Resident Evil 7 : PC graphics performance benchmark review

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Graphics memory (VRAM) usage and Conclusion

Graphics memory (VRAM) usage

How much graphics memory does the game utilize versus your monitor resolution with different graphics cards and respective VRAM sizes ? Well, lets have a look at the chart below. The listed MBs used in the chart are the maximum measured utilized graphics memory during the test run. 


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During game-play the game is swapping and loading stuff, you can sometimes literally see textures being filled into objects. Up-to Full HD (1920x1080) an up-to 4 GB graphics card of decent caliber will do the job well. 6 GB or better is your best bet and target for 2560x1440, especially at the best image quality settings VRAM eats away a large portion of whatever is available. If you want to play Ultra quality with Ultra HD as preferred monitor resolution, that 4GB is the absolute minimum (unless you are comfortable to twiddle and fiddle around a little with AA settings etc). Again, the graphics cards with over 6 GB VRAM overall felt a bit smoother. 


Right, a bit of a spoiler alert .... decide yourself if you want to watch the above. Recorded on a GeForce GTX 1080 @ 1440p60


Concluding

People are going to love this game for it's creepy gameplay. It is a biach to measure a steady FPS though hence the results today are merely indicative, and certainly not objective enough in my book alright. Trust me, your FPS will be all over the place changing from scene to scene. We'll likely re-do all benchmarks in a few weeks after the game has been patched and the graphics card drivers have had the time to mature.

The graphics are not bad TBH, the results however are all over the place and that makes this article an indicative one. You will run at 100 FPS at one point and then at 50 FPS the next, this is the complexity of the game and environment. Perhaps a few driver updates will bring the weird differential results a bit closer to each other, then again if most graphics card offer 50+ FPS at 2560x1440, we do not see a real issue either. With full quality settings a 6 GB or higher VRAM card does feel better and smoother to play. 

** Update #1: Nvidia released a new driver which massively impacts performance. The results have been updated but we'd not be surprized to see something similar happening with AMD drivers. hence the results today remain subjective. The game is incredible hard to measure objectively.

** Update #2:

After lots of weird results with graphics card that have less then 4 GB of VRAM we found out that one problematic setting is the Shadow cache.

  1. If you have an up-to 4 GB graphics card, please turn it off.
  2. However if you have a 6GB or 8GB card, leave the shadow cache activated. 

In closing,

There have been an unfortunate three revisions of the benchmarks with results all over the place. The last batch (revision 3 as you see them) are valid. The Shadow Cache settings disabled offers the best game-play for the majority of cards hence it is the preferred and recommended setting, for 6GB and upwards shadow cache enabled can offer better results, use it at your own peril. In-between revision 1 and 3 of the review a lot has happened, new drivers 5 minutes after I posted the initial article, totally weird anomalies but also an error on my side that boosted perf on the earlier tests. I think this was the cause of my having interlaced modus activated (mistakenly) on some of the cards as I have been goofing around with that on day 1. Totally my bad, but I am not even 100% sure either that was issue as the game remains difficult to measure. We will retest the game in a few weeks when the drivers on both sides have matured and when the game has had a patch or two. The initial results up-to revision 3 have been far from ideal, but the rev3 results do match what you guys should get gameplay / FPS wise closest. I have also retested an rx480 with both the shadow cache on and disabled. The perf differential is not far away from each other really. However on the opposite side, going to a 4GB card with shadow cache enabled brings in issues, stutters and game perf differences as shown in the FCAT results. That said, the results as they stand with rev3 stand and are sound.

Creep on !

Please do make sure you have installed the latest compatible graphics card driver, the new 17.1.1 or higher driver from AMD as well as GeForce 378.49 or newer drivers. Download the latest AMD Catalyst drivers here and the Nvidia GeForce drivers here.

- H.

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