Tropico 5 test GPU

BASIC GAME INFORMATION

 

Released Games: 23.05.2014
Genre: strategy
developer: Haemimont Games
Publisher: Kalypso Media 

 

In the urban development project Tropico 5, the player will take control of the island of Tropico at the beginning of colonial times and will manage it for centuries. You will have to satisfy the changing needs of the people and create your own dynasty - promote relatives to leadership positions (for example: ambassador, commander and supreme ruler).

Among the events of the 19th-21st centuries, you will need to survive both world wars, the years of the Great Depression and the Cold War. Tropico 5 will feature advanced trading mechanics, technology, a research tree, and island exploration. Objects have been completely redone - more than 100 unique buildings have been created for each era. 

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

Tropico 5 is supported by major operating systems Windows, which includes Windows  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 Tropico 5 is DirectX 11.

Game engine

 The game engine is a product of Haemimont Games' own development. 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 Kalypso Media studio’s own intellectual property.

 

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

Advanced Game Settings

Tropico 5 has a very wide range of graphic settings, so the user should not have problems selecting performance for the appropriate configuration. We think the game can be customized to fit almost any home PC.

  

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

As we can see, the picture quality between different graphics settings is quite significant. The boundaries between low and high settings are quite significant.

Comparison of FullHD and 4K

In 4K, Tropico 5 looks quite large and allows you to fully immerse yourself in the global gameplay.

Comparison of anti-aliasing modes

Activating smoothing only slightly eliminates surface unevenness, which is practically non-existent.

General visual design and game physics

As we can see from Tropico 5 - all the good new is the forgotten old. In our case, it is not so forgotten, but to some extent modified and improved compared to its predecessor. The changes affected not only the gameplay, but also in terms of refinement and optimization of the graphical component.

 

But of course, improvements in such a global game as Tropico are not noticeable, but they are still present. To a greater extent, this affected the improvement in the quality of lighting and effects, and, as you can see in our next section, in terms of the game’s consumption of computing resources.  

 

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 the MSI Afterburner program. 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 the performance indicator. 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 Tropico 5. SLI and AMD CrossFireX are not currently supported by 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 level of Radeon HD 6850 or GeForce GTX 560. 

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 7770 or GeForce GTX 560 level. The optimal video cards would be Radeon HD 6950 or GeForce GTX 560 and above. 

Testing at resolution 3840x2160

 

Testing at maximum quality settings 3840x2560

 

With these settings acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the level Radeon R9 270 or GeForce GTX 660. The optimal video cards will be Radeon HD 7950 or GeForce GTX 660 and above. 

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 768 MB of video memory, for a resolution of 2560x1600 - 1024 MB of video memory and for a resolution of 3840x2160 about 1280 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.

Test CPU

     

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

 

The processor performance in Tropico 5 is simply incredible and shows very good results.

Loading of processor coresat maximum quality settings 1920x1080 Intel% 

 

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

 

The game can support up to 6 computing threads, which is quite good based on processor performance.

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 Tropico 5 is at the level of 300 megabytes.  

Testing system RAM consumption  

 

If you have a system with 4 gigabytes Tropico 5 consumes about 1.4 gigabytes of RAM. In the presence of a system with 8 gigabytes, the RAM consumption of all RAM was 1.8 gigabytes. With a 16 GB system, the total memory consumption was almost 2.3 gigabytes.   

IRONSPONSORS

 

 

GAME SPONSORS