Performance: Games

For the Asus G51J 3D, we do testing of games in both normal and 3D mode to see the effects of Stereoscopic 3D. We also used a larger spectrum of games than we would normally use to help with our evaluation of NVIDIA Vision 3D and its affect on gaming experience.

NVIDIA 3D Vision Ready Notebook - Asus G51J 3D Review - Mobile 68

Just looking at frame rates (we looked at the quality of NVIDIA Vision 3D earlier in this article) NVIDIA’s 3D Vision would take down your frame rate on an average of 55%. (We recorded performance decreases was between 43% to 72%). This shouldn’t be too surprising since the GPU is effectively rendering the scene twice for the left and right eye in 3D Vision mode, whereas normal rendering would only need to render once.

As we have seen in games like Demigod, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and Mass Effect 2, the performance hit is noticeable and is the difference between a silky smooth game and one that stutters along.

With 3D Vision enabled, you may have to decrease your rendering complexity in order to maintain a good playable frame rate. If given the choice between better visuals, or stereoscopic 3D, which would you choose? This is the sort of decision you’ll have to contend with when owning an Asus G51J 3D.

Another point to consider is that if you connect a 120 Hz capable HD display, it’s likely that 3D Vision in combination with the GeForce GTX 260M on the Asus G51J 3D will struggle under the weight of 1920×1080 resolution given the fact that the system is just sufficient for current games at 1366×768 resolution. To render at 1920×1080 with NVIDIA 3D Vision enabled, you will need to adjust your game quality settings down to help improve the frame rates.

Game Settings:
  • Battlefield: Bad Company 2 – Medium settings, 1366×768.
  • DiRT2 – 1366×768. Ultra settings.
  • Defense Grid – 1366×768. All details set to high or enabled.
  • Demigod – 1366×768. All details set to high or enabled.
  • Fallout 3 – 1366×768. High Details (4xAA, 8XAF. HDR enabled.)
  • Freelancer – 1024×768.
  • Left 4 Dead 2 – 1366×768, 4xMSAA, 8x AF. Shader: Very High, Effect Detail, Model, Paged Pool Mem: High
  • Mass Effect 2 – 1366×768, all effects ON. 3 CInematic lights. 4x Anisotropic Filtering.
  • Max Payne 2 – 1366x768x32.
  • Torchlight – 1366×768. All effects enabled and on highest setting.

 

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