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» MEDIA (8) I Guess I Can't Walk Through Walls... Graph Set 1 Graph Set 2 Graph Set 3 Graph Set 4 Max/Min/Avg Table FEAR: Video Stress Test CS:S: Video Stress Test

•Intro•
It’s nothing new to PC gamers out there to be able to take their favorite first-person shooters and go head to head with one another online. Made famous by game franchises like Unreal Tournament and Quake, online capabilities are now a necessity for any successful FPS. The ability to play an online deathmatch in your favorite shooter adds a whole new dimension to any game. Custom maps, clans, tournaments, stat tracking and much more are all made possible by online gameplay.

When games are first released, needless to say, they typically rip your computer a new one (just look at Supreme Commander… ). With first-person shooters, you will often find that your performance will dip fairly dramatically when playing a network or online game. While ping and bandwidth would have some negative impact on performance, the fact that your computer and graphics card are required to display many more active players on a 3D plane in real time can be extremely taxing, depending on the game.

(See Video: I Guess I Can't Walk Through Walls...)

I was unsure of what games would give the best examples to test this tax that online first-person shooters take from the average system. So, after much contemplation, I gave in to the voices in my head and chose two of my favorites: Counter-Strike: Source and F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon. Both of these titles are convenient due to their large sleepless fan base, making it quite easy to find full capacity servers to grind out some chunks of data.

•Methodology•
In order to achieve more timely and consistent results, both Counter-Strike: Source (CS:S) and F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon (FEAR) were played on the same map in empty and full servers with a consistent 50 ping or less to minimize fluctuation in my data. My maps of choice were “CS_Office” for CS:S and “Campus” for FEAR I then tested different resolutions and settings over the course of many rounds including Anti Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering as well as environmental effects (i.e. water reflections, lighting effects, etc), in some of my 1600x1200x32 tests. HDR was enabled only during my testing when the environmental effects where on. All recording was done through FRAPS. Tests were 1 minute in length on CS:S, and FEAR’s tests were 3 minutes in length. For every one test I did in FEAR, I did three times as many in CS:S to compensate for the shortened period of recorded data. This was due to Counter-Strike’s nature of very short, rapid paced rounds whereas FEAR has long continuous rounds. After everything was said and done, I slowly started to regain my sanity and pulled the data together. The graphs show the average frames per second achieved in each condition and the chart gives a more detailed perspective, showing the maximum and minimum frame rate.

•On the Bench•
AMD Opteron 165 Overclocked @ 2.4 GHz

Abit AT8 32X

2x1GB Kingston HyperX PC3200 KHX3200AK2/2G, Timings 2-3-2-6-1T

Ati Radeon X1800XT
Catalyst Drivers 7.2

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum

Western Digital Raptor WD740AD

Windows XP Professional SP2

Benchmarks
Counter-Strike: Source
FEAR: First Encounter Assault Recon

(See Picture: Graph Sets 1-4)
(See Picture: Max/Min/Avg Table)

•Evaluation•
The first thing I noticed when I compiled all of the data was that my average frame rate in a full server on Counter-Strike: Source was pretty much the same throughout all of my tests, no matter what settings I threw at it. So I went back to that server during the wee morning hours when it wasn’t at full capacity. The server holds a maximum of 32 players and it was always full during my initial testing. But, this time the server was only about half full and my frame rate was more in the neighborhood of 80-90 frames per second rather than the 70 I was averaging before. This only proves that, at least in Counter-Strike: Source, that the number of players has very real influence in performance.

I must say, though, after a few hours of running around alone in an empty server, you go a little crazy. I began contemplating ‘nading myself more times than the average male thinks about intercourse... Despite the urge, I persevered and didn’t blow myself up. I finally finished gathering all of my data, but I did one last test; a run through the CS:S and FEAR Video Stress Tests. With max settings on 1600x1200, AA, AF, and environmental effects turned all the way up, CS:S averaged 109.68 FPS and FEAR a mere 40.34. Both maps proved to be fairly accurate benchmarking tools when compared to the stress tests. Of course, each different map in any game will have its individual graphic demands. But to compare settings, one map in each game was not only necessary for practicality’s sake but to provide accurate results as well.

(See Picture: CS:S Video Stress Test
(See Picture: FEAR Video Stress Test

FEAR had a dramatic drop in the frame rate with the environmental effects turned on. The physics engine seemed to have quite an appetite for a graphics card that was last year’s news. In a crowded server, as long as the environmental effects were disabled, FEAR was 100% playable with Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering turned all the way up at 1600x1200. Playing with 12-16 other people all but crippled my rig’s performance with everything on. When there was a lot of action in my immediate area, the frame rate was in the low 20’s at best.

CS:S was not only playable, but for the majority of my testing, completely smooth on any setting at any resolution. Despite a few frame rate dips when someone launched a grenade into a pack of file cabinets, Counter-Strike: Source seemed pretty seamless during my testing. On a side note, I must say, the X1800XT certainly exceeded my expectations during most of the testing.

•Summary•
With a better understanding of the effects of online multiplayer gaming in a first-person shooter, we as gamers have an easier task of optimizing our systems for the job. Before my testing began, I didn’t honestly expect to have as dramatic of a difference in performance as I did between a full server and an empty one. Games today are taxing systems like never before. With advanced physics engines, realistic lighting effects and characters so detailed you can see their nose hair, game developers are demanding more of our hardware every day. Revolutionary graphics cards are emerging and more capable, price friendly PC components are becoming more readily available. Between all that and the recent upgrade frenzy cause by the release of Windows Vista, our standard of gaming is going to shoot up by leaps and bounds. Has anyone seen Crysis? Anyone?