Alpha Protocol test GPU
Year of construction: 2010
Genre: Arcade / Racing (Cars) / 3D
developer : Bizarre Creations
Publisher: Activision
Publisher in Russia: 1C-SoftKlab
System requirements for maximum visual quality recommended by the game websiteGPU:
The minimum
Operating system: Vista®, Windows 7
Processor: 2 Core Duo 2,4 GHz or Athlon 64 x2 5600+
RAM: 1.5 GB
Video card: DirectX®9 compatible video adapter with 256 MB RAM Radeon HD 3850 or GeForce 8800GS
DirectX: DirectX®9
Winchester: 11 GB free space
Effective
Operating system: Vista®, Windows 7
Processor: 2 Core Duo 3.0 GHz or Phenom II X2 550
Memory: 2 GB
Video card: DirectX®9 compatible video adapter with 512 MB RAM Radeon HD 3870 or GeForce GT 240
DirectX: DirectX®9
Winchester: 11 GB free space
Optimal
Operating system: Vista®, Windows 7
Processor: Core 2 Quad 3.0 GHz or Phenom II X4 940
RAM: 2 GB
Video card: DirectX®9 compatible video adapter with 512 MB RAM Radeon HD 4850 or GeForce GTS 250
DirectX: DirectX®9
Winchester: 11 GB free space
Official description of the game
Near future. The political situation in the world is tense to the limit due to an extremely unpleasant incident: an American missile shot down an airliner on a commercial flight in the skies over Eastern Europe. As a result of the disaster, everyone on board died. The US government officially declared no involvement in the incident. One of the most experienced agents of the American intelligence services, Michael Thornton, is entrusted with the task of conducting an investigation and finding the perpetrators of the tragedy in order to prevent a brewing international conflict.
In the Alpha Protocol project, the player gets the opportunity not only to completely control the actions and behavior of the main character, but also to determine his attitude to what is happening, which will affect the development of events. The modern combat system implemented in the game is designed for quick decision making. These interesting features, coupled with intense character development and innovative role-playing elements, a carefully crafted plot that rivals the best in the spy genre, and a richly detailed and immersive virtual world, make Alpha Protocol a new role-playing game. generations.
Features:
- Super professional. The classless character development system allows the player to turn the main character into a super agent with absolutely any specialization: an unsurpassed master of hand-to-hand combat, an excellent sniper, a virtuoso in handling all possible technical devices - in general, a top-class professional in any field.
- International espionage. The player will have to travel around the world: visiting safe houses to meet the right people and get the necessary information, he will visit various parts of the planet, including Rome, Moscow, Taipei and Saudi Arabia.
- Constructive dialogue. Thanks to the innovative dialogue system, all characters will react accordingly to every line of the main character. To conduct a conversation in the right way and not create unnecessary tension in relations with someone, the player will have to be very attentive, and sometimes it won’t hurt to show wit.
- The art of war. The widest selection of weapons, as well as all possible improvements, allows you to create unique combat equipment for each mission. The agent has at his disposal ultra-modern equipment, everything necessary for carrying out covert operations, various explosive devices and much more.
- Freedom of choice. There are no right or wrong decisions in the game. By communicating with allies and opponents, performing certain actions, the player can radically change the storyline, open new missions and gain access to new weapons.
- Speed is the key to success. A certain amount of time is allotted for making any decision and for each specific action in the game, which is quickly running out. Therefore, the player needs to think quickly, work clearly and always be prepared for the consequences of his actions.
Review: Playability
In a good way, Alpha Protocol should have been released a year ago, but the developers each time postponed the game to a later date. And now, finally, the game has hit store shelves, and we can express our opinion about this game. The first thing that catches your eye is the feeling that we have already seen this somewhere. Indeed, as you play through the game you begin to understand that it is a mixture of Mass Effect and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell.
The very principle of role-playing game and dialogue communication was taken from the first, and the plot meaning of an invincible special agent was taken from the second. The game has extended character leveling, which allows you to level up various useful skills and abilities, which should really appeal to connoisseurs of the RPG genre. The dialogue system is very branchy and extensive, apparently its volume prevented our localizers from making a complete translation. But sometimes its scale is simply annoying - dialogues can mostly be skipped, but when the main plot dialogue is quoted, it is impossible to skip it and it can last up to 5 minutes, which in itself goes beyond comfortable norms.
Another very annoying factor in the game is spy hacking of alarms, computers and locks. All this is built on solving simple but intricate puzzles within a short allotted period of time. And after a dozen unsuccessful hacking attempts, the game itself begins to simply infuriate. The plot and its implementation in Alpha Protocol are so primitive that it deserves the “Cheapest Spy Action Movie of the Year” award. The controls are also a little specific and take a little getting used to.
We invite you to evaluate part of the game walkthrough Alpha Protocol, where you can see for yourself the quality of this product:
Based on all that has been said above, it is clear why the Alpha Protocol game was moved closer to the summer - a non-competitive period was needed in order to somehow return the money invested in it.
Review: Game Graphics
Unreal Engine 3 is a lifesaver for modern developers. With a minimal investment you can get a top product. You can recall a very large number of worthy products made on this engine. But again, everything depends on the clumsiness of the developers’ hands.
In Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction, the developers really tried, and Unreal Engine 2,5 in some places looked much better than its successor. The developers of Alpha Protocol were most likely busy polishing the plot part of the game and did not pay much attention to the graphic part.
The detailing in the game itself seems to be quite good, but the implementation of the models itself leaves much to be desired. The only thing that looks more or less good is the drawing of the faces of the main characters, where you can really see every wrinkle. Otherwise, complete disappointment. The AI of the enemies is simply terrible, and the guards move like dolls in lead pants. Those who wanted to see modern graphics in the game should not get their hopes up - Alpha Protocol does not have it...
Review: Resource-intensive game
To play Alpha Protocol comfortably, you will need a Core 2 Duo 3.0 GHz or Phenom II X2 550 processor and 2 gigabytes of RAM. The game also turned out to be CPU-hungry, and the load on our test cores was about 60% - all of them were loaded evenly. Also, during the game, jerks and twitches were noticed, which indicated that the game was constantly loading from the hard drive and, apparently, it was significantly overpowered by our 150 MB/sec bandwidth provided by 2 RAID0 Western Digital Caivar.
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Hardware configuration |
|
| Processor |
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550@ 4.25 GHz L2 cache 12 MB, |
| Motherboard | MSI P45 Platinum 7512 (LGA 775) P45/ICH10R |
| Memory | 4 GB OCZ DDR2-1150 @ 11160, 5-5-5, 2,2 V |
| Video Cards |
GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB |
| HDD | 2 RAID0 Western Digital Caivar WD2500GL 250 GB, 7200 rpm, SATA 3 Gbit/s |
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System software and drivers |
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| Operating system | Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition x64 |
| DirectX | DirectX 11 |
| Platform Driver | Intel INF Chipset Update Utility 9.1.0.1012 |
| Graphics driver |
Nvidia GeForce/ION Driver Release 257.15 beta ATI Catalyst 10.4 |
All video cards were tested at maximum graphics quality using Fraps. the most resource-intensive place in the game.
Our video cards are tested in general in all separate screen sizes, and you can evaluate how your video card behaves relative to other modern solutions in almost all gaming separate screen sizes. All video cards were tested at maximum quality graphics settings. Alpha Protocol, like many other modern gaming projects, uses internal FPS limits and in our case it was at 60 frames.
Testing at maximum quality settings 1024x768
Alpha Protocol is fully playable with maximum quality graphics settings on almost all modern video accelerators. To run the game at maximum settings at a resolution of 1024x768, you will need at least a Radeon HD 2900 or GeForce 9600 GSO level card.
Testing at maximum quality settings 1280x1024
A resolution of 1280x1024 will again require you to have the same video cards as above, which is the Radeon HD 2900 or GeForce 9600 GSO.
Testing at maximum quality settings 1680x1050
When switching to widescreen resolutions, the situation has changed a little and now the Radeon HD 38500 or GeForce 8800 GS is a comfortable minimum for gaming.
Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080
Well, at one of the most decent resolutions today, entry-level cards like the Radeon HD 3870 or GeForce 8800 GS will be enough for you. Although the game itself left much to be desired, its requirements for video cards are very democratic.
Conclusion: Alpha Protocol was a candidate for top products, but as we can see, it barely fits into the middle sector. Perhaps fans of spy games and RPG fans will find their calling in it, and the very democratic system requirements for video cards will be quite conducive to this. But still, it is very difficult to recommend the game for purchase; it is hardly worth the money required for it.
We thank the company MSI and in particular Alexey Kalinovsky in assisting in obtaining video cards MSI GeForce GTX 470 1280 MB и MSI GeForce GTX 480 1536 MB for our performance tests GPU.
You can discuss the game at forum.