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How Well Does The Elder Scrolls Online Run On Your PC?
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1. The Elder Scrolls Goes Online

The Elder Scrolls franchise defines what we've come to expect from an open-world, single-player RPG. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind was notable for its gigantic land mass and advanced 3D graphics, introducing pixel-shaded water and accelerated tessellation. In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, all communication was spoken, the storyline was refined, and the graphics were vastly improved. Of course, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim pleased us with the best-polished experience from the series.

Although The Elder Scrolls games historically targeted single-player gameplay, it was inevitable that the intellectual property would find its way into a multi-player title sooner or later. Previously, modders came up with their own workarounds to let friends join them in the world of Tamriel. But now the game's development team has a massively multiplayer version ready to go. Dubbed The Elder Scrolls Online, it goes live today, April 4. I was able to spend some time with the game back in March, though.

Tamriel is bigTamriel is big

The Elder Scrolls Online takes place some 800 years before the events of Morrowind and Oblivion. It is a time of conflict, as three factions (the Ebonheart Pact, the Daggerfall Covenant, and the Aldmeri Dominion) compete to rule Tamriel. Of course, that gives players a good excuse to beat each other up in PvP battles.

Because this is an Elder Scrolls game, though, there's still an expectation of quality single-player progression. In my short time with it, the game appeared to tick all of the Elder Scrolls check-boxes. Quests were introduced in a way that fit the franchise, even if they were still rough around the edges. Actually, it felt a bit like Skyrim, if the developers were only given half as much time to ship. There was that lack of polish compared to the Elder Scrolls games I'm used to. But again, the finished product is only launching today.

My son described his impression of the game as Elder Scrolls Lite, and I don't particularly disagree. Some of this comes from the transition to a multi-player world, no doubt. Many areas are large and empty, presumably to accommodate throngs of online players. NPC homes look more like hotel lobbies than intimate living spaces. And that makes perfect sense in an MMO; there's just an aspect of The Elder Scrolls lost in translation.

Shared quest instances don't help. For example, I was tasked to perform a stealthy prison break. Once inside, though, I was one of 30 or so testers with the same quest, brutally swarming slowly-spawning enemies. It wasn't a covert mission; rather, we were part of a brute force uprising, breaking any momentum the narrative had. That's not to say I don't enjoy cooperating with strangers for a common goal. There were plenty of times I received unsolicited help, or had the opportunity to save another adventurer from certain death. The most jarring detractor, then, is also the game's most notable asset. It does feel like The Elder Scrolls, so the elements that don't fit my single-player expectation of the series are awkward.

The interface is familiar for the most part. You can sneak and see the classic sleepy-eye reticule. Character customization is incredibly robust for an MMO. Conversations transpire as you'd expect. Right-click to block; left-click to strike. Kill a giant wasp and loot a carapace from the corpse. Usually, when you try out a MMORPG, you start out cautiously as you get used to a new way of doing things. Not so with The Elder Scrolls Online, which is so familiar to so many gamers that you'll want to charge ahead. When something happens you're not used to, though, you may find yourself getting irritated, rather than allowing yourself to simply learn the game.

Everyone pictured is waiting for an enemy to spawnEveryone pictured is waiting for an enemy to spawn

Personally, my favorite part of the game is that sense of discovery, which comes from exploring the countryside. Wandering around Tamriel is all about braving an ancient keep occupied by wraiths, stumbling into a secret door leading to an underground cave, or finding hidden treasure in a grove. In most MMOs, the landscape is merely there to travel as you run from one instance to the next. However, The Elder Scrolls games are distinctive for their details in between adventures.

Speaking of exploration, the changing terrain reminds you that this is not Oblivion or Skyrim, games sporting a fairly consistent look throughout the land. I spent my time in the game looking at Middle Eastern-looking deserts, European-styled seaside cities, and sparse, craggy islands. The diversity is nice, encouraging me to explore even more.

Then again, Skyrim and Oblivion rubber-banded to your skill level. The Elder Scrolls Online does not. So, don't explore a land that's out of your league. I never appreciated Oblivion's behind-the-scenes scaling as much as I do now. It allowed me to experience every corner of Tamriel whenever I wanted to.

I didn't get to spend as much time in the beta as I wanted, but those were my impressions. The game was a little disjointed at first, but improved as I went along. Hopefully, additional polish was added prior to today's official launch.

Regardless, the main purpose of going hands-on with The Elder Scrolls Online was to measure performance on the PC. Ready to have a look at this title's graphics quality and settings?

2. Image Quality And Settings

While Skyrim leverages Bethesda's Creation engine, The Elder Scrolls Online was built on a custom engine created specifically for this title. While ZeniMax Online Studios used the HeroEngine (of Star Wars: The Old Republic fame) as a prototyping tool, it's not what you'll find in the actual game.

To the developer's credit, its engine scales across an impressive range of hardware. The Ultra-High preset is truly worthy of a title called The Elder Scrolls Online, while the lowest settings look more like the original Everquest from 1999. Seriously.

The best-looking combination of settings is impressive, though it's definitely a step down from Skyrim, which I frankly expected. It is good to see that this title accommodates very low-end hardware, even if I don't think you'd want to play at anything under the Medium detail preset.

Ready to start stacking up the graphics cards and processors for a good old-fashioned round-up of PC hardware?

3. Test System And Graphics Hardware

As always, we strive to represent game performance across a wide range of graphics hardware. We include cards ranging from the low-end Radeon HD 6450 and GeForce GT 630 GDDR5 to the powerful Radeon R9 290X, HD 7990, GeForce GTX 780 Ti, and 690.

We all know that boards like the Radeon HD 7990 require a substantial amount of power, so XFX sent us its PRO850W 80 PLUS Bronze-certified power supply. This modular PSU employs a single +12 V rail rated for 70 A. XFX claims continuous (not peak) output of up to 850 W at 50 degrees Celsius.

We've almost exclusively eliminated mechanical disks in the lab, preferring solid-state storage for alleviating I/O-related bottlenecks. Samsung sent all of our labs 256 GB 840 Pros, so we standardize on these exceptional SSDs.


Test System
CPU
Intel Core i7-4770K (Haswell), Overclocked to 4.4 GHz @ 1.2 V
Motherboard
ASRock Z87 Pro3 LGA 1150, Intel Z87 Express
Networking
On-Board Gigabit LAN controller
Memory
8 GB Corsair Vengeance LP (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1866, Model CML8GX3M2A1866C9B
1866 MT/s 9-10-9-27 2T @ 1.5 V
Graphics
GeForce GT 630 512 MB GDDR5
GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2 GB GDDR5
GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2 GB GDDR5
GeForce GTX 660 2 GB GDDR5
GeForce GTX 760 2 GB GDDR5
GeForce GTX 770 2 GB GDDR5
GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3 GB GDDR5
GeForce GTX 690 4 GB GDDR5

Radeon HD 6450 512 MB GDDR5
Radeon R7 240 1 GB DDR3
Radeon R7 250X 1 GB GDDR5
Radeon R7 260X 1 GB GDDR5
Radeon R9 270 2 GB GDDR5
Radeon R9 280 3 GB GDDR5
Radeon R9 280X 3 GB GDDR5
Radeon R9 290X 4 GB GDDR5
Radeon HD 7990 6 GB GDDR5
SSD
Samsung 840 Pro, 256 GB SSD, SATA 6Gb/s
Power
XFX PRO850W, ATX12V, EPS12V
Software and Drivers
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 8 Pro x64
DirectX
DirectX 11
Graphics Drivers
AMD Catalyst 14.2 Beta 1.3, Nvidia GeForce 335.23 WHQL
Benchmarks
The Elder Scrolls Online
Custom Tom's Hardware Benchmark, 40-second Fraps run, Stonetooth, Betnikh
4. Medium Detail, 1280x720

Although The Elder Scrolls Online is meant to be playable on entry-level hardware using the lowest available graphics settings, the Medium preset is as low as you'd want to go. Below that, and I'd suggest investing in a more modern machine.

With that in mind, we begin benchmarking at 1280x720 using medium-quality details. 

The Medium preset looks good enough, and it's certainly not taxing. Even the low-end Radeon HD 6450 stays within 4 FPS of our 30-FPS minimum, on average. The Radeon R7 240 and GeForce GT 630 GDDR5 have no trouble maintaining more than 40 FPS.

Frame time variance is nice and low across the board, yielding a smooth, consistent experience.

5. Medium Detail, 1920x1080

The next step is to increase resolution to 1920x1080, keeping the Medium quality preset constant. This time, we're looking to see if AMD's Radeon R7 240 and Nvidia's GeForce GT 630 GDDR5 can push the extra pixels without faltering.

Almost, it appears. Both cards skirt the 30 FPS line throughout our benchmark. I'll call the outcome playable, though as more folks pile into the game, performance certainly isn't going to get any better.

Having said that, The Elder Scrolls Online only requires a Radeon R7 250X, which you might know as the Radeon HD 7770, or GeForce GTX 650 to deliver at least 54 FPS at all times.

Only AMD's Radeon HD 6450 demonstrates worrying frame time variance. However, that card's average frame rate is too low to consider playable anyway.

6. Ultra Detail, 1920x1080

Although we need to cover lower resolutions and less-demanding graphics settings, I imagine more Tom's Hardware readers are going to be interested in how The Elder Scrolls Online runs using the Ultra-High detail preset. Again, I'll keep one constant: the resolution. This first set of tests is at 1920x1080.

The Radeon R7 250X and GeForce GTX 650 handled this game's Medium preset with ease. But Ultra-High detail levels slow them down significantly, pushing both cards well under 30 FPS on average. Under even more demanding loads, that's going to be a problem.

On the other hand, AMD's Radeon R7 260X and Nvidia's GeForce GTX 750 Ti keep The Elder Scrolls Online running above 35 FPS at all times.

While the frame rates drop compared to our Medium-quality benchmarks, frame time variance remains low, giving us little reason to worry about the smoothness of gameplay.

7. Ultra Detail, 5760x1080

My last graphics card test retains the Ultra preset, but increases resolution to 5760x1080 using three FHD displays. Naturally, lower-end hardware is hit particularly hard.

The Radeon R9 280 (formerly Radeon HD 7950 Boost) and GeForce GTX 760 are as low as I'd go to play across three displays using this game's top image quality features. Even then, you might want to drop the detail preset down to High.

To truly maintain frame rates in excess of 30 using the Ultra-High setting, you need a Radeon R9 280X or GeForce GTX 770.

The dual-GPU Radeon HD 7990 and GeForce GTX 690 don't appear to offer any performance advantage over their single-GPU counterparts, suggesting that The Elder Scrolls Online cannot yet take advantage of CrossFire or SLI. We even tried forcing CrossFire on without a profile, to no avail.

Our frame time variance numbers confirm the hypothesis about CrossFire and SLI, demonstrating consistently-high lag between frames rendered by the dual-GPU boards. In contrast, all of the single-GPU solutions fare well.

8. CPU Benchmarks

With a better idea of how The Elder Scrolls Online responds to graphics hardware, we turn our attention to more platform-oriented comparisons. Does the game respond to processor swaps?

Although there is a bit of differentiation between the handful of CPUs we're testing, even AMD's budget-oriented FX-4170 maintains at least 30 FPS through our benchmark, complemented by a Radeon R9 270.

Given a consistent graphics card, we observe relatively low frame time variance between these processors (though Intel's Core i5 and i7 facilitate the most impressive results).

9. The Elder Scrolls Online: Looks Good, Even On Mid-Range Hardware

This is a performance analysis, first and foremost. So, let's get down to it. The Elder Scrolls Online employs a scalable game engine that delivers attractive graphics on budget-oriented cards like the Radeon R7 240 and GeForce GT 630 GDDR5. Given a low-end board, you can expect fairly smooth gameplay at 1280x720 using the Medium detail preset. Even at 1920x1080, those two models barely dipped below 30 FPS in our benchmark, while the Radeon R7 250X (a rebadged Radeon HD 7770) and GeForce GTX 650 seldom fell under 60 FPS. If you don't have a ton of money to spend on new hardware, you can get buy with a mainstream machine and still enjoy The Elder Scrolls Online.

While the Ultra-High setting demands more from your hardware, it won't give you a ton of additional visual effects. Nevertheless, you can still get smooth performance at 1920x1080 from a Radeon R7 260X or GeForce GTX 750 Ti.

Enthusiasts looking to go big with a triple-monitor array should step up to a Radeon R9 280 or GeForce GTX 760, both of which can keep frame rates around 30 at 5760x1080. I'd really suggest a Radeon R9 280X or GeForce GTX 770, though, to keep the game from bogging down.

Not a good sign when an altar eminates waves of pure evil.Not a good sign when an altar eminates waves of pure evil.

On the platform side, Intel's Core i7 enables the highest frame rates. However, even AMD's budget-oriented FX-4170 allows for a fluid experience using the Ultra-High detail preset and a Radeon R9 270 graphics card.

Frankly, this game scales so well that we'd be surprised if anyone with moderate gaming hardware runs into performance issues. If your system can play Skyrim comfortably, you won't need an upgrade to play The Elder Scrolls Online at the same resolution.

And how about the game itself? I know better than to give an MMO a thumbs-up or -down on release day. Without question, though, this one imparts an authentic Elder Scrolls flavor to the massively multiplayer space, and I'm optimistic that it'll turn into something even better over time.

My main concern is the game's archaic subscription model in a world of freemium MMOs. I criticized Star Wars: The Old Republic for the same sin, and it went free-to-play in a matter of months. Say what you will about that title, but The Elder Scrolls Online doesn't have any better of a single-player storyline. Frankly, I'm not confident in the long-term prospects of any MMO with a subscription-based model.

The publisher defends its decision with a commitment to providing high-quality content. Bethesda vice president Pete Hines went on-record saying, "We want to do the version that we think is the best game and the coolest experience, and that means putting a lot of people and a lot of content creators towards having stuff that comes out regularly; every four weeks, five weeks, six weeks. Big new stuff that you want to do."

If the company didn't staunchly defend the decision to fund the game via subscription, I might suspect that Bethesda was already planning a free-to-play transition, choosing to launch with a subscription model in order to generate a quick flow of cash from early adopters. In retrospect, I have to wonder if that was BioWare's original plan for Star Wars: The Old Republic, too.

No matter what you think of the revenue model, The Elder Scrolls Online is a compelling hybrid of the franchise's single-player history and multi-player aspirations. The compromises required to merge both game types won't sit well with everyone. But there's still a lot of entertainment value available if you're willing to keep an open mind and not impose your expectations. Expect to pay $15 a month for now, though.