We won't be writing an article for this one, so just wanted to run a quick post on our new DLSS comparison in Battlefield V. This was easier to relegate to video format, seeing as it required more detailed visual comparisons than anything else. Some charts are present, but the goal is to compare DLSS on vs. off across two GPUs: The RTX 2080 Ti and the RTX 2060, each of which has different allowances for DLSS enablement.

The RTX 2060 can run DLSS at 1080p or 1440p, whereas the RTX 2080 Ti can only run DLSS at 4K, as an FPS which is too high will not allow for DLSS processing to complete before frame present (and so the 2080 Ti cannot step lower than 4K). Comparisons primarily try to find where the major upsides might be with DLSS, and they seem to mostly exist with very thin objects that have limited geometry in far distances, where DLSS can create a smoother image and eliminate some of the "marching ants" effect. On the flip-side, DLSS seems to introduce some blur to the image and doesn't outperform natively running at the lower resolution instead.

This content piece will explore the performance anomalies and command line options for the Final Fantasy XV benchmark, with later pieces going detailed on CPU and GPU benchmarks. Prior to committing to massive GPU and CPU benchmarks, we always pretest the game to understand its performance behaviors and scaling across competing devices. For FFXV, we’ve already detailed FPS impact of benchmark duration, impact of graphics settings and resolution on scaling, we’ve used command line to automate and custom configure benchmarks, and we’ve discovered poor frametime performance under certain benchmarking conditions.

We started out by testing for run-to-run variance, which would be used to help locate outliers and determine how many test passes we need to conduct per device. In this frametime plot, you can see that the first test pass, illustrated on a GTX 1070 with the settings in the chart, exhibits significantly more volatile frametimes. The frame-to-frame interval occasionally slams into a wall during the first 6-minute test pass, causing noticeable, visible stutters in gameplay.

As everyone begins running the Final Fantasy XV PC benchmark, we’d like to notify the userbase that, on our test platform, we have observed some run-to-run variance in frame-to-frame intervals from one pass to the next. This seems to stem entirely from the first pass of the benchmark, where the game is likely still loading all of the assets into memory. After the first pass, we’ve routinely observed improved performance on runs two, three, and onward. We attribute this to first-time launcher initialization of all the game assets.

To everyone’s confusion, a review copy of Dragon Ball FighterZ for Xbox One showed up in our mailbox a few days ago. We’ve worked with Bandai Namco in the past, but never on console games. They must have cast a wide net with review samples--and judging by the SteamCharts stats, it worked.

It’d take some digging through the site archives to confirm, but we might never have covered a real fighting game before. None of us play them, we’ve tapered off doing non-benchmark game reviews, and they generally aren’t demanding enough to be hardware testing candidates (recommended specs for FighterZ include a 2GB GTX 660). For the latter reason, it’s a good thing they sent us the Xbox version. It’s “Xbox One X Enhanced,” but not officially listed as 4K, although that’s hard to tell at a glance: the resolution it outputs on a 4K display is well above 1080p, and the clear, bold lines of the cel-shaded art style make it practically indistinguishable from native 4K even during gameplay. Digital Foundry claims it’s 3264 x 1836 pixels, or 85% of 4K in height/width.

Today, we’re using Dragon Ball FighterZ to test our new console benchmarking tools, and further iterate upon them for -- frankly -- bigger future launches. This will enable us to run console vs. PC testing in greater depth going forward.

Testing the Xbox One X for frametime and framerate performance marks an exciting step for GamersNexus. This is the first time we’ve been able to benchmark console frame pacing, and we’re doing so by deploying new, in-house software for analysis of lossless gameplay captures. At a very top-level, we’re analyzing the pixels temporally, aiming to determine whether there’s a change between frames. We then do some checks to validate those numbers, then some additional computational work to compute framerates and frametimes. That’s the simplest, most condensed version of what we’re doing. Our Xbox One X tear-down set the stage for this.

Outside of this, additional testing includes K-type thermocouple measurements from behind the APU (rear-side of the PCB), with more measurements from a logging plugload meter. The end result is an amalgamation of three charts, combining to provide a somewhat full picture of the Xbox One X’s gaming performance. As an aside, note that we discovered an effective Tcase Max of ~85C on the silicon surface, at which point the console shuts down. We were unable to force a shutdown during typical gameplay, but could achieve a shutdown with intentional torture of the APU thermals.

The Xbox One X uses an AMD Jaguar APU, which combines 40 CUs (4 more than an RX 480/580) at 1172MHz (~168MHz slower than an RX 580 Gaming X). The CPU component is an 8C processor (no SMT), and is the same as on previous Xbox One devices, just with a higher frequency of 2.3GHz. As for memory, the device is using 12GB of GDDR5 memory, all shared between the CPU and GPU. The memory operates an actual memory speed of 1700MHz, with memory bandwidth at 326GB/s. For point of comparison, an RX 580 offers about 256GB/s bandwidth. The Xbox One X, by all accounts, is an impressive combination of hardware that functionally equates a mid-range gaming PC. The PSU is another indication of this, with a 245W supply, at least a few watts of which are provided to the aggressive cooling solution (using a ~112mm radial fan).

Our Destiny 2 GPU benchmark highlighted massive performance uplift vs. beta on some devices, upwards of 50% on Vega, but was conducted in largely GPU-constrained scenarios. For this content piece, we’ll be exploring the opposite: CPU-constrained scenarios to benchmark Destiny 2 performance on AMD Ryzen and Intel Kaby/Coffee Lake parts, including the R7 1700, R5 1600X, R3 1200, and i7-7700K, i5-7600K, i3-8350K, and G4560.

Most of our test notes have already been recapped in the GPU benchmark, and won’t be fully repeated. Again, we ran a wide spread of tests during the beta, which will be informing our analysis for the Destiny 2 launch benchmarks. Find the previous content below:

• Destiny 2 Beta GPU Benchmark (+ graphics optimization guide, PvP scalability)
• Destiny 2 Beta CPU Benchmark (soon replaced by our Destiny 2 launch CPU bench)
• Destiny 2 texture comparison

As stated in the video intro, this benchmark contains some cool data that was exciting to work with. We don’t normally accumulate enough data to run historical trend plots across various driver or game revisions, but our initial Destiny 2 pre-launch benchmarks enabled us to compare that data against the game’s official launch. Bridging our pre-launch beta benchmarks with similar testing methods for the Destiny 2 PC launch, including driver changes, makes it easier to analyze the deviation between CPU, driver, and game code optimizations.

Recapping the previous tests, we already ran a wide suite of Destiny 2 benchmarks that included performance scaling tests in PvP multiplayer, campaign/co-op multiplayer, and various levels/worlds in the game. Find some of that content below:

• Destiny 2 Beta GPU Benchmark (+ graphics optimization guide, PvP scalability)
• Destiny 2 Beta CPU Benchmark (soon replaced by our Destiny 2 launch CPU bench)
• Destiny 2 texture comparison

NOTE: Our Destiny 2 CPU benchmark is now live.

Some of our original graphics optimization work also carried forward, allowing us to better pinpoint Depth of Field on Highest as one of the major culprits to AMD’s performance. This has changed somewhat with launch, as you’ll find below.

We’re sticking with FXAA for testing. Bungie ended up removing MSAA entirely, as the technique has been buggy since the beta, and left only SMAA and FXAA in its place.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is launching this Friday, and Bethesda have now published the final minimum and recommended specs. Bethesda is touting some PC-focused features like uncapped framerates (as we saw in the Destiny 2 beta, this can also mean “capped above 144”), choice of aspect ratio (4:3, 16:9, 16:10, or 21:9 ultrawide), an FOV slider (70-120), and 4K support.

The New Colossus will use the Vulkan API, following in the footsteps of the notoriously well-optimized DOOM reboot. In our DOOM testing more than a year ago, AMD’s RX 480 benefitted strongly from using Vulkan rather than OpenGL, as did NVIDIA’s 1080 to a lesser degree. Vega is specifically mentioned in this release, and Bethesda claims that with Vulkan they’ve been able to “utilize the power of AMD's Vega graphics chips in ways that were not possible before.” We’ll be publishing GPU tests as soon as possible.

From Bethesda’s site:

UPDATE: We have run new CPU benchmarks for the launch of this game. Please view the Destiny 2 launch CPU benchmarks here.

Our Destiny 2 GPU benchmark was conducted alongside our CPU benchmark, using many of the same learnings from our research for the GPU bench. For GPU testing, we found Destiny 2 to be remarkably consistent between multiplayer and campaign performance, scaling all the way down to a 1050 Ti. This remained true across the campaign, which performed largely identically across all levels, aside from a single level with high geometric complexity and heavy combat. We’ll recap some of that below.

For CPU benchmarking, GN’s Patrick Lathan used this research (starting one hour after the GPU bench began) to begin CPU tests. We ultimately found more test variance between CPUs – particularly at the low-end – when switching between campaign and multiplayer, and so much of this content piece will be dedicated to the research portion behind our Destiny 2 CPU testing. We cannot yet publish this as a definitive “X vs. Y CPU” benchmark, as we don’t have full confidence in the comparative data given Destiny 2’s sometimes nebulous behaviors.

For one instance, Destiny 2 doesn’t utilize SMT with Ryzen, producing utilization charts like this:

UPDATE: We have run benchmarks of the launch version of Destiny 2. Please view the launch Destiny 2 GPU benchmarks here.

The Destiny 2 beta’s arrival on PC provides a new benchmarking opportunity for GPUs and CPUs, and will allow us to plot performance uplift once the final game ships. Aside from being a popular beta, we also want to know if Bungie, AMD, and nVidia work to further improve performance in the final stretch of time prior to the official October 24 launch date. For now, we’re conducting an exploratory benchmark of multiplayer versus campaign test patterns for Destiny 2, quality settings, and multiple resolutions.

A few notes before beginning: This is beta, first off, and everything is subject to change. We’re ultimately testing this as it pertains to the beta, but using that experience to learn more about how Destiny 2 behaves so that we’re not surprised on its release. Some of this testing is to learn about settings impact to performance (including some unique behavior between “High” and “Highest”), multiplayer vs. campaign performance, and level performance. Note also that drivers will iterate and, although nVidia and AMD both recommended their respective drivers for this test (385.41, 17.8.2), likely change for final release. AMD in particular is in need of a more Destiny-specific driver, based on our testing, so keep in mind that performance metrics are in flux for the final launch.

Note also: Our Destiny 2 CPU benchmark will be up not long after this content piece. Keep an eye out for that one.