren't testing new games using the GTX 2xx/HD 4xxx series, which probably the majority of users still have here.
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If we tested every card that everyone has here, we wouldn't get anywhere.

We test the latest generation of cards as an upgrade path, people can decide if they want or need to upgrade, and we tell you if which card is the best performance and the best value for those people looking to upgrade, no need to waste money on a more expensive video card if it performs the same as its cheaper counterpart for example.
 
Any of you guys with this game and an NV card try it with the fancy new beta drivers Kyle posted about today?
 
Very dissapointing though it is a comfort to know in an apples to apples game my 5870 was the better buy.
 
If we tested every card that everyone has here, we wouldn't get anywhere.

We test the latest generation of cards as an upgrade path, people can decide if they want or need to upgrade, and we tell you if which card is the best performance and the best value for those people looking to upgrade, no need to waste money on a more expensive video card if it performs the same as its cheaper counterpart for example.
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I thought you were doing a game review? If so, then shouldn't the decision about whether people pick up the game from the performance achievable be more pertinent than whether picking up the game requires a hardware upgrade?

Also, let's have a look at this performance review: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/03/21/aliens_vs_predator_gameplay_performance_iq/1

I notice that aside from the 5800 cards, you also included the 275, 5750, 5770, as well as the GTS250. Are you somehow suggesting that in March these cards were a viable upgrade path, but in May that's no longer the case, even though no new GPUs have been released in these performance brackets?

And nobody is asking you to test every card. He was asking you to test cards with lower performance points. I don't have a 5850. Nor do many of the people here. A lot of us still have cards with similar performance to aforementioned 275, 5770, or 5750. You know, seeing as they also roughly correspond to the performance segments of the NVidia Geforce GTX280, GTX260, 9800GTX+, 9800GTX 8800 Ultra, and 8800GTX, as well as the AMD Radeon HD4870, HD4850, and HD3870X2? And this is completely ignoring the range of resolutions people play at. Not everyone owns a 2560x1600 or 1920x1200 monitor.
 
Mr. Pedantic said:
I thought you were doing a game review? If so, then shouldn't the decision about whether people pick up the game from the performance achievable be more pertinent than whether picking up the game requires a hardware upgrade?

Also, let's have a look at this performance review: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/03/21/aliens_vs_predator_gameplay_performance_iq/1

I notice that aside from the 5800 cards, you also included the 275, 5750, 5770, as well as the GTS250. Are you somehow suggesting that in March these cards were a viable upgrade path, but in May that's no longer the case, even though no new GPUs have been released in these performance brackets?

And nobody is asking you to test every card. He was asking you to test cards with lower performance points. I don't have a 5850. Nor do many of the people here. A lot of us still have cards with similar performance to aforementioned 275, 5770, or 5750. You know, seeing as they also roughly correspond to the performance segments of the NVidia Geforce GTX280, GTX260, 9800GTX+, 9800GTX 8800 Ultra, and 8800GTX, as well as the AMD Radeon HD4870, HD4850, and HD3870X2? And this is completely ignoring the range of resolutions people play at. Not everyone owns a 2560x1600 or 1920x1200 monitor.
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Who ever said this is a game review? The title clearly states: "Splinter Cell: Conviction - Gameplay Performance and IQ" with emphasis on the important part: "Performance and IQ"

This is HardOCP, not IGN. If you want a game review, go to IGN. HardOCP is here to help inform us which video card would be our best upgrade options for gaming.

You're expecting the wrong thing.
 
Who ever said this is a game review? The title clearly states: "Splinter Cell: Conviction - Gameplay Performance and IQ" with emphasis on the important part: "Performance and IQ"
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So you're saying that the article that was posted was not a review of any part of the game whatsoever? If it includes critically appraising an object based on certain criteria, then it's a review. As far as I can tell the article critically appraises the performance of the game based on the hardware and IQ levels that were stated on the Test Setup page. So either you're wrong, or the article was not critical, or it did not appraise.
 
Mr. Pedantic said:
So you're saying that the article that was posted was not a review of any part of the game whatsoever? If it includes critically appraising an object based on certain criteria, then it's a review. As far as I can tell the article critically appraises the performance of the game based on the hardware and IQ levels that were stated on the Test Setup page. So either you're wrong, or the article was not critical, or it did not appraise.
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It accomplished exactly what it was meant to do. Namely it compared the Gameplay Performance and IQ of current generation video cards on this game. Is that hard to understand?
 
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Mr. Pedantic said:
So you're saying that the article that was posted was not a review of any part of the game whatsoever? If it includes critically appraising an object based on certain criteria, then it's a review. As far as I can tell the article critically appraises the performance of the game based on the hardware and IQ levels that were stated on the Test Setup page. So either you're wrong, or the article was not critical, or it did not appraise.
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The point of our gameplay performance evaluations is to help people choose a GPU upgrade.
 
It accomplished exactly what it was meant to do. Namely it compared the Gameplay Performance and IQ of current generation video cards on this game. Is that hard to understand?
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No, because it does exactly that. However, you still haven't elaborated on why the article only includes the higher-end cards (and it fails at even this; where is the 5970?) and not the likes of the 5770 and 5750, which are still reasonable upgrades for people who bought mid-range graphics cards a generation or two ago and now want to buy a mid-range graphics card of this generation.

The point of our gameplay performance evaluations is to help people choose a GPU upgrade
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I can only deduce from this statement that you cannot recommend anything below a 5850. Or at least, you can't do it after March 2010. Because before that it seems you had no trouble including the 5770, 5750, GTS250, and GTX275 in your gameplay performance evaluation of AvP. So what changed?
 
Mr. Pedantic said:
No, because it does exactly that. However, you still haven't elaborated on why the article only includes the higher-end cards (and it fails at even this; where is the 5970?) and not the likes of the 5770 and 5750, which are still reasonable upgrades for people who bought mid-range graphics cards a generation or two ago and now want to buy a mid-range graphics card of this generation.


I can only deduce from this statement that you cannot recommend anything below a 5850. Or at least, you can't do it after March 2010. Because before that it seems you had no trouble including the 5770, 5750, GTS250, and GTX275 in your gameplay performance evaluation of AvP. So what changed?
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1) GTX 480 and GTX 470 landed, so we have DX11-generation video cards from both GPU manufacturers. Thus, the GTS 250 and GTX 275 are, at least in my opinion, rendered obsolete due to their lack of DX11 support.

2) Time. These articles take time to put together, and the more video cards we put into them, the longer it takes. So we leave out cards and even cut cards in order to have them out in a reasonable amount of time.

3) Your name is quite accurate.
 
They probably used the older game engine to appeal to console gamers. Can the xbox360 and PS3 even handle Unreal 3.0 without disabling most of its features? The consoles are directX9 platforms with a few DirctX10 features enabled. Of course us PC gamers expect a lot more out of our games. I have never been a fan of the splinter cell series as they are often too slow paced for my taste. Even though this game tends to break away from that. In addition I never have been a fan of Ubi Soft or their use of overly aggressive DRM.
 
Badly need a motivational post of peter griffin saying "I find this post shallow and pedantic" :)

Er anyway, good review I suppose, missing the 5970 which I feel lets it down a bit, also I thought the best performing results went on top? (maybe just my assumption) but the 5870 is below the 480 despite better max and average frame rates, feels misleading.
 
1) GTX 480 and GTX 470 landed, so we have DX11-generation video cards from both GPU manufacturers. Thus, the GTS 250 and GTX 275 are, at least in my opinion, rendered obsolete due to their lack of DX11 support.

2) Time. These articles take time to put together, and the more video cards we put into them, the longer it takes. So we leave out cards and even cut cards in order to have them out in a reasonable amount of time.

3) Your name is quite accurate.
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1) Unless you can find a GTX470 or 480 for the same price as a GTX275 or GTS250, then no, they're not rendered obsolete by their lack of DirectX 11 support. And don't forget about the 5770 or 5750. They have DX11 support, last time I checked. They were of the current generation, last time I checked. And they're not in the article, last time I checked.

2) Fair enough. But given that more people buy lower-end than high-end cards, and that your performance evaluation is read by more people than who post here, including a 5770 or 5750 is arguably more important than including a 480. And where is the 5970 (again)?

3) Why, thank you.
 
Mr. Pedantic said:
1) Unless you can find a GTX470 or 480 for the same price as a GTX275 or GTS250, then no, they're not rendered obsolete by their lack of DirectX 11 support. And don't forget about the 5770 or 5750. They have DX11 support, last time I checked. They were of the current generation, last time I checked. And they're not in the article, last time I checked.
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But they are lower end cards. [H] GAME reviews usually focus on higher-end parts I believe.
 
But they are lower end cards. [H] GAME reviews usually focus on higher-end parts I believe.
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http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/03/22/aliens_vs_predator_gameplay_performance_iq/2

Note that in this review the 5750 and 5770 are still there (as well as the GTX275 and GTS250). Note the publication date, March 21 2010. It's not like it was years and years ago; no new video cards have been released in this price/performance bracket since then, and unless you count the GTX275 becoming even rarer in retail, nothing has changed since then. So in March 2010 they were "high end", but after that (I note with some disappointment that JC2's review also had no lower-end cards) they're suddenly arbitrarily 'low-end'?
 
Because this is [H]. If you're not testing with the top of the line cards from the current generation, you're not [H] enough.

The reason they included the GTS250 and GTX275 in that review is because Nvidia didn't have a DX11 solution, so they were included. The reason why the 5770 was included was to show results from a low end/mainstream ATI card. Now that the GTX480/470 are out, and supports DX11 there is no need to included any cards from the last generation. [H] didn't include the 5770 this time because there are no competing NV DX11 cards in it's price range.
 
Honestly, I'm growing more than a little weary of reviewers whining about "consolization" every time a game doesn't push graphical boundaries like Crysis. And hell, when Crysis came out, everyone still complained because no one had a rig powerful enough to run it on the highest settings. You can't win.

This is especially the case here since the Splinter Cell series has always been primarily focused on consoles. The original didn't come out for PC until a few months after the XBox version landed.

A few more graphics options might have been nice, sure, but there are plenty there to adjust performance based on your video card. And while I'd agree the engine isn't cutting edge, I think it's an excellent looking game. There are tons of characters and objects in the environment, the textures are detailed, and the soft shadowing on trees is very impressive.

My only gripe is that with the latest nVidia beta drivers, 4xAA killed my performance with my GTX 260 SLI system, which seems to suggest SLI may not be properly supported.
 
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