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Dota 2 Performance, Benchmarked
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1. Are You Playing Defence Of The Ancients (Dota) 2?

The original Defense Of The Ancients (DotA) is not a standalone game; it's a mod for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Easily one of the most popular game mods of all time, DotA represents the blueprint for an entire sub-genre of RTS games called multiplayer online battle arenas, or MOBAs [edit: there's an argument to be made that MOBA is too generic a term and that the genre is best described as 'Action RTS', but MOBA has gotten a lot of traction so we'll use it for the purposes of this article]. DotA is the inspiration for Dota 2 and League of Legends (LoL), both free-to-play games in the MOBA category, and two of the most widely-played titles on the planet.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the MOBA genre, here's a quick explanation. There are two bases, each on opposing corners of the map, and one for each team. The objective is to destroy the opposing team's base. Three roads, or lanes, connect the bases. Low-level units automatically and periodically spawn from each base in groups, and these soldiers travel down the three paths between the bases. As a result, there is always a battle going on in the trio of lanes.

In addition, each team has three defensive towers in each lane on their side of the map, totaling nine towers per team. These structures deliver powerful attacks against enemy soldiers and players, but they can be destroyed through significant effort. Because of this, fights tend to center on the towers.

All of this happens automatically. Unlike in typical RTS games, you don't have to collect resources, build structures, or train units. You only control your hero, which can level up and acquire a range of upgradeable powers. However, its role might best be described as support for the A.I. soldier units. Players help control the battlefronts and destroy enemy towers in the lanes. The idea is to to open your opponent's base up to a direct attack by the A.I. and hero once the towers in a lane are gone. There are five players per team, which of course doesn't divide into the three lanes equally. When a player dies, he respawns at the team's base after a penalty period.

That's MOBA in a nutshell. It sounds simple, but strategies can be surprisingly complex. In addition, games like Dota 2 and LoL add new heroes with vastly different powers on a regular basis. Almost every archetype you could possibly think of is covered. New heroes are part of the revenue model, in fact, since cosmetic items for the characters are available to buy. Valve committed to a true free-to-play strategy (not pay-to-win) so none of the cash items will give any advantage in game, only cosmetic enhancements. 

The original DotA mod is probably responsible for the popularity of MOBA games in general, but LoL capitalized on it first. Released in late 2009, LoL averages over 12 million players per day, with peak concurrent global players peaking over five million. That's significantly more than World of Warcraft.

Now let's talk about Dota 2. Formally announced in 2010 and released to the public in 2012, this game was developed by Valve, which recruited one of the original DotA developers (known as IceFrog) to design it. Dota 2 is the spiritual sequel to the original Warcraft III mod.

How does Dota 2 differentiate itself from LoL? I'd like to give you a brief list, but I'll convey a caveat first. MOBAs are some of the most competitive, detailed, and nuanced multiplayer PvP games on the market. I'll probably never spend hundreds of hours playing Dota 2, and I'm no expert. So, no matter what I put here, one thousand angry players will probably point out the differentiators I missed in the comments below. Nevertheless, here are the big ones to me:

1. Dota 2 gives you access to all heroes right off the bat, whereas you can get to a limited rotation of heroes in LoL. League of Legends does allow you to save in-game rewards to you can put toward permanent access to a hero. Or, you can get to it instantly with with real-world currency.

2. Dota 2 allows players to destroy their own towers and structures to deny opponents from receiving gold rewards. LoL does not.

3. When you're killed in Dota 2, you lose gold, while the enemy who killed you gets gold and experience. In LoL, the enemy gets experience and gold, the killed player doesn't lose gold.

That's not a comprehensive list by any means, but those three differences have a substantial impact on how both games are played.

Although I'm admittedly not a MOBA wizard, I do know a thing or two about PC graphics. Without hesitation, Dota 2's graphics engine is far more advanced then LoL's. Let's have a look.

2. Dota 2 Image Quality And Detail Settings

Like most of the latest titles developed by Valve, Dota 2 is powered by the venerable Source engine, modified and repurposed for top-down strategy style play instead of first-person shooting. The characters and environment are cartoony, but less so than LoL and far more detailed. The best way I can describe the art direction is a cross between World of Warcraft and Team Fortress 2.

There are a lot of available detail settings, but they're straightforward on/off toggles (except for Shadows, Textures, and Render Quality). We're going to keep this comparison simple by using two combinations: first, minimum detail settings with Med textures and 100% Render Quality, and then with all of the settings maxed-out.

The most striking differences come from the apparent depth that shadows add. Otherwise, post-process effects and anti-aliasing are also visible in the highest-detail shots. Even entry-level settings are attractive, though the most demanding configuration offers much better graphics.

3. Test System And Graphics Hardware

As a free-to-play multiplayer online title, Dota 2 isn't aimed at hardcore PC gamers with enthusiast-class rigs. And as you'll see in the benchmarks, multiple graphics cards in SLI or CrossFire are overkill. So, we're only testing up to AMD's Radeon HD 7950 Boost and Nvidia's GeForce GTX 660 Ti, though those two boards are even a lot more than this game needs.

We planned to test the game at 5760x1080 using three screens, but Dota 2 doesn't support that setting. Maybe Valve doesn't want players with more desktop real estate to have an advantage. Thus, 2560x1600 is the highest resolution we're able to test.

Additionally, I'm adding multiple CPU tests, a mobile AMD A10-4600M (with integrated Radeon HD 7660G graphics), and an Intel Core i5-3210M (with integrated HD Graphics 4000) to the mix.

Test System
CPU
Intel Core i5-3550 (Ivy Bridge) 3.3 GHz Base Clock Rate, 3.7 GHz Maximum Turbo Boost
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z77X-UP7, LGA 1155, Chipset: Intel Z77 Express
Networking
On-Board Gigabit LAN controller
Memory
Corsair Vengeance LP PC3-16000, 4 x 4 GB, 1600 MT/s, CL 8-8-8-24-2T
Hard Drive
Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB, 7,200 RPM, 32 MB Cache, SATA 3Gb/s
Power
ePower EP-1200E10-T2 1,200 W, ATX12V, EPS12V
Software and Drivers
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 8
DirectX
DirectX 11.1
Graphics Drivers
AMD Catalyst 13.3 Beta 3
Nvidia GeForce 314.22
Intel Graphics Driver 9.18.10.3071
Benchmarks
Dota 2
Custom THG Benchmark, 60-second Fraps run
Practice With Bots, Difficulty: Easy, Start Bench At 00:00 on Timer,
Switch View To Other Teammates Every 5 Seconds.
4. Results: Low Details, 1920x1080

As I mentioned, Dota 2 is designed to run smoothly on entry-level hardware. Our base tests are set to the lowest available details with the Textures option at medium and Render Quality at 100%. This means no anti-aliasing, no post-processing, and no shadows. Having said that, even low-end graphics processors are strong enough to drive smooth frame rates at 1920x1080.

Aside from the mobile platforms, all of these benchmarks were run on an Intel Core i5-3550 CPU. The mobile Core i5-3210M has an integrated HD Graphics 4000 engine, while the A10-4600M features a Radeon HD 7660G on-chip.

A $40 Radeon HD 6450 yields a minimum of almost 50 FPS. Even the mobile HD Graphics 4000 and Radeon HD 7660G chipsets maintain at least 30 FPS at 1920x1080.

The only card that struggles is Nvidia's GeForce G210. We were actually surprised that the powerful Core i5-3550 wasn't able to pull the low-end discrete card up to playable levels of performance. You'd need to drop the resolution or Render Quality setting in order to achieve playable frame rates.

The frame rates plotted over time don't tell us much that we didn't already see in the minimum and average frame rate chart.

Frame latencies don't cause any noticeable stuttering in the benchmark, although the GeForce G210 passes the undesirable 15 millisecond mark.

5. Results: High Details, 1680x1050

So, now we know that Dota 2 runs fairly well on pretty much everything when you use the lowest detail settings. How does that change when we crank the game up to its most demanding combination of options?

Except for the Radeon HD 6670 DDR3 and GeForce GT 630 GDDR5, every card manages to maintain at least 60 FPS in our benchmark run. Even those two budget-oriented boards hover just above 30 FPS.

As you can see, plotting frame rate over time demonstrates a tie between the least expensive AMD and Nvidia cards. The other contenders are too fast to show up on this chart.

We aren't concerned by the frame time variance results generated by our testing. The whole field comes in under 10 ms at the 95th percentile.

6. Results: High Details, 1920x1080

Now we'll run the same test, using the same detail settings, only at 1920x1080.

While the Radeon HD 6670 and GeForce GT 630 drop to 28 FPS, the results are so consistent that both cards remain absolutely playable. The GeForce GTX 650 gets drawn below 60 FPS, but all of the other contenders show up above that threshold.

Once again, charting frame rate over time reinforces what we saw in the average and minimum frame rate results.

The frame latencies all remain low, and we saw nothing to suggest anything but consistent delivery during the tests.

7. Results: High Details, 2560x1600

With triple-monitor resolutions currently unsupported by Dota 2, 2560x1600 is as high as we can go for taxing graphics hardware using this title, at least until 4K displays become more affordable.

Only the GeForce GTX 650 straddles 30 FPS, but its performance is plenty smooth for this game. AMD's Radeon HD 7750 1 GB gives us at least 35 FPS on average, the Radeon HD 7770 and GeForce GTX 650 Ti stay above 45 FPS, and all the other contenders average more than 70 FPS in our benchmark run.

Charting out frame rate over time shows some variance between the four cards held under 60 FPS.

The rate at which frames are delivered is extremely consistent across the entire field at this high-resolution setting. Even the 95th percentile numbers never crest five milliseconds.

8. Results: CPU Benchmarks

So, we know this game is not graphics-bound on most 3D solutions. Does it respond to differences in CPU performance, though? In order to check, we maintained our highest detail settings and dropped the resolution to 1680x1050. 

The only processor that drops below 50 FPS is the dual-core Athlon II X2 260, and even then we see a frame rate that doesn't dip under 35 FPS. If you're worried about slower CPUs, remember that our mobile AMD A10-4600M runs at 2.3 GHz, and that mobile Core i5-3210M operates at 2.5 GHz. Both chips managed more than 30 FPS in our lowest-detail benchmark leveraging on-board graphics.

Clearly, Intel has the advantage, though a quad-core AMD CPU is still fast enough for smooth frame rates in Dota 2. I personally wouldn't worry about choppy frame rates unless I was still stuck with a dual-core Athlon or Phenom running at less than 2.5 GHz. On the other hand, Intel's dual-core Sandy Bridge-based Pentium doesn't have a problem chewing through this title's highest-detail setting.

9. Dota 2 Runs Well On Low-End Hardware

Free-to-play multiplayer games are only profitable if as many people as possible have access to them. So, it's hardly surprising that Dota 2 is not a particularly demanding title. It's really meant to run well on the lowest common denominator. Our little exercise today demonstrates just how little rendering horsepower it need.

At low (but still attractive) detail levels, gaming at 1920x1080 is smooth enough on both AMD's mobile A10-4600M with integrated Radeon HD 7660G graphics and Intel's Core i5-3210M with HD Graphics 4000. As far as discrete cards go, the GeForce G 210 is the only model we tested that couldn't handle this title's entry-level options. Meanwhile, the Radeon HD 6450 delivers frame rates in excess of 45 FPS throughout our benchmark run.

Crank up the detail settings as high as they'll go and you'll want at least a Radeon HD 6670 DDR3 or GeForce GT 630 GDDR5 for at least 30 FPS at 1920x1080. A GeForce GTX 650 or Radeon HD 7750 are better choices for that combination of details and resolution, though. And if you want more than 45 FPS at 2560x1600, get a Radeon HD 7770 or GeForce GTX 650 Ti.

The game is also pretty forgiving when it comes to processor performance. A dual-core AMD chip running faster than 2.5 GHz should suffice, and anyone with a modern Intel CPU clocked at 2 GHz or higher should be fine as well. Ideally, I'd say an LGA 1155-based Pentium or Phenom II X4/FX-4000-series processor running at 3 GHz should keep you up above 50 FPS.

As far as hardware goes, this game doesn't give you much to worry about. At this point, the only question is how Dota 2's main competition, League of Legends, compares. To answer, I'll be putting that game through a similar set of tests, so stay tuned to Tom's Hardware for the results.