Just Cause 2 (2010) - Retro Test GPU

BASIC GAME INFORMATION

 

Year of construction: 2010
Genre: Action / Arcade / Racing (Cars) / 3D
developer: Avalanche Studios
Publishing house: Eidos Interactive

The reckless and desperate lone hero has returned to once again shake the rotten, corrupt regime! After a brilliant job of establishing “democratic” order, the real macho Rico Rodriguez decided to have a blast. Tequila, beaches, beauties in bikinis - what else does a tired but satisfied hero need? But there was no long vacation. The former boss hastened to hide on the tropical island of Panau, taking with him a considerable amount of government money. The traitor hid under the warm wing of the local dictator, which means it’s time for the “banana revolution”! 

You will have to find and approximately punish the scoundrel, and at the same time have some good fun in an atmosphere of general chaos. Shootouts, chases, parachute jumps, theft of cars and military equipment - Rico is ready for any, even the most dangerous situation. At his service is an impressive arsenal of small arms. He is capable of performing the most spectacular stunts, including capturing a flying helicopter! Compared to the first part, the game has much more weapons and equipment.

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

Just Cause 2 only works on Windows Vista/7 and Windows 8/10. Other operating systems are not currently supported and are unlikely to be supported.

 

The priority and main graphics API for the multiplayer game Just Cause 2 is DirectX 10. The game operates through the Steam digital game sales service.

Game engine

Just Cause 2 is based on the Avalanche Engine 2.0. The game engine is a product of Avalanche Studios' own development. Havok Physics was used as the physics engine.

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

Advanced Game Settings

Just Cause 2 has a wide range of graphics settings to accommodate different gaming hardware. 

  

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

 The difference between different quality settings is visible to the naked eye.

Comparison of FullHD and 4K

Comparison of anti-aliasing modes

Activating anti-aliasing improves the picture, but does not make it perfect.

Comparison of water quality regimes

The use of NVIDIA CUDA at one time gave an unsurpassed effect - such quality of water had not been seen in open world games until that time.

General visual design and game physics

Just Cause 2 was a significant game that had simply stunning gameplay and very good visuals that took full advantage of the capabilities of DirectX 10. In fact, at the time of its release, the game was one of the most beautiful representatives of its genre.

 

  

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. Below is a video of the test segment of the gaming benchmark:   

Our video cards were tested at different screen sizes of 1920x1080, 2560x1600 and 3840x2160 at the maximum graphics quality settings allowed by Just Cause 2. SLI and AMD CrossFireX are supported by the game. Tests were carried out with and without CUDA simulation enabled (for NVIDIA video cards). Our test Core i7 5960X ran at 4 threads without HT.

Fury AMD video cards have been recalled, so they are not included in the tests again. You can read our first review by following this link.

Testing at resolution 1920x1080

 

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 

 

With these settings, video cards of the Radeon HD 7850 or GeForce GTX 750 Ti level showed acceptable FPS.

  

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 CUDA

 

With these settings, acceptable FPS was shown by video cards of the level GeForce GTX 750 Ti. 

Testing at resolution 2560x1440

  

Testing at maximum quality settings 2560x1440

 

With these settings, video cards of the Radeon HD 7850 or GeForce GTX 750 Ti level showed acceptable FPS. The optimal solutions will be   Radeon HD 7850 or GeForce GTX 760.

  

Testing at maximum quality settings 2560x1440 CUDA

 

With these settings, acceptable FPS was shown by video cards of the level GeForce GTX 660. The optimal solutions will be GeForce GTX 950 and higher.

Testing at resolution 3840x2160

 

Testing at maximum quality settings 3840x2160

 

With these settings, video cards of the Radeon HD 7970 or GeForce GTX 780 level showed acceptable FPS. The optimal solutions would be Radeon R9 280X or GeForce GTX 780 Ti.

  

Testing at maximum quality settings 3840x2160 CUDA

 

With these settings, video cards of the GeForce GTX TITAN level showed an acceptable FPS. The optimal solutions will be GeForce GTX 980 and higher.

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 2560x1440 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 1024 MB of video memory, for a resolution of 2560x1440 - 1280 MB of video memory, and for a resolution of 3840x2160 about 2048 MB of video memory. 

CPU test

  

We tested processor dependence on 16 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 the given graphics quality settings without anti-aliasing.  

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 

 

The CPU performance in the game is sufficient for all models. But what is striking is the fact that on Intel, with more than 4 cores, performance drops on some models.

Loading of processor coresat maximum quality settings 1920x1080 Intel% 

 

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

 

Just Cause 2 uses up to 4 threads.

RAM test

The test was carried out on the basic configuration of Core i 7 5960X@4.6 GHz with 32 GB DDR4 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 Just Cause 2 is within 400 megabytes.

Testing system RAM consumption  

 

On a 6GB system, Just Cause 2 consumes about 2.3GB of RAM. In the presence of a system with 8 gigabytes, the RAM consumption of all RAM was 2.7 gigabytes. With a 16 GB system, the total memory consumption was almost 3 GB. And with 32 gigabytes of RAM, the system consumes 3.3 gigabytes of RAM.