Feb 16, 2010

BioShock 2 image quality comparison

TechSpot has an article on BioShock 2 that provides performance specs for a number of graphics cards at different resolutions. The most interesting part, however, is the set of screenshot comparisons between the stock low, medium, and high graphics settings. The difference is remarkable:


These are the full 2560 x 1600 res screenies if the side-by-side shots above:  [continue]



HIGH


MEDIUM


LOW


Check out this page for the rest. That seems like a hell of a big difference in quality, and TechSpot is justifiably distressed:


Having now thoroughly tested BioShock 2 using a small army of graphics cards, we can safely say that gamers should only aim to play this game using the high quality preset. Not only did we see a significant reduction in visual quality when using the medium quality preset, but the performance was not greatly improved.
The Radeon HD 5750 saw its average frame rate increase by 8.5%, a mere 6 fps gain, while the minimum frame rate was increased by just a single frame. Slower graphics cards, such as the GeForce 9600 GT, also saw small gains, with the average increasing by 9% which worked out to be a dismal 4 extra frames per second. These small performance gains simply don't justify the noticeable reduction in visual quality.
You have to wonder what else is going on with the engine when making the game ugly doesn't get you more than a few extra frames. So much for that dedicated PC team at 2K.

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