Call Of Duty: Ghosts Graphics Performance: 17 Cards, Tested

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It's already a commercial blockbuster. But does Call of Duty: Ghosts improve the first-person shooter genre, or simply rehash it? We look at this series' newest installment and test to see what kind of hardware you'll need for smooth play on the PC.

Results: Ultra Quality, 2560x1600

Since multi-monitor resolutions aren't an option in Ghosts, we'll wrap up the graphics card testing with our highest possible single-screen resolution of 2560x1600.

Driving more than 4 million pixels per frame pushes the Radeon HD 7950 Boost to a 25 FPS minimum, while the GeForce GTX 670 dips to 29 FPS. AMD's Radeon R9 280X and Nvidia's GeForce GTX 770 end up a couple of frames per second higher, and it takes a Radeon R9 290X or GeForce GTX Titan to carve out some headroom above our identified minimum.

The Radeon HD 7990's results are particularly interesting. Its average frame rates are pretty good, but they drop under 30 FPS in the most demanding parts of our benchmark. That result is reflected in real-world game play, too; the card definitely feels choppy.

Although the worst-case figures don't look particularly bad for AMD's dual-GPU flagship, its average and seventy-fifth percentile results are higher than we'd expect them to be. In contrast, the GeForce GTX 770, Titan, 690, and Radeon R9 290X look relatively good. Sampling 300 frames over time shows that consistency is somewhat of an issue.

Don Woligroski
111 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Amdlova
    i think i will use mine 670 for more 5 years...
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    I think it's safe to say that Call of Duty defined, and then refined, the console-based first-person shooter experience

    It is funny to see this as CoD1 and CoD2 were originally PC games. CoD2 was the first to be ported to the 360 but CoD3 was the first multi-console one of the series, with no release on the PC.

    I loved 1 and 2 and 4 was pretty good but now CoD is just the same thing every year. It's just a cash cow currently with no innovation while 1 & 2 were very innovative (CoD1 was the first to have real recorded sounds for every gun used in the game).

    I haven't done a CoD since 2. It's too bad as it could have been a great series if it didn't become console and money centric.

    Also, on page 9 the chart for the FPS says Battlefield 4......
    Reply
  • lunyone
    If you have a PhII x4 965 BE, you can just OC it to get a bit more FPS if you like, so there is that option. Obviously you want more CPU, but not all of us have the $ to do so.
    Reply
  • Cons29
    my last cod was mw2 which i stopped playing due to lack of dedicated server. The last i enjoyed was cod4.

    bf is much better (personal opinion), 64 players on a huge map with vehicles and desctructions, better than cod
    Reply
  • Frank Zigfreed
    Loving these game graphics performance reviews!!! keep them coming tomshardware!!
    B
    Reply
  • animeman59
    Been playing this game on PC ever since it's release, and I gotta say, this is probably one of the worst performing games that I've ever seen. I'm running an FX-8350, a GTX 780, and 32GB of RAM, and this game will still dip below 45fps. I don't care what anyone says, but CoD and IW6 should be running with no issues on a rig like that. It's a little suspicious when I can get 60fps consistent on a game like Battlefield 4 with max settings, but CoD:Ghosts stutters like Porky Pig. Even Metro: Last Light runs better than CoD:Ghosts!

    This game is horribly optimized and buggy. People on Steam forums have been complaining about game-breaking bugs from day one, and there's still issues that haven't been answered for, yet. Like the one in Squad Mode where you can't use any of your squad members in a game, except for the first one. Or the earlier bug where people couldn't even create their first soldier, because they didn't have 3 squad points to unlock it, hence locking them out of multiplayer.

    Skip out on this game. Infinity Ward obviously doesn't care about the PC market, and their horrible release just further solidifies that fact. Spend your money on a MP shooter that doesn't insult it's audience.
    Reply
  • lunyone
    12095017 said:
    Been playing this game on PC ever since it's release, and I gotta say, this is probably one of the worst performing games that I've ever seen. I'm running an FX-8350, a GTX 780, and 32GB of RAM, and this game will still dip below 45fps. I don't care what anyone says, but CoD and IW6 should be running with no issues on a rig like that. It's a little suspicious when I can get 60fps consistent on a game like Battlefield 4 with max settings, but CoD:Ghosts stutters like Porky Pig. Even Metro: Last Light runs better than CoD:Ghosts!

    This game is horribly optimized and buggy. People on Steam forums have been complaining about game-breaking bugs from day one, and there's still issues that haven't been answered for, yet. Like the one in Squad Mode where you can't use any of your squad members in a game, except for the first one. Or the earlier bug where people couldn't even create their first soldier, because they didn't have 3 squad points to unlock it, hence locking them out of multiplayer.

    Skip out on this game. Infinity Ward obviously doesn't care about the PC market, and their horrible release just further solidifies that fact. Spend your money on a MP shooter that doesn't insult it's audience.

    Quake or Unreal Tournament, anyone?
    Reply
  • smeezekitty
    LOL @ NVidia frame variance
    Reply
  • oxiide
    12095151 said:
    LOL @ NVidia frame variance

    I get that you're trying to phrase that as an AMD fanboy taking a shot at Nvidia, but frame variance is all over the place in this review. There's AMD hardware all over those charts too, not just clustered at the low end.

    These frame variance numbers often aren't even logical—the HD 7990, with lower frame variance than a single HD 7950? A GTX 690 doing better than a single 670? I think its clear that the quality of Infinity Ward's PC port is a factor here, and maybe that's more important than pouncing on Nvidia's mistakes.
    Reply
  • bemused_fred
    12095017 said:
    . I'm running an FX-8350, a GTX 780, and 32GB of RAM,

    A mediocre-CPU with a top end GPU and too much RAM? I FOUND YOUR PROBLEM!
    Reply