Middle Earth: The Shadow of Mordor Benchmarked

Downloading now. Will fuss with it tomorrow most likely with 860m and desktop 670 and report back.

 

Both are 2GB cards?

 

Digital Foundry: Eyes on with PC Shadow of Mordor.

I suppose that's the nail in the coffin. The texture pack is worthless.

 

And we thought Watchdogs was bad. At least Watchdogs had a faint stench of next gen and the textures were pretty good in my opinion. This game is a joke with its muddy textures and stupid high Vram usage. Sure its open world but its not as if there's a ton of things happening on screen.

 

I consider SoM better than Watch Dogs because watch dogs was a stutterfest which was DESIGNED to stutter if you used ultra, and was purposefully dumbed down for the PC crowd. Someone who re-packed the Ultra textures via a mod so that they activate when selecting "high" in the main menu was able to get the "ultra" textures in game minus almost all the stutter.... So no, I think Watch Dogs is STILL bad. This game is plagued with unoptimization in system resources, but otherwise it's been praised for running pretty well. Watch Dogs should be given no quarter. It was designed from the start to be awful for PC users, ESPECIALLY for AMD card users, in addition to the performance unoptimizations it contained.

 

I can only go on my experience with Watchdogs which was stutterless after the official patch.
But, you're right, Ubisoft are are bunch of tools for intentionally gimping the game, trolling PC with the txt file fiasco etc.
My point is somewhat subjective but really at the end of the day the Watchdogs mess asked for about 3.5 gb vram. SOM without the official Ultra texture addon uses 4gb already and in my opinion is far less impressive texture or engine wise than WD.
Well which ever way you slice it PC users are getting screwed, something needs to change.

 

I completely agree, this game performs a lot better than Watch Dogs, but man does it look awful. OK, I get that Mordor is supposed to be a drab and gloomy place, but for all the hoorah given about its insatiable appetite for VRAM, this game does not deliver on the visual front. Ultra textures are simply the uncompressed version of High. Aside from the massive difference in VRAM usage and stuttering, there's little to no visual difference.

Furthermore, there's some serious tiling going on everywhere I look. It's super obvious. My eyes simply bleed at all the repetitive textures. The game looks like Dark Souls II, but it sure as hell won't run at the same locked 60 FPS when maxed out. I'm gonna be pissed if this game ends up both looking and running worse than Witcher 2 once I get my hands on it. Somehow I have a feeling this will indeed be the case.

 

To me it looks about as detailed as a crappy Dynasty Warriors game but selfrightiously demands too much. I want to play it but the only way I can protest these bad practices is to boycott it until its $10 on steam.

 

Look on the bright side fellas, you get FREE AA with medium textures due to the blurriness! What's not to like about that?

 

Just like we get free AA with running a lower resolution, amirite?

 

So many people posting only their dedicated VRAM usage and not their shared GPU RAM usage. The link you posted sums it up nicely.

Don't forget the need for a bigger pagefile.sys, up to twice the cards VRAM, too if you want use of all your DRAM as well.

 

Oh yeah, for sure. There's a laundry list of titles that look and run better, some from way back in the day. I also want to play it, badly, but it's a no-buy for me until I can run High textures on 2GB VRAM without stuttering. Medium is a horrible blurry mess and too much of a dropoff from High and Ultra, requiring even 2GB for it is simply absurd. Absolutely shiite optimization.

 

dammit why you'd have to ruin my joke

 

For all I know you might be able to manage "high" at 1080p with most things turned up with 2GB vRAM cards... but I don't know how well your 650M SLI will fare performance-wise. Unless you are using a different laptop or using a desktop and I can't see your specs.

At least one good thing came from this: people now understand that vRAM usage is so wholly removed from GPU power that even 870Ms 6GB cards can turn on ultra and run it decently well XD.

 

Yeah, laptop in sig. Desktop has a 3GB 7950 for now, but I don't game on it much during the school year. I'm not really worried about GPU power as my overclocked 650M SLI is still faster than stock 770M/860M and Shadow of Mordor doesn't have too extreme of a GPU requirement except on the VRAM. I can always bump other settings down as needed, but texture quality is the one I won't sacrifice. High or bust. Medium looks so muddy, like something from 10 years ago.

I know, I'm such a killjoy smartass.

 

The game is amazing though, basically like a cross between Arkham style Batman and Assassin's Creed.

 

Which is why smooth gameplay is even more important given the fluid nature of the combat.

 

Yes. Not sure what we'll learn, but I'll give it a go.

 

Hey everyone
How good does it run on GTX 850M GDDR5 + Corei7 4710HQ Can I get a fix 50 or 40 fps on High Settings ? I mean with AA turned off and 1680/1050 resolution

 

The game doesn't support any built-in AA. At that res? You might be able to hit that.

I'm running at all high (textures and filtering at Ultra) and AO at medium. I get around 50FPS at 1080. Running an 880m.

I have a feeling you might need to tone things down to medium to hit a similar speed.

 

Here's GTX 860m using in-game benchmark showing min/avg FPS as well as vRAM usage during the benchmark at 4k, 1080p, 720p, Ultra (yes with downloaded textures), Very High, High, Medium. I did notice a little bit of stutter with the 4k, then again, it was also slower FPS. 1080p ultra played rather smooth, although there were occasional hiccups. Otherwise high 1080p was very smooth.

The 860m was running Prema's Mod, and 860m was running at Core = 1200MHz, vRAM = 5400MHz
Drivers are 340.52 WHQL





With max OC for my 860m setup, here are Very High game results: Core = 1370MHz, vRAM = 5800MHz



When you hover over texture quality in Advanced Options it gives you this popup:



FPS Graphs below:

Spoiler

 

The 1080p Ultra setting is in line with the previous post we had where they got Ultra running on a 2GB 760 if they limited it to 30fps. Interesting that it didn't hit the 2GB limit on just "high/very high" though.

Also more interesting is how it managed to use Shared GPU memory. I do not believe I've ever seen that before in a card... even my old 280M had a "shared vRAM" of 3.8GB (1GB on card) and I never saw it pass about 998MB usage.

 

Jeez, look at the min FPS at Ultra. It's using up all 2GB even at 720p.

 

That fps OMG !
GTX 860M is pretty much like 850M with 20% better performance though I believe I can reach 30 to 45 fps on 720P very high and on 1080 High I can get a 30 fps fix right? tomorrow I'll get the game and see what comes up

 

It seems that the benchmark will be more graphic intensive than the game will ever be at any given time. So you might be able to get away with slightly higher settings in game.

 

Can someone with a 870m or 880 tell me what fps getting in this game please?

 

Yeah, I plan on playing a bit and messing with settings a bit. Probably not all the settings I did above, but a handful of settings to get an idea on how it actually runs compared with benchmark.

 

On the contrary I have seen it said that the benchmark gains more fps than is realistically acquired in game.

 

Hey HT, did you run basic bench OCed, yet? Those Maxwell GTX860M are beasts.

 

Actually those runs were with 860m at 1200MHz and vRAM at 5400MHz, I should have made those comments. I'll try a few runs at my max ~ 1370MHz / 5800MHz

EDIT: Updated previous post with Max OC Core = 1370MHz / vRAM = 5800MHz for Very High setting only.

I also just updated to the latest 344.11 and now vRAM usage at very high at 720p is running close to 2GB. So not sure if there was an update that increase vRAM usage with the game. The graphics settings in game specifically stated that 3GB RAM or more recommended for high textures.

One thing I noticed though is the benchmark is not very consistent. The average FPS can vary about +/- 3fps with every run.

 

Benchmark test in german: Mittelerde: Mordors Schatten Benchmarks - Notebookcheck.com Tests

In 16 h in can start the game. Thank you DSL6k....

 

Yes, by quite a bit.

Also, don't be put off by the awful performance you'll get during the rain sequence in the introduction - that seems to be the most taxing that the game ever gets.

I'm running on very high with Textures and Texture Filtering on Ultra, AO on medium and Alpha Transparency off, and I get 45-50FPS constantly at 1080 on my 880m. The benchmark pegged me with an average of 74FPS which just isn't the case.

 

I finally got into the game a bit and so far I'd say game is roughly about same as benchmark. I chose high settings at 1080p and getting 35-45 FPS in battles, etc. This isn't the kind of game that you need 120FPS really.

 

TBoneSan mentioned it earlier, this is LOTR: War in the North (2011):

Spoiler

Should give you some perspective on Shadow of Mordor's image quality (specifically its texture work) and hardware hunger.

 

Is that with stock or oc 860m?

 

It's with 1200/5400

But for the most part it's in the 40's. Only with a lot of dudes around it drops a bit. But the game just doesn't need 120fps or 60fps. The action isn't dependent on twitch reflexes like an FPS. There's a lot of slow-mo, pause to click type stuff.

Here's an FPS grab from a fight scene with a lot of Uruks. Benchmark on High was average 43.8. Here it's 42.7. So I'd say fairly close.




Altbough I'm having a hard time figuring out this game. I about kill this one captain Uruk, his health is near gone, he goes on about to go ahead and finish him off, blah blah blah, and I go to do so then it shows him with his health back up to 80% or so, and then he kills me? What the heck.

 

M6100 here, in game benchmark get ~40s avg fps for both high and very high for 1080p. min fps for very high is in the 10s though.

Pretty beastly for its price, too bad can't seem to find a way to OC the card.

 

Maybe this will help.

How to make those Captains stay dead in Shadow of Mordor

 

Trolls are your friends, not to mention being completely OP. I spawned in to the game and one of the tier 1 captains died within 2 minutes because he picked a fight with the troll that's just below the cliff where you spawn. Easiest rune of my life.

If you're having problems with a mob, run to the nearest troll cave or Caragor den and aggro them. I saw a troll kill 40+ orc mobs like nothing.

 

"Trolls are you friends..." now that's something you don't read on forums very often lol! (yes context and all that for you sticklers)

 

I don't contend that. Trolls are generally predictable and easy to manipulate.

 

Thanks. But the point was during battle, I eliminated all but one of the other Uruks and the captain had like 5% health. It went into a semi-cut scene and he gave his speech about finishing him off. Then I went to do so, but instead of me finishing him off, he all of a sudden had like 80% health and killed me with a single blow. I was a bit confused.

I'll have to try that. I just think it's strange how you can put three arrows through their head too and it barely stuns them.

 

You weren´t supposed to defeat him at that point. My friend used to play alot of NHL-games and certain teams in certain finales were unbeatable. Even if he was two goals ahead the AI-controlled opponent magically scored three goals from nowhere in the last minute. This is clearly an NHL-Uruk.

Joking aside, single occurrence or often?

 

thats what i call a optimized game look at those benchmark for alien isolation.Even a 650ti manages 45-55fps
Alien Isolation PC Performance thread - NeoGAF

 

Reviews have been less than stellar though ;/

 

Finally! I was starting to lose hope with all the poorly optimized multiplats we've had on PC for the last year or so.

Looks pretty damn good to me: Alien: Isolation for PC Reviews - Metacritic

The low scores seem to be from Alien haters or reviewers who don't understand/appreciate the genre or Alien franchise. Remember, reviews are critiques and editorial pieces, not objective reports. So far, this looks worlds apart from Colonial Marines.

 

Eh my opinion on most games are in line with Gamespot reviews. I'll probably keep waiting until I hear more but with 2k coming out tomorrow and Mordor sitting unbeaten, I won't have time for this anyway until xmas.

 

I used to be an avid reader of GameSpot but I haven't followed it in a long time, not since Greg Kasavin and Jeff Gerstmann left and the fallout from that. The site seems to have become more and more console-focused over the years, which makes it even more off-putting. #Gamergate pretty much cemented my beliefs on journalistic integrity and corruption in game media, the seeds of doubt which were sown a long time ago. Nowadays I'll read the occasional PC Gamer review or watch the occasional TotalBiscuit video, but most of my game info comes from reading forums, Reddit, and 4chan.

 

After Gamespot merged with GameFAQs both places went to hell simultaneously (the message boards/community of course) . I'd know because I used to be a mod at GameFAQs.

 

Can't be as bad as the hellhole that is NeoGAF.