Mass Effect 3 Tested, Benchmarked

Awesome to see another DX9 only title, surely with a multimillion pound budget which dwarfs most games they could've afforded to use technology from... well 2008/09 instead 2004 (DX9)? Fact is this benchmark was a massive waste of time, you may as well have benched the last game and it would've yielded probably identical results...

Now start bashing MW3 for not providing a new graphics engine unlike BF3 which requires DX11 card for features which a DX9 card can handle too

Catered to Consoles /palm ... Consoles, ruining gaming since [insert year here]. Thanks for the article, Ultra is right though.

I can just see it 100 years later and developers will have only just started using DX11...

Who thinks that DX9 graphics are enough for PC gamers? I've been using DX11 cards for 2,5 years now and I still don't see much benefit from it....
We have only a couple of titles that are truly showing us amazing DX11 graphics and that's all, but there you need a really powerful DX11 card to enjoy it.
IMO 80% of DX11 cards are incapable of handling real DX11 games...

If there were no consoles we would be already enjoying DX12...DX13.....etc....

Hope that PCs and Consoles will not go hand-in-hand in terms of graphics in the future!!!


Peter

lol if Consoles didn't exist we would be enjoying a more advanced gaming experience and games would be a lot more fun with amazing graphics I bet if consoles didn't exist we would be very close to hitting a CGI type gaming experience!

When did they come out with a 6790 video card?

But in march 2011 Unreal Engine was update and support DirectX11 plus tessellation and displacement mapping, advanced hair rendering with MSAA, deferred rendering with MSAA, screen space subsurface scattering, image-based lighting, billboard reflections, glossy reflections, reflection shadows, point light reflections, and bokeh depth of field.
Taken from Wikipedia.
Then the problem is´t Unreal Engine, the real problem were lazy developers, whom did not bother to update to the last Unreal Engine to gain performance and better looking game.

The graphics may be dx9, but if you are playing mass effect for graphics superiority you are a *****. you play this game for the story. besides, the graphics still look pretty good to me.

Agree pointless review.
Few video settings in game and if you have to edit .ini file, this is a little advanced for average user.
Like COD3 this is a game best ignored.. .from a hardware point of view.
ie an XBOX port. In other words it runs well on any old DX9 video card.

PS. Not commenting on gameplay, it may well be a good game in itself, but i won't be getting it until its in the bargain bin, it will suffer like Crysis 2 did on the PC without its DX11 patch

Irishgamer01

Once again a nice [PC Game] GPU & CPU Performance Test. The CPU clock scaling in this game surprised me the most... in a good way.

Question 1: Why do you test so many AMD CPU's versus Intel CPU's (4 Intel vs 8 AMD)?
Question 2: For the 1920x1080 graphics card test, you mention the 570 and 480 hitting 60fps (both $300+ cards), followed by the 6870 ($200) that only gets 52fps. Why not also at least mention the 6950 ($300) hitting 58fps?

I'm not crying bias, but it seems you favour AMD CPU's and nVIDIA GPU's. I believe it should be even for all sides. Same for any CPU core/clock scaling tests. For the record I have a 2500K @ 4.6GHz paired with an unlocked 6950 2GB OC'd to 880/1375MHz.

I can't wait to spend $1,500+ on next generation 28nm high-end cards to max out console ports.

Doh.

* Puts $1,500 back into savings.

** HD6790 came out a long time ago. April 5, 2011
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=649&card2=

...well that's a surprise; my 5770 can still keep up somewhat! Also great to know I've got the third-best processor around, even after more than six months.

Got this game running pretty smooth on a intel core 2 duo e6400 @ 2.8ghz and a half gig 4870. Needless to say it's not very demanding. The dx9 looks decent enough though and even though i wish all games were dx11 capable it looks pretty nice.

Have you guys seen the disgusting terms and conditions of the Origin DRM?

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/08/24/eas-origin-eula-proves-even-more-sinister/

Quote from the TOS:
You agree that EA may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer (including the Internet Protocol Address), operating system, Application usage (including but not limited to successful installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online services. EA may also use this information combined with personal information for marketing purposes and to improve our products and services. We may also share that data with our third party service providers in a form that does not personally identify you. IF YOU DO NOT WANT EA TO COLLECT, USE, STORE, TRANSMIT OR DISPLAY THE DATA DESCRIBED IN THIS SECTION, PLEASE DO NOT INSTALL OR USE THE APPLICATION.

Luckily, whilst looking for the quote above, I found a way to stop (i hope) Origin from this MASSIVE invasion of privacy.

http://masseffect.livejournal.com/1262968.html

I really wanted to play this game on PC - I picked up the first two titles on Steam for pennies and was going to do one last full playthrough with all the decisions I really wanted so that the last game would truly be the continuation of a story I built from the ground up (I play on xbox and have explored all the storyline possibilities etc)... But then I learned it's never even coming to Steam.

Bought this one for xbox as well in the end. It's kind of disappointing - developers need to stop fighting each other on these petty fronts and just work on doing what they do best.

Yes, I would love to see tessellation in DX9... More to the point, DX11 isn't about new eye candy but increasing efficiency so that more can be delivered for less.

In fairness, development of Mass Effect 3 began back in 2010 or earlier if reports are correct so they never had a chance to implement it. Well, they did but they couldn't be arsed...