Gory Gaming: Bulletstorm Performance Analyzed

Features
By Don Woligroski
published

Although the game had significant performance issues when it was released, Bulletstorm now benefits from the latest graphics drivers and a patch from its developers. Now is the perfect time to see what kind of hardware this game requires for smooth play.

Benchmark Results: 1680x1050 Performance Problem Fixed

This article was delayed due to a number of unexpected product launches, and our original benchmarks showed a massive performance hit at 1680x1050 that even 1920x1080 results could easily outpace. The game was designed to play optimally at HD resolutions divisible by eight. While that's fine at 720p and 1080p, it caused problems at 1680x1050 (one of the most common gaming resolutions on the PC).

It can be bypassed by adding a custom 1680x1048 resolution, but this is a messy solution.

Our original 1680x1050 benchmarks looked like this:

Just prior to publishing, we re-ran tests to see what newer drivers could do and found that the 1680 performance problem was fixed. Steam automatically patched the game on April 29, and one of the update notes indicates a "fix for certain resolutions lowering performance (FPS)." Here are the new results:

As you can see, the performance problem at 1680x1050 (or any resolution not divisible by eight) is now fixed, except for an SLI glitch. This is great news and we applaud the developers for supporting PC users.

Don Woligroski
40 Comments Comment from the forums
  • JohnnyLucky
    The next time how about installing a game on a solid state drive and a hard disk drive so we can find out about any differences in game play.
    Reply
  • shubham1401
    mayankleoboy1i enjoy the game and i am not embarrassed to admit it on my 3.33ghz core 2 duo and gtx580, it stutters a lot during some areas and level loading. even a slight CPU use by another processes make this game unplayable.
    Didn't happen with me. I have a 2.66Ghz C2D and 9800GT. And I played the whole game with ~45Fps at 1600X900 medium settings.
    :)
    Reply
  • yyrkoon
    JohnnyLuckyThe next time how about installing a game on a solid state drive and a hard disk drive so we can find out about any differences in game play.
    Where have you been for the last decade? It would only effect level loading.
    Reply
  • haplo602
    why are the pictures and descriptions on the cards backwards ? I mean firs the image than the description ? since we are scrolling DOWN normaly, it's the wrong way around.
    Reply
  • Maziar
    Thanks for the review :)
    The good thing about Unreal engine is that the PC game powered by it are almost always optimized and that's what's lacking in most of todays' PC games.
    Reply
  • kevith
    Why this commercial disguised as an article?
    Reply
  • hannibal
    The thing that "Epic is serious about multithreading" is good thing to see! We have had so long time 4 to 6 core CPUs, that it has been a shame that those cores had not been supported in games so far. This is very promising indeed!
    Reply
  • nevertell
    You definitely have to do these more often.
    Reply
  • Formata
    I love this sort of article. Would be nice to see that same sort of comparison done with Witcher 2
    Reply
  • joshyboy82
    I had no interest in buying this game, but I read the review to see if it my change my mind. Sadly it won't. I already am into too many games and I just can't seem to beat CS:S, so when I've run out of Witcher sequels and Portals, I'll only have Battlefields and Diablos to conquer, before I become a full time farmer (as a in-game career) in Skyrim. Sorry about your luck.
    Reply