Splinter Cell: Double Agent: A Performance Analysis
by Josh Venning on December 8, 2006 2:10 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Settings
We tested Double Agent at two major settings; the first we refer to as high quality, and the other we will call medium quality (though the game doesn't have specific settings that correspond with this). With high quality settings, all the graphics settings are set to "on" and/or to their highest quality level (with the exception of AA and HDR which are mutually exclusive on cards that don't support floating point with AA, such as the GeForce 7 series).
We found that the settings which had some of the largest impacts on performance with Splinter Cell: Double Agent were the different shadow settings, specifically high quality soft shadows and high detail shader. By turning off these effects as well as trilinear filtering, we were able to significantly improve performance, making the game much more playable on lower-end hardware.
We chose these settings for our lower quality tests both because of the improved performance they offer while still allowing for some great visuals. Certain settings like high detail environments and high detail shader might offer better performance when switched to low or off, but we found the sacrifice in graphical quality too great to justify anything but "high" for these options. Luckily, the game isn't the most graphically intensive game out right now, and it happens to run well at highest quality on a wide variety of cards, particularly with ATI hardware.
Without the shadow effects enabled, the game does look a bit less striking, but the performance gains we see with these settings off is a good trade-off, especially for lower end hardware. Also, there is almost no difference visually with these settings on or off in our first benchmark because it takes place at night, and this will be the case for many areas in the game. Of course, if you have a card that can handle the extra stress, the complex shadow effects make levels like the cruise ship look much more stunning.
As we mentioned, because there is no timedemo function like with the previous Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, we had to use FRAPS to record the frame rate for both of our benchmarks. Even though we used FRAPS rather than a timedemo to record our average frame rates during these scenes, our results were fairly consistent between multiple runs. To be as accurate as possible, we also ran each benchmark multiple times and took the mean result.
We tested Double Agent at two major settings; the first we refer to as high quality, and the other we will call medium quality (though the game doesn't have specific settings that correspond with this). With high quality settings, all the graphics settings are set to "on" and/or to their highest quality level (with the exception of AA and HDR which are mutually exclusive on cards that don't support floating point with AA, such as the GeForce 7 series).
We found that the settings which had some of the largest impacts on performance with Splinter Cell: Double Agent were the different shadow settings, specifically high quality soft shadows and high detail shader. By turning off these effects as well as trilinear filtering, we were able to significantly improve performance, making the game much more playable on lower-end hardware.
We chose these settings for our lower quality tests both because of the improved performance they offer while still allowing for some great visuals. Certain settings like high detail environments and high detail shader might offer better performance when switched to low or off, but we found the sacrifice in graphical quality too great to justify anything but "high" for these options. Luckily, the game isn't the most graphically intensive game out right now, and it happens to run well at highest quality on a wide variety of cards, particularly with ATI hardware.
Without the shadow effects enabled, the game does look a bit less striking, but the performance gains we see with these settings off is a good trade-off, especially for lower end hardware. Also, there is almost no difference visually with these settings on or off in our first benchmark because it takes place at night, and this will be the case for many areas in the game. Of course, if you have a card that can handle the extra stress, the complex shadow effects make levels like the cruise ship look much more stunning.
As we mentioned, because there is no timedemo function like with the previous Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, we had to use FRAPS to record the frame rate for both of our benchmarks. Even though we used FRAPS rather than a timedemo to record our average frame rates during these scenes, our results were fairly consistent between multiple runs. To be as accurate as possible, we also ran each benchmark multiple times and took the mean result.
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sdedward - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
Have you ever gotten a recall letter in the mail? Thats basically what it says.
shabby - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
But every car doesnt have a recall. Today it seems like every game gets patched before it even hits stores.Josh Venning - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
It is very frustrating when a game is released that seems as unfinished as this. The problem is that unlike with other types of products, it's not very easy to pin down who/what exactly is responsible for the problems. Regardless of this, the consumer is the one who ends up suffering, and that's just unacceptable. Thanks for your comments.Jodiuh - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
Printing now! Thanks for continuing to provide that button. Quite a few sites have removed it and they wind up not getting their arty's read. My notebook gets hot, so I prefer to read these on paper in a comfy chair, couch, bed, etc. :DSomewhat OT, should I be playing the SC series in order? I played through about 25% of the first one and maybe 10 minutes of Chaos Theory. Are they good enough to play through? Should I just play Double Agent?
Le Québécois - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
Yes I think playing all the SC series in order would be a good thing since every one of them was(still is) a very good game(if you like the stealth/assassin kind of game of course).The older ones should be pretty cheap to buy IF you manage to find them.
Years after years I am pretty amaze that Ubisoft can come with a pretty good game franchise with so little time between the release of each games.
Jodiuh - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
Buddy's gonna let me borrow the first one. I'll hit it up after HL2.Josh Venning - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
I personally only played Chaos Theory and Double Agent, but I found them both to be very enjoyable. I think the storyline of Chaos Theory might have been a little better than Double Agent, especially towards the end, but Double Agent had some more interesting gameplay scenarios. I highly recommend playing them both through though, if you can.Jodiuh - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
Just got through the article...I guess I'll start w/ a SC game that'll run on my card then, lol. This has to be the worst evidence yet of console porting. Normally, it's the interface that sucks. But DA screams port in a hardware way!! And it makes me hate the consoles even more...