Performance – Diablo 3, Skyrim, Battlefield 3
Performance – Diablo 3
Diablo 3 has earned a lot of praise (and a lot of criticism) since its initial release. I think it’s a beautiful game that combines good-enough technical quality with excellent art direction. The game can run on just about anything built in the last few years if the Low FX setting is turned on, but you really should run it on high to appreciate all the game has to offer.
Our benchmark is recorded via FRAPs using a character who will be perpetually stuck in the early Cathedral dungeons as a benchmarking mule.
Even at 1366×768, this game puts out the pain on most of the graphics solutions in our roundup. Intel HD 4000 is unplayable at high detail. The 26 FPS result from Trinity looks good, but I still found it a frustrating experience. Diablo 3 is all about fast-paced action and this means slow framerates are readily apparent. Even the GT 630M is borderline. And then we have the GT 640M, which doubles the performance of the GT 630M and runs away from the pack.
At 1080p none of the integrated solutions are remotely playable and the GT 630M also falls on its face. Only the GT 640M can handle the game at this resolution with high detail settings. Even at an average of 45 FPS there were periods of slower performance that could be noticed and I suspect that gamers playing on Inferno difficulty may need to turn down the graphics in order to ensure smoothness at all times.
Performance – Skyrim
Skyrim is a game that turned out to be a lot less demanding than I had feared. The past history of Elder Scrolls titles indicated that this would bring computers to their knees, but it turns out that medium detail is fairly easy for modern laptops to handle and the gastill looks okay.
The benchmark is a simple save game in an outdoors area in the southeast of the map. Gameplay is recorded via FRAPS. I always walk down the same path and kill the same monsters with the same mace-and-shield to make sure this is an apples-to-apples comparison.
Okay, here’s a shocker: Skyrim at medium detail is about as demanding as both Civilization 5 at low/medium and Diablo 3 at high. If you had told me three years ago that the next Elder Scrolls game and the next Civilization game would be equally difficult to run I would have called you crazy.
This title is arguably the worst showing for Intel HD 4000 – and the best for Trinity. The Radeon 7660G and the NVIDIA GT 630M nearly double the performance of the best HD 4000 solution at 1366×768. Upping the resolution to 1080p drags down Trinity into unenjoyable territory, but the GT 630M remains capable. And then we have the GT 640M which once again proves that upgrading to a mid-range GPU offers a huge performance boost relative to any IGP on the market today.
Performance – Battlefield 3
Battlefield 3 is another example of a beautiful game that runs surprisingly well. Many people were expecting it to raise the bar on graphics, and in many ways I think that it did. This is a spectacular game even at medium detail. But unlike some previous graphical showcases it’s entirely possible to play BF3 on current low-end laptop hardware.
My benchmark takes place during the second mission in the game and starts right after you’re given the mission to find a missing squad. The player has to run through the streets before being ambushed in a parking lot area.
At 1366×768 and medium detail the game is just barely playable on the Core i7-3720QM’s version of HD 4000 and is playable on Trinity and both discrete solutions. While Trinity and the GT 630M have similar average framerates, I did feel like the game was smoother on the GT 630M.
I have to go to 1080p if I really want to challenge the hardware, and this changes the situation significantly. Suddenly only the GT 640M is playable at medium detail, and even that solution was just barely capable of handling the strain.
Nice work, I was glad to see
Nice work, I was glad to see you go with higher LODs than we’ve been seeing in reviews. I hope this is something that you’ll update with more games and chips (like lesser Trinity models) when timeavailability permits.
how much slower is a sb
how much slower is a sb hd3000 compared to ib hd4000?
Well, I didn’t do testing
Well, I didn’t do testing that would provide a truly accurate figure, but I’d say 30 to 50% slower depending on the game. That’s compared to the Intel HD 4000 in the Core i7-3720QM, not the ultrabook version.
not that much.
I have a core
not that much.
I have a core i5 laptop with HD3000 and it plays Diablo 3 at 24+fps at low settings and resolution at 1200×720. Makes it very playable.
Have yet to try BF3 and Skyrim as I have those but they should perform similar (but slightly less) to the HD4000.
Interesting article. I’m in
Interesting article. I’m in the market for a new laptop and want it to be able to handle SC2 reasonably well, but still lean to the thin and portable side, though not necessarily an ultrabook. Glad to hear that Optimus is doing well and seamless as I hadn’t really stayed on top of it. Will any laptop that has an ivy/sandybridge CPU and a nvidia gpu have optimus or only if it specifically indicates so? That is, are there other components that need to be in place that might not be in place if not indicated?
I believe all of the
I believe all of the 600-series GPUs and most of the 500-series GPUs have Optimus. You should still check the laptop description to be sure, as it will almost always be listed as a feature.
3D Vision enabled laptops are the exception (there is apparently a difficulty with offering 3D Vision and Optimus together) but you’re probably not looking for that anyway.
Why test these budget
Why test these budget oriented notebooks on high/medium settings? They should’ve been tested on Low settings, so that we’d at least know if they can handle the games.
As it is, all I learned is that HD4000 can’t handle medium, ever.
I don’t find it interesting
I don’t find it interesting to discover if a laptop can run a game at settings that make the game look like ass.
I am not unsympathetic if you disagree. After all, money is not unlimited and maybe you want to know if a laptop can just barely play that game you have your eye on.
But that’s not the perspective I decided on for this article.
I applaud your decision to
I applaud your decision to try gaming at higher settings. For benchmarks at the lowest settings, try every other review on the web.
Now seeing the ASUS ultrabook
Now seeing the ASUS ultrabook with the GT 620M in it, I wished this also had that chip in it’s comparison – as I’m wondering if it is worth getting the model that has it. Oh well.
We have not reviewed a GT
We have not reviewed a GT 620M equipped laptop but we did review the Dell XPS 15z, which had the similar GT 525M. It could play a lot of games at 1366×768 and low/medium settings but that’s the limit for new titles. For example, it achieved about 25 FPS in BF3 at 1366×768, but went down to an unplayable 15 FPS at 1080p.
Thanks Matt.
Thanks Matt.
I was looking at getting an
I was looking at getting an Acer laptop with a 630m. Can anyone confirm if it can play Diablo 3 on Infero with at least LOW settings no lag?
I have a default Acer Aspire
I have a default Acer Aspire x3990 with windows 7, people sau that the Intel® HD Graphics wont run Dawn of War 2 even on low, other say I can. Do you believe it will run even if it has the lowest quality settings.