Gothic 3 (2006) - Retro Test GPU

BASIC GAME INFORMATION

   

Year of construction: 2006
Genre:RPG
developer: Piranha Bytes
Publishing house: Nordic Games 

 

Invading hordes of orcs have enslaved the kingdom of humans. The few who were able to maintain freedom are hiding in the waterless southern deserts and among the ice in the northern territories. A handful of rebels in the mountains and forests of Midland are trying to organize resistance to the enemy. You can join the rebels or enter the service of the orcs. But in any case, you will play a major role in the upcoming events and decide the outcome of the war.

In Gothic 3 there is no storyline in the usual sense - each episode of the game will be unique and unique. Myrtana's fate will be in your hands...

THE GRAFICAL PART

This subsection of our review highlights the main graphical aspects of this game. Particular attention is paid to the version of the graphics engine used, the version of the API used, graphic settings and the quality of development of the main visual aspects.

Supported OS and graphics API

Gothic 3 is supported by major operating systems Windows, which includes Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. Other operating systems are not currently supported by developers and will not be supported. 

 

The priority and main graphics API for Gothic 3 is DirectX 9. 

Game engine

Gothic 3 is based on a proprietary engine. The game engine is a proprietary product of the Piranha Bytes studio. There is practically no information on the network about the structure and development of this engine. Rather, the engine is a further development of the product line for games based on the Piranha Bytes studio's own intellectual property.

 

We were unable to find detailed information other than our own visual observations. 

Advanced Game Settings

Gothic 3 has a wide range of graphics settings, which made it possible to customize the game to almost any gaming configuration of the time. All graphic settings are located in two menu sub-items.

   

Below we have provided screenshots of the game at various graphics settings, where our readers can see the difference between the minimum, medium and maximum graphics quality settings. 

Various quality modes

We see the greatest difference in graphics quality when moving from low to medium settings. In all cases, the difference in graphics is visible to the naked eye.

Comparison of FullHD and 4K

In 4K Gothic 3 looks simply amazing, one might even say stunning...

Comparison of anti-aliasing modes

Activating full-screen anti-aliasing FXAA removes surface unevenness, but slightly blurs the image.

General visual design and game physics

Gothic 3, of course, was not a super-technological project for its time, but at the same time it had very beautiful game graphics. But manufacturability is one thing, but scale and epicness is another matter. To this day, Gothic 3 can outshine any modern open-world game in terms of its scale, which, in turn, still seems incredibly alive and realistic.

 

Cities teeming with life, diverse game locations, beautiful landscapes - the question immediately arises: why are developers now unable to make such games? This question also concerns Piranha Bytes with their latest Risen 3 - Titan Lords...

 

But along with the incredible scale, Gothic 3 also showed simply incredible system requirements for the hardware of that time. And the glitches and freezes themselves were not cured immediately, but with the release of a whole bunch of patches. But still, the game was worth all the money spent on upgrading the PC - the feeling of playing through it was simply incredible!

 

Next, we will move directly to gaming tests and determine what impact this game has on modern computer hardware. 

TEST PART

Test GPU

All video cards were tested at maximum graphics quality using MSI Afterburner. The purpose of the test is to determine how video cards from different manufacturers behave under the same conditions. The average and minimum FPS were taken as performance indicators. Below is a video of the test segment:   

Our video cards were tested at separate screen resolutions of 1920x1080, 2560x1600 and 3840x2160 at maximum graphics quality settings allowed by Gothic 3. Oddly enough, neither SLI nor AMD CrossFireX are currently supported by the game. SLI was excluded from the tests altogether, as it works absolutely incorrectly in the game.

Testing at resolution 1920x1080

       

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 

 

With these settings An acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon HD 6850 or GeForce GTX 650 Ti level.

Testing at 2560x1600 resolution

 

Testing at maximum quality settings 2560x1600

 

With these settings An acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon HD 6850 or GeForce GTX 750 Ti level. 

Testing at resolution 3840x2160

  

Testing at maximum quality settings 3840x2160

 

With these settings An acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon R7 260X or GeForce GTX 660 level. 

Testing of video memory consumed by the game was carried out by the program MSI Afterburner. The indicator was based on results on top video cards from AMD and NVIDIA with separate screen sizes 1920x1080 and 2560x1600 with different anti-aliasing settings.

Testing at maximum memory quality settings GPU

 

The recommended amount of video memory usage for a resolution of 1920x1080 will be 512 MB of video memory, for a resolution of 2560x1600 - 768 MB of video memory and for a resolution of 3840x2160 about 1024 MB of video memory. 

Micro-Stuttering Test

Introducing our testing of FPS output latency on a Micro-Stuttering monitor. The indicator was based on the results on multi-chip configurations of video cards from AMD and NVIDIA at a resolution of 1920x1080 with maximum image quality settings.

Testing at maximum Micro-Stuttering quality settings GPU 

 

Micro-Stuttering latency indicators for video cards are within normal limits.

CPU test

     

We tested processor dependence on 15 models of basic configurations that are relevant today. The test was carried out in those places where the video card value for the game is minimal and its load was less than 99%, this time at a resolution of 1920x1080 with maximum graphics quality settings.

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 

 

CPU performance in the game, even on modern models, is a rather pitiful sight...

Loading of processor coresat maximum quality settings 1920x1080 Intel% 

 

Loading of processor cores at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 AMD% 

 

And here is the explanation for such low performance - the game fully utilizes at most 1-1.5 processor cores...

RAM test

The test was carried out on the basic configuration of Core i 7 3970X@4.9 GHz with 16GB DDR3 2400 MGz pre-installed memory. The entire used operational memory was taken as an indicator. The RAM test on the entire system was carried out on various test benches without launching third-party applications (browsers, etc.).

Testing the game's RAM consumption at various quality settings 

 

As we can see, with various quality settings, the amount of RAM consumed in Gothic 3 is at the level of 1200-1400 megabytes.  

Testing system RAM consumption  

 

On a 4GB system, Gothic 3 consumes about 2.9GB of RAM. In the presence of a system with 8 gigabytes, the RAM consumption of all RAM was 3.2 gigabytes. With a 16 GB system, the total memory consumption was almost 3.9 gigabytes.