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BioShock 2 Graphics Performance In-depth
Today we are revisiting the franchise, as 2K Games unveiled BioShock 2 last week. Like with most games, we feel BioShock 2 needs to be played at a reasonably high resolution with graphics settings maxed-out to be enjoyed in full. This article should give you a good indication of what hardware is needed or at least where you stand to get there. Considering not all of us can afford a graphics card upgrade at the drop of a hat, we will also show you what settings you may have to use for decent frame rates in this new first person shooter.
To thoroughly evaluate the performance of BioShock 2 we have taken over 25 popular ATI and Nvidia graphics cards, tested them using medium and high graphics quality settings at three resolutions that are generally supported by 22”, 24” and 30” LCD monitors.
Read the complete article.
User Comments (26)
Post a comment|
dividebyzero
on February 16, 2010 4:08 AM |
Nice article guys. Glad to see such a wide range of cards tested-not every gamer has the latest-and-greatest, and great to see most everyone is catered for (excepting Mr Bennett and his eyefinity lust). |
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skitzo_zac
on February 16, 2010 4:16 AM |
Good work with the benchmarking, although I have already been playing this for the last few days at maximum settings Article said: Time really does fly as I can recall testing the original BioShock like it was yesterday. However that was actually over two years ago and as you can imagine the GPU scene was quite different from today. Back then we were testing with the Nvidia GeForce 8 and ATI Radeon HD 2000 series graphics cards, while the Intel Core 2 Duo processor was the de facto standard for performance computing and gaming. This made me chuckle as I am playing Bioshock 2 with a Core 2 Duo and GeForce 8 currently. Although my native resolution is 'only' 1280x1024 so my hardware usually cuts it for that on most modern games. |
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Steve
on February 16, 2010 7:17 AM |
skitzo_zac you can certainly play with older hardware, especially if you are gaming at low resolutions which you said you are. The 9800 GT which is basically an 8 series card averaged 55fps at 1680x1050 and that will allow for playable performance, it just depends on how picky you are. Anyway thanks heaps for the feedback so far guys! |
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compdata
on February 16, 2010 10:58 AM |
I agree - Great coverage on the cards tested. I have a mid/low end graphics card and am usually comfortable dealing with lower resolutions and lower game settings :-) Although this does seriously make me want to get a faster setup :-) |
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CodePhoeniX
on February 16, 2010 11:05 AM |
I cant access page 2, and page one CSS seems all screwed up. |
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TomSEA
on February 16, 2010 11:33 AM |
Experiencing the same as CodePhoeniX. Can't access the article. |
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Docnoq
on February 16, 2010 11:34 AM |
Ya, the article links are wonky. |
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Matthew
on February 16, 2010 11:47 AM |
Sorry about that guys, it will be resolved shortly |
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Julio Franco
on February 16, 2010 12:18 PM |
We got it under control, the article should open fine now. Thanks everyone for letting us know about the issue. |
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LNCPapa
on February 16, 2010 2:48 PM |
BTW - I thought this was an awesome article... very thorough. I am wondering how much difference a slower CPU is going to make, though. Guess I'll see when I get the game. |
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Guest
on February 16, 2010 3:06 PM |
I'm wondering the same thing. Is this game cpu sensitive or not? |
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TomSEA
on February 16, 2010 3:07 PM |
Thanks for the fix. Excellent article - great to see the broad spectrum of cards tested. Also nice to know that my GTX 285 will provide me more than enough horsepower to run the game at highest settings. |
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momir
on February 16, 2010 5:42 PM |
Yeah its really thorough,nice,helpful! But i would like to correct Julio for the Original Bioshock regarding 8600 GTS performance if i may. Well back then i had 8600GTS and an athlon x2 4400+ (still have the CPU |
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Steve
on February 16, 2010 6:55 PM |
Like most fps games it is primarily GPU limited and therefore any relatively new CPU will do. momir you would be correcting me |
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Tgard
on February 16, 2010 7:57 PM |
Well I guess that leaves me out with a Diamond Viper 3870 512MB card even though I play at 1280X1024. Knew my card was getting old but it works for my current games. Was hoping to squeeze a bit more life out of it but you are right about the low and medium settings looking bad. If I can't enjoy high settings on this game then it's not worth playing to me as I am picky too. Can't believe an $85 card (5570) beats mine already. Would expect todays $150+ cards to do that, but not an $85 budget card. Sheesh!! |
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skitzo_zac
on February 16, 2010 8:53 PM |
[-Steve-] said: skitzo_zac you can certainly play with older hardware, especially if you are gaming at low resolutions which you said you are. The 9800 GT which is basically an 8 series card averaged 55fps at 1680x1050 and that will allow for playable performance, it just depends on how picky you are. Anyway thanks heaps for the feedback so far guys! I didn't mean to detract from the article or anything. I am fully aware that if and when I get a new higher resolution monitor my setup especially GPU will not cut it anymore. And those people worried about their CPUs being powerful enough, I am running an original Conroe based C2D E6300@2.45GHz with no performance issues. |
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Steve
on February 16, 2010 9:24 PM |
Not a problem I really appreciate the feedback, keep it coming. |
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Alster37
on February 17, 2010 4:35 AM |
if anyones having crashes on a win 7 machine try right clicking the bioshock 2 icon and click run as directx 9 and the crashes should go away. |
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Guest
on February 17, 2010 6:28 AM |
I still have a GTX 7900 and a native resolution of 1600x1200. Any thoughts on what performance would be? What are the best setting I should change for a playable experience? |
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Guest
on February 17, 2010 10:12 AM |
Do you know if Bioshock 2 is Eyefinity friendly? I assume any new release will be. A little bit nervous as DragonAge is unplayable on Eyefinity as it has major draw-in issues. Did (or do you plan on) you do any testing with an Eyefinity setup? |
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Captain828
on February 17, 2010 12:53 PM |
While BioShock 2 is a hot new title, the new AvP game would be a lot more interesting to test out, especially since it has DX11 support. Besides that, the usual high-quality TS articles we're all used to see and read. |
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Guest
on February 27, 2010 6:55 AM |
This glorified rehash should run on the same hardware as it older brother. After all its doing exactly that in the consoles. |
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Guest
on February 28, 2010 12:11 AM |
Completed it a week ago on my laptop with a Geforce 7600 Go (below min spec), not the lowest settings but pretty low, so for me the sequel looked worse than the original (which I played at highish settings). Overall, the increase in requirements doesn't seem to match the graphical improvement |
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Guest
on February 28, 2010 10:12 AM |
Nice review! Well i am able to play everything high on a 8800gtx, what really surprised me. Anyway, the menues suck to navigate, and when i had quite some save games, it took like 2 seconds to change from one menue to another. still a great game |
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Guest
on March 5, 2010 7:07 PM |
How about the 3850/3870 on high? I didn't seem to notice those on the high quality benchmark settings. Back when I played Bioshock, it seemed i got smooth enough framerates at 3850 (at 1280x1024). So I'll just note that if people still have the 3850/3870 and still have a 19 inch 4:3 monitor, it should still be very playable on high quality. |
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