There are only two detail controls in Prototype: Graphic Quality and Shadow. Each has a low, medium, and high setting.

On the low setting, shadows are nonexistent, which really flattens out the landscape and removes depth from the game world. The distance at which objects like cars are rendered using low-detail models is fairly close to the player's point of view. Only at the closest ranges are high-detail models displayed. For example, look at how the detail of the automobiles drops off as the distance increases from the viewpoint.

At medium detail we see shadows, which immediately increases the graphical fidelity of the game world quite a bit. The distance at which the game reverts to low-detail models is somewhat improved, with the high-detail models remaining farther from the viewpoint.

High detail increases the shadow resolution, but it doesn't make all that much of a visual difference compared to the medium setting. Objects are also rendered with high-detail models at increased ranges from the viewpoint, although, in the distance, low-detail models can still be seen.
Unfortunately, from the rooftops, even the high graphics quality setting isn't sufficient to prevent the camera from seeing the hard line where the streets & cars revert to a flat texture instead of 3D models. However, this drawback isn't very noticeable during game play.
All things considered, Prototype certainly doesn't reach for the leading edge where graphics are concerned, as it looks more like a title from a year or two ago rather than an A-list game in 2009. It's not particularly ugly, but there are a few places where low-resolution textures and overly-simple prop models bring down the fidelity. In general, the lighting model is a little outdated as well, with shadows completely missing from certain situations even when the highest detail level is selected. Having said that, when you're enjoying the game's action, the visuals are good enough so that these things won't detract from the fun.
- Introduction
- Image Quality Settings
- Image Quality: Radeon Versus GeForce
- Test System And Benchmark Settings
- Benchmark Results: Low Detail
- Benchmark Results: Medium Detail
- Benchmark Results: High Detail
- Benchmark Results: High Detail With 4x Anti-Aliasing
- CPU Benchmarks: Clock Speeds And Cores
- Conclusion
At the least, it'll convince people that their older rigs -can- run it. It's basically an optimized and mostly un-buggy Web Of Shadows engine; I'd expect a 7800GT could probably run it okay.
In action it's much better than these screenshots. It pulls a lot of the same tricks MGS4 does on the PS3, where you can tell it's not actually doing that much processing but it looks like it is. Screenshots don't do the game justice because you rarely see a texture or polygon for more than a few seconds at most; in action the particle effects are actually pretty impressive.
Even saints row, which has shit for graphics, runs close to the 2gb memory limit of 32bit games all the time - so perhaps this actually uses whatever is available?
I saw this game a few weeks ago running great on a laptop that usually does inventor stuff ... I don't know what processor was in it, but I bet no more than an old dualcore T something processor
One of the best games ever BTW!!
It's not fair to compare a pc game with graphics from a pocket calculator. gta if anything sports only gameplay. Graphics aren't a selling point for that title.
I think the answer is the lack of VRAM on the 8800GT which I believe only had 512Mb where as the 9600GT has a full 1Gb which eliminated any bottlenecks when processing all those textures with 4x AA being applied.
Anyway, keep articles like these coming.
So unless this CPU is the business (which it isn't on this platform), anyone with a computer that made in the last 3 years can run this game no problem.