Is there a benchmark for GTA 5? Grand Theft Auto V

The folks over at Forbes benchmarked GTA 5 on 14 different graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD, and like everyone else, they agree that Rockstar Games has done a great job optimizing this graphical and spatial behemoth that is Grand Theft Auto V.

But let's get straight to the benchmarks. The following cards were tested:

Nvidia GTX 650Ti
Nvidia GTX 750Ti
Nvidia GTX 770
Nvidia GTX 780Ti
Nvidia GTX 960
Nvidia GTX 970
Nvidia GTX 980
Nvidia GTX Titan X

AMD Radeon 260x
AMD Radeon 270x
AMD Radeon 280x
AMD Radeon 285
AMD Radeon 290x
AMD Radeon 2952

All of these test heroes were installed on a system with an Intel Core i7-5960x processor and 16 gigabytes of G.Skill DDR4 RAM.

The benchmark was carried out using standard tools built into the game, which give you 5 scenes with varying degrees of load. All results are saved in My Documents/Rockstar Games/GTA V/benchmarks.

All tests were carried out in conditional 1080p and 1440p modes with “high” and “very high” settings to ensure that GTA 5 produced at least 40fps. That is, for example, for the GTX 750Ti and Radeon 260x cards the settings were set to “high”, while for the more powerful and expensive GTX 970/980 and Radeon 290x/2952 the settings were set to “very high”.

1080p & 1440p - high quality

In this mode, all settings are high, FXAA is enabled, anisotropic filtering x8, soft shadows, population diversity at 50%, tessellation, AO, reflections and MSAA are disabled.

It's personal preference to find the optimal middle ground quality vs productivity.

As you can see from the graph, even old video cards in an affordable price range can run GTA 5 quite well at high quality settings.

1080p & 1440p - very high quality

All parameters are now set to "very high" or high if they could not be raised higher due to game limitations.

What's really interesting here is the Nvidia GTX 970 graphics card. Just look at its results! And, of course, it’s a shame for AMD, which showed the worst results in dual (CrossFire) Radeon 290x mode.

But maybe AMD will improve in the final test?

4K - ultra quality

In this test, all parameters were set to maximum, except for enabling the notorious MSAA. The Nvidia GTX 2x 980 SLI is the graphics card Rockstar used when demoing GTA 5 on PC. The more affordable AMD 290x CrossFire gives approximately the same results, but with these cards the game sometimes slows down (freeze).

What's also interesting is the Titan X card, which, of course, lags behind in frame rates, however, works in single mode, and not in conjunction with its twin, which is impressive.

Introduction

In this review, we will conduct a summary test of video cards and processors in the PC version of the game Grand Theft Auto V. You can read the review on it by clicking on this link.

System Requirements

Minimum system requirements:

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2400 MHz or AMD Phenom 9850 @ 2500 MHz.
• RAM: 4 GB.
• Video card: Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT 1024 MB or AMD Radeon HD 4870 1024 MB.

• Operating system: Windows Vista (SP2) Windows 7 (SP1) and Windows 8/8.1 (64-bit only).
• Processor: Intel Core i5-3470 @ 3200 MHz or AMD FX-8350 BE @ 4000 MHz.
• RAM: 8 GB.
• Free space on HDD: 65 GB.
• Video card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 2048 MB or AMD Radeon HD 7870 2048 MB.

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Summary testing of video cards

Test configuration

Tests were carried out on the following stand:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K (Devil's Canyon, L3 8 MB), Turbo Boost / Hyper Threading - off - 4000 @ 4700 MHz;
• Motherboard: GigaByte GA-Z97X-UD5H, LGA 1150, BIOS F8;
• CPU cooling system: Corsair Hydro Series H105 (~1300 rpm);
• RAM: 2 x 4096 MB DDR3 Geil Black Dragon GB38GB2133C10ADC (Spec: 2133 MHz / 10-11-11-30-1t / 1.5 V), X.M.P. - off;
• Disk subsystem No. 1: 64 GB, SSD ADATA SX900;
• Disk subsystem No. 2: 1 TB, HDD Western Digital Caviar Green (WD10EZRX);
• Power unit: Corsair HX850 850 Watt (standard fan: 140 mm inlet);
• Frame: open test stand;
• Monitor: 27" ASUS PB278Q BK (Wide LCD, 2560x1440 / 60 Hz).

Video cards:

• Radeon R9 290X 4096 MB - 1000/5000 @ 1130/5800 MHz (Sapphire);
• Radeon R9 290 4096 MB - 947/5000 @ 1120/5800 MHz (Sapphire);
• Radeon R9 285 2048 MB - 920/5500 @ 1100/6500 MHz (Sapphire);
• Radeon R9 280X 3072 MB - 1000/6000 @ 1150/7000 MHz (Gigabyte);
• Radeon R9 280 3072 MB - 933/5000 @ 1100/7000 MHz (Sapphire);
• Radeon R9 270X 2048 MB - 1050/5600 @ 1170/6800 MHz (MSI);
• Radeon R9 270 2048 MB - 925/5600 @ 1130/6800 MHz (Sapphire);
• Radeon R7 265 2048 MB - 925/5600 @ 1150/6800 MHz (Sapphire);
• Radeon R7 260X 2048 MB - 1100/6500 @ 1200/7200 MHz (Sapphire);
• Radeon R7 260 1024 MB - 1000/6000 @ 1200/6800 MHz (MSI);
• Radeon R7 250X 1024 MB - 1000/4500 @ 1150/6000 MHz (Gigabyte);


• GeForce GTX 980 4096 MB - 1126/7012 @ 1320/8000 MHz (Palit);
• GeForce GTX 970 4096 MB - 1050/7012 @ 1330/8000 MHz (Zotac);


• GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3072 MB - 876/7000 @ 1110/7700 MHz (MSI);
• GeForce GTX Titan 6144 MB - 837/6008 @ 970/7200 MHz (Gigabyte);
• GeForce GTX 780 3072 MB - 863/6008 @ 1000/7200 MHz (Palit);
• GeForce GTX 770 2048 MB - 1046/7000 @ 1260/7800 MHz (Zotac);
• GeForce GTX 760 2048 MB - 980/6008 @ 1200/7000 MHz (ASUS);
• GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2048 MB - 1020/5400 @ 1160/6600 MHz (GigaByte);
• GeForce GTX 750 2048 MB - 1020/5000 @ 1150/6200 MHz (Palit).

Software:

• Operating system: Windows 7 x64 SP1;
• Video card drivers: Nvidia GeForce 350.12 WHQL and AMD Catalyst 15.4 Beta.
• Utilities: Fraps 3.5.9 Build 15586, AutoHotkey v1.0.48.05, MSI Afterburner 4.1.0.

Testing tools and methodology

For a more clear comparison of video cards and processors, the game used as a test application was launched in resolutions of 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440.

The utilities Fraps 3.5.9 Build 15586 and AutoHotkey v1.0.48.05 were used as performance measurement tools. Measured in game minimum And average FPS values. VSync was disabled during testing.

Graphics technologies

Grand Theft Auto V was developed in close collaboration between Rockstar North and Nvidia. Especially for the release of the game, the Californian giant released a new version of GeForce Game Ready 350.12 WHQL drivers. They included optimization for the long-awaited PC version of Grand Theft Auto V, new SLI and 3D Vision profiles. This driver update is recommended for all owners of GeForce GTX video cards.

Grand Theft Auto V supports the following technologies: 3D Vision, 4K Surround, Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR), GameStream, GeForce Experience - which sets optimal graphics settings in one click, G-SYNC, Multi Frame Sampled Anti-Aliasing (MFAA) , Percentage Closer Soft Shadows (PCSS), SLI and TXAA.

Test segment video:

Monitoring RAM and video memory usage

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The components were tested with the following graphics settings:

• Version Update 2.
• DirectX 11.
• FXAA anti-aliasing is enabled.
• Anisotropic filtering - X16.
• Ignore suggested memory limit - enabled.
• The population of the city is maximum.
• The diversity of the population is maximum.
• The focusing scale is maximum.
• The quality of the textures is very high.
• The quality of the shaders is very high.
• The quality of the shadows is very high.
• The quality of reflections is as high as possible.
• MSAA anti-aliasing for reflections is disabled.
• The water quality is very high.
• The quality of the particles is very high.
• The quality of the grass is standard.
• Soft shadows - as soft as possible.
• Special effects settings are as high as possible.
• The degree of motion blur is maximum.
• Depth of field effect - enabled.
• The quality of complex shading (AO) is high.
• The quality of tessellation is very high.

The built-in benchmark was not used during this testing. The decision to exclude him from the review took a long time and painfully.

Right after the release of Grand Theft Auto V it didn't work at all. Or rather, it launched and even produced fragments of test scenes in chunks, but the whole thing was spoiled by plot inserts that constantly “leaked” into the benchmark. In other words, the result was a “vinaigrette” of plot and benchmark scenes that were completely unsuitable for testing.

Update 1 corrected this issue, after which the benchmark started working normally. However, another problem appeared: all GeForce video cards lagged ungodly. Such testing, even with a big stretch, cannot be called objective.

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Attempts to run the benchmark from the command line using the “commandline.txt” file and add the “-Benchmark” command to the game launcher shortcut did not lead to anything.

As a result, a decision was made to abandon the use of the benchmark, since four precious days were lost, and manual testing could take an indecently long time.

In addition, I specifically did not use additional graphics settings, since they used up huge resources of video cards. At the same time, the performance of the accelerators decreased by an amount that was not so proportional to the improvement in image quality.

Before we begin testing video cards and processors, we will monitor the use of RAM and video memory in this game.

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Video memory (standard settings)

RAM

Please enable JavaScript to see graphs
MB

Test results: performance comparison

Now let's move on directly to testing graphics accelerators.

Summary diagrams of test results for single video cards

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1920x1080

2560x1440

Year of issue: 2015
Genre: Action (Shooter) / Racing (Cars) / 3D / 1st Person / 3rd Person
Developer: Rockstar North, Rockstar San Diego and Rockstar Leeds
Publisher: Rockstar Games

Los Santos is a city of sunshine, starlets and emerging stars. Once the envy of the Western world, it is now a haven of cheesy reality TV shows, suffocating in the grip of economic problems. At the center of the whole mess is a trio of completely different criminals, desperately trying to grab luck by the tail in the ongoing struggle for a place in the sun. Former street gang member Franklin is trying to move on from his past. Retired bank robber Michael discovers that everything in honest life is not as rosy as he thought. Trevor, a psychopath turned to violence, switches from one businessman to another in the hope of hitting a big jackpot. Having exhausted their options, these three put their own lives on the line and commit a series of daring robberies in which it’s either hit or miss.

In Grand Theft Auto V, fans will not only experience the largest and most detailed world Rockstar Games has ever created, but also the opportunity to influence the lives and actions of three main characters. This interweaving of the stories of several characters will make the game as exciting and exciting as possible. All the attributes of the famous series are fully present in Grand Theft Auto V - there is incredible attention to detail, signature dark humor, ridicule of pop culture, and even a completely new, incredibly ambitious multiplayer mode.

Grand Theft Auto V is supported by the major Windows operating systems, which include Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. Other operating systems are not currently supported by the developers and will not receive support.

The priority and main graphics API for Grand Theft Auto V is DirectX 11 . The game also supports not so recent video cards with DirectX 10.

Grand Theft Auto V is powered by the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine. "Rockstar Advanced Game Engine" is a full-featured game engine that contains a graphics engine, physics engine, sound engine, animation engine, game artificial intelligence, networking, scripting language and other components. The audio engine and network code were developed by Rockstar North staff, and all other components were developed by Rockstar San Diego staff.

In the first half of the 2000s, Rockstar Games used the RenderWare game engine produced by Criterion Games for the vast majority of its games. However, in July 2004, the American publisher Electronic Arts acquired Criterion Games along with its engine. This worsened RenderWare's licensing policy, so Rockstar Games decided to develop its own engine for its projects. Information about Rockstar Games' intention to develop its own engine appeared in September 2005. "RAGE" is based on the AGE engine, which was originally developed by Angel Studios for the Midnight Club series and other games produced by Rockstar San Diego for the sixth generation of video game consoles. RAGE was developed by a group of Rockstar San Diego and Rockstar North employees called the RAGE Technology Group.

At the beginning of May 2006, journalists from the MTV News website published an article in which they confirmed the existence of the RAGE engine and its use in Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis and Grand Theft Auto IV. In June, the release of “Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis” took place and this information was confirmed and clarified. In February 2007, British company NaturalMotion and Rockstar Games announced that euphoria, a procedural animation engine, would be used in future Rockstar games and, by extension, the RAGE engine. A press release included in the second trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV ultimately confirmed that Grand Theft Auto IV would be the first Rockstar game to use euphoria.

On April 23, 2008, 1UP.com published an interview with Rockstar North technical directors Adam Fowler and Sandy Roger, which was entirely dedicated to "RAGE". On April 29, Grand Theft Auto IV was released, the second game to use RAGE. After Grand Theft Auto IV, RAGE was used in the racing game Midnight Club: Los Angeles, which was released on October 21, 2008. Next, the engine was used by both add-ons “Grand Theft Auto IV” - “Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned” and “Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony”. Later, the game “Red Dead Redemption” was released on the engine (May 18, 2010) and the game “Max Payne 3” was announced, which also uses the “RAGE” engine. On November 3, 2012, Rockstar Games announced Grand Theft Auto V, the game uses the "RAGE" engine. The game was released on September 17, 2013 on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles, then on November 18, 2014, the game was released on Xbox One and PS4.

Since the engine was aimed at use in games that have an “open seamless world”, the main advantage of the engine is its ability to efficiently handle large game spaces. So, when the character moves through the level, the engine constantly and dynamically adds some objects and removes other objects. The developers reported that for this it was necessary to develop a reliable engine memory manager that could constantly distribute and delete objects from RAM without fragmenting it. RAGE uses the external physics engine "Bullet Physics Library", which is free software.

The developers devoted a lot of time and attention to the physics of cars, which they tried to make as close to reality as possible. This system takes into account the weight of the car, the grip of the tires on the surface and other characteristics. The behavior of the car depends on the surface on which it is driving, as well as on weather conditions. To animate humanoid characters, “euphoria” is used, a software component that automatically creates character animation on the fly. "euphoria" was developed by NaturalMotion and has been used as a permanent feature in RAGE since Grand Theft Auto IV.

Grand Theft Auto V has a very wide range of graphic settings, to which absolutely all aspects of the graphical component of the game are subject to and taken into account.

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.

The picture quality between the different settings in Grand Theft Auto V is especially noticeable in open areas.

Grand Theft Auto V looks absolutely stunning in 4K...

Even FXAA is enough to eliminate “unevenness” of surfaces, but the MSAA mode looks the best.

Despite the fact that the PC version of Grand Theft Auto V was released much later than its console counterparts, it is the most advanced version, both visually and technically. The game received support for DirectX 11, but owners of older systems were also not forgotten, as in the case of Max Payne 3, the game also supports solutions with DirectX 10.

Depending on the hardware configuration, you can choose the optimal screen resolution for yourself, up to 4K. This will give additional clarity to the game world, both when approaching objects and when drawing over long distances. The draw distance in GTA 5 on PS4 and Xbox One was doubled compared to the previous generation consoles, but on PC they went even further, the draw distance in some cases is simply amazing...

The PC version of GTA 5 will delight owners of NVIDIA video cards with one exclusive feature - support for TXAA temporal anti-aliasing. This will give players a smoother image without the judder effect, which is technically known as temporary aliasing. The PC version features new vehicles and weapons, a denser population and traffic. We can expect a familiar first-person view, increased viewing distance and an improved damage system.”

NVIDIA graphics cards offer enhanced PCSS shadows that produce more realistic shadows that become softer the further away they are from the object casting the shadow. You can check your PC's readiness for GTA V on the NVIDIA website. The GPU Analyzer will identify your graphics device and compare it with the GPU recommended by the developer for Grand Theft Auto V.

Also, owners of GeForce GTX video cards in GTA V will have access to support for the following technologies: 3D Vision, 4K, 4K Surround, Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR), GameStream, instant determination of optimal settings in the game through GeForce Experience, G-SYNC, G-SYNC Surround, SLI and Surround modes.

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 resolutions of 1920x1080, 2560x1600 and 3840x2160 at the maximum graphics quality settings allowed by Grand Theft Auto V. AMD CrossFireX and SLI are currently sufficiently supported by the game. The gaming benchmark has problems with operation, so the test was carried out in the game itself.

Tests in all modes were performed at maximum quality settings, with some exceptions: MSAA shadow mode is always disabled, and the shadows themselves are set to a soft high level. The changes were mainly made to the “increased distance for loading more detailed textures” option and the level of anti-aliasing. 2 GB solutions were tested only at a resolution of 1920x1080 with a standard texture level, since they have a limited amount of video memory, which does not allow raising this option higher. The maximum modes were also determined for 3 GB solutions, but always relative to the maximum textures. You can more or less comfortably manipulate the settings with 4 gigabytes of video memory and above.

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 standard textures

With these settingsAn acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon R7 260X or GeForce GTX 750 Ti level. The optimal solutions would be Radeon HD 7850 or GTX 750 Ti.

With these settingsAn acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon HD 7950 or GeForce GTX 780 level.

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 MSAA 8X

With these settingsAn acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon R9 290 or GeForce GTX TITAN level.

Testing at maximum quality settings 2560x1600

With these settingsAn acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon HD 7950 or GeForce GTX 780 level. Radeon HD 7970 or GeForce GTX 780.

Testing at maximum quality settings 2560x1600 MSAA 2X

With these settingsAn acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon R9 290 or GeForce GTX 970 level.

Testing at maximum quality settings 3840x2160

With these settingsAn acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon R9 290 or GeForce GTX 970 level. The optimal solutions will beRadeon R9 295X2 or GeForce GTX 980.

So, as we see, Grand Theft Auto V was able to repeat the “success” of its predecessor, namely, make its fans think about upgrading. At the moment, we can say that NVIDIA was a little better prepared for the release of the game, showing slightly better performance compared to Radeon cards.

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

Testing at maximum memory GPU quality settings

The recommended amount of video memory usage for a resolution of 1920x1080 will be 2048/3076 MB of video memory, for a resolution of 2560x1600 - 3076 MB of video memory, and for a resolution of 3840x2160 about 4096 MB of video memory. In principle, the game will not allow you to run settings higher than the amount of video memory...

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 maximum graphics quality settings.

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080

CPU performance in the game is at a quite acceptable level, to be honest, we expected worse...

Grand Theft Auto V is capable of supporting up to 16 computing threads, but fully utilizes 8 processing cores.

The test was carried out on the basic configuration of Core i 7 [email protected] GHz with 16GB 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 Grand Theft Auto V is at the level of 2000-2500 megabytes.

Testing system RAM consumption

On a 6GB system, Grand Theft Auto V consumes about 4.9GB of RAM. With a system with 8 gigabytes, the RAM consumption of the entire RAM was 5 gigabytes. With a 16 GB system, the total memory consumption was almost 5.3 gigabytes. And with 32 gigabytes of RAM, the system consumes 6 gigabytes of RAM. Rating 87%

The fifth serialized part of Grand Theft Auto, having successfully emptied the wallets of console players, came to personal computers after a long delay. A large open world and a trio of crazy bandit heroes await those who are ready to share their adventures. But today we will not talk about how GTA 5 can entertain the player, and not about the gameplay features. We will talk about performance and fine-tuning graphics parameters.

GTA V offers a diverse game world with completely different locations - business districts of the metropolis, slums, industrial complexes, mountain ranges, forests and deserts. Huge scale, great variety and detailed elaboration of the environment. You can enjoy some of the views in the lower screenshots in a resolution of 2560x1440.

The PC version of GTA 5 has many graphic settings. Not all of them are understandable to the average player. The name of some does not always directly indicate the effect they have on the overall quality of the picture. Sometimes the very meaning of the settings is lost due to the loose translation of specific names. We will help you understand all their diversity. Let's see how individual parameters affect the image and how this affects performance. Based on the results, it will be possible to draw conclusions about which settings are most critical for performance, which ones have a big impact on visual beauty, and which ones don’t. Such information will be relevant for owners of mid-level and lower video cards. Based on our guide, it will be possible to select the optimal ratio of parameters that will allow you to increase productivity with minimal loss of picture quality.

Those who want to get the most out of the game will not be forgotten either. There will be a comparison of different anti-aliasing modes. Let's find out which of them are the most successful and which are the most resource-intensive. Let's study the impact of "additional image settings", which allow you to raise the graphics bar above the level that the game offers by default.

Test configurations

Main test stand:

• processor: Intel Core i7-3930K ([email protected] GHz, 12 MB);
• cooler: Thermalright Venomous X;
• motherboard: ASUS Rampage IV Formula/Battlefield 3 (Intel X79 Express);
• memory: Kingston KHX2133C11D3K4/16GX (4x4 GB, DDR3-2133@1866 MHz, 10-11-10-28-1T);
• system disk: WD3200AAKS (320 GB, SATA II)
• power supply: Seasonic SS-750KM (750 W);
• monitor: ASUS PB278Q (2560x1440, 27″);

• GeForce driver: NVIDIA GeForce 350.12;
• driver for other Radeons: ATI Catalyst 15.4 beta.

For processor tests, an additional test bench with the following configuration was used:

• processor No. 1: Intel Pentium G3258 (3.2 GHz nominal, 3 MB);
• processor No. 2: Intel Core i7-4770K (3.5 GHz nominal, 8 MB);
• motherboard: ASRock Z97 Anniversary (Intel Z97);
• memory: GoodRAM GY1600D364L10/16GDC (2x8 GB, 1600 MHz, 10-10-10-28-2T);
• system disk: ADATA SX900 256 GB (256 GB, SATA 6 Gbit/s);
• power supply: Chieftec CTG-750C (750 W);
• monitor: LG 23MP75HM-P (1920x1080, 23″);

• operating system: Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64;
• GeForce driver: NVIDIA GeForce 350.12.

Testing was carried out using the built-in benchmark, which includes five test scenes. The average fps for each scene was taken into account and the final average was calculated. To reduce the error, four benchmark runs were performed. Please note that test results are not displayed in the game; all data is stored at c:\Users\Username\Documents\Rockstar Games\GTA V\Benchmarks as a text file.

When considering the impact of settings on performance, one video card will be used - a non-reference GeForce GTX 760 2GB with frequencies at the level of standard versions. The testing procedure is as follows: take the configuration of maximum graphics settings without anti-aliasing at a resolution of 1920x1080, change one of the parameters, test performance at different quality levels of this parameter, and provide comparative visual materials demonstrating the difference in picture quality. Then all parameters are again set to the initial maximum value, and another parameter is changed with the corresponding tests.

Actively ignores restrictions, which allows you to use the most difficult parameters. All tests were carried out in DirectX 11 rendering mode, since this API has long been the main one even for budget graphics solutions. But the game also supports DirectX 10.1 and DirectX 10.

The order of studying individual parameters corresponds to their order in the game menu. An exception is made for shadow settings, of which there are several, and they are interconnected to a certain extent. After considering the main graphics parameters, we will move on to the additional ones, where we will step-by-step include all the points together.

The next stage of the article is comparative tests of different AMD and NVIDIA video cards with high graphics quality. At the end there will be testing of processor dependence using Intel CPUs of different price categories.

Antialiasing Modes

The game supports FXAA and MSAA anti-aliasing. Users of GeForce video cards also have access to TXAA anti-aliasing. The latter is activated after enabling MSAA in the settings as an additional option. Urban surroundings and industrial landscapes are always replete with straight lines, so that the stepped edges of objects are clearly visible here. The stepped outlines of the car against the background of the light road surface are no less visible. So you can’t do without antialiasing. You can evaluate the effect of activating different anti-aliasing methods in comparison with the mode without anti-aliasing in the lower screenshots.

MSAA 4x provides the best balance between edge smoothing and clarity. Note the crane and neighboring house in the background. With MSAA they are clearer, even the inscription on the poster shows through, which is not at all visible with FXAA.

Let us also note that the game has an interesting “MSAA for reflections” parameter. It is logical to assume that it affects the smoothing of the edges of reflections, which are most often visible on the surface of cars. In practice, we did not detect any difference in reflections with and without MSAA 4x. Perhaps we are talking about reflections on other surfaces. It is possible that the effect of this smoothing itself is weakly expressed.

FXAA gives a good visual effect and minimal impact on performance. MSAA is slightly better in terms of clarity, but the performance penalty is significant. Such a serious decrease in fps may also be due to insufficient memory. Even without anti-aliasing, the game shows that around 2.5 GB will be used at 1920x1080 resolution.

Population

Three points are related to the density of people on city streets. These are Population Density, Population Variety and Distance Scaling. Each has its own scale with 10 gradations. The first two points are quite obvious - they regulate the number of people on the streets and the use of various models for them. Distance Scaling probably sets the distance at which they appear. We gradually reduced all parameters from maximum to half (we will count this as 100% and 50%). Based on the results of several minutes of playing in different modes, we can state a minimal difference in the number of people on the streets. Presumably this also affects the traffic density on the roads. You don’t notice any of this unless you deliberately concentrate on a given task.

Below left is a screenshot of the mode when all parameters are at maximum. On the right is an image of a similar location with all three parameters reduced to 50%.

Texture quality

It's time to experiment with Texture Quality. As noted above, with Ultra quality in Full HD without anti-aliasing, the game already consumes up to 2.5 GB of video memory. It's logical to assume that 2GB graphics cards might experience problems because of this. And reducing the quality of textures for ordinary users will seem like the most obvious solution to improve performance. But is this true? Let's figure it out now.

First, let's compare the image quality at the highest, high and standard texture levels.

Texture Quality Very High

Texture Quality High

Texture Quality Normal

Shader quality

Next up is the Shader Quality parameter. Three levels - from standard to very high. In theory, using simpler shaders should have a dramatic effect on the quality of all surfaces

Texture Shader Very High

Texture Shader High

Texture Shader Normal

Reflection quality

This parameter (Reflection Quality) affects all reflective surfaces - cars, shop windows, windows, etc. Four quality levels. You can evaluate their influence on the overall picture in the lower screenshots. We remind you that the remaining graphics parameters are at the maximum level without anti-aliasing. Half of the screenshots are in 1920x1080 resolution, half in 2560x1440.

Water quality

Everything is quite obvious. Changing Water Quality affects the display of water. Three quality levels, which can be assessed in the lower screenshots.

Particle quality

Parameter that regulates the number of particles. The original is called Particles Quality. Its influence is quite obvious, but there are not enough particles in the game, except for sparks and fragments during collisions or explosions. There are no wind-driven leaves or newspapers in GTA 5. So it is not easy to notice the difference between the maximum particle level and the minimum.

Here we will do without comparative screenshots. And even in testing we will limit ourselves to extreme values ​​- a very high level and a standard one.

Grass quality

The Grass Quality parameter affects the display of grass. Four discrete values ​​- from standard level to ultra. For comparison, we combined fragments of the same frame from the built-in gaming benchmark into one image.

One of the first reviews of testing GTA 5 on different computer configurations.

Let me remind you of the OFFICIAL system requirements of GTA 5:

Minimum requirements:

• OS: Windows 8.1, 8, 7, Vista 64 bit (NVIDIA video cards are recommended for Vista)
• CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 cores) / AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core Processor (4 cores) @ 2.5GHz
• RAM: 4 GB
• Video card: NVIDIA 9800 GT 1 GB / AMD HD 4870 1 GB (version no lower than DX 10, 10.1, 11)

• OS: Windows 8.1, 8, 7 64 bit
• CPU: Intel Core i5 3470 @ 3.2GHZ (4 cores) / AMD X8 FX-8350 @ 4GHZ (8 cores)
• RAM: 8 GB
• Video card: NVIDIA GTX 660 2 GB / AMD HD7870 2 GB

GTA 5 graphics settings:

Graphics quality at different settings (low, medium, high)

Video card testing

Testing was carried out only at maximum settings. Tests for medium/low and weak computers - NOT YET.

Testing video cards at maximum settings for GTA 5 (1920x1080, standard textures)

Testing video cards at maximum quality settings for GTA 5 (1920x1080)

GPU testing at maximum quality settings (1920x1080, MSAA 8X)

Testing at maximum memory GPU quality settings

Testing for video memory consumption. The test was done in MSI Afterburner. The configuration and settings are shown in the graph.

CPU testing

Testing at maximum quality settings GTA5 (1920x1080)

Loading Intel processor cores at maximum settings GTA5 (1920x1080)