Test System And Benchmark Settings
Right out of the gate, Prototype is not an ideal benchmarking candidate. The title has no built-in benchmarking tool, and to make matters worse, every time a saved game is loaded the player is placed at the same position on the map, but at a different time of day. Because of this, every benchmark run has its own unique rendering challenges. The map is also populated differently on each load, with helicopters, enemies, tanks, cars, and people in different locations, so no two benchmark runs are the same. We must keep this in mind when interpreting the results, so as not to assign too much significance to minor differences.
Note that we used two test systems: a Core i7-920-based system for the majority of the benchmarks and a Core 2 Quad Q6600-based system to demonstrate what slower CPU architecture, lower clock speeds, and fewer CPU cores would provide in the way of performance.
Once again, we chose a range of graphics cards from our “Best Graphics Cards for the Money” monthly recommendations for our tests. This gives us a nice broad spectrum of cards to scrutinize from a range of budgets. The only note here is that our Radeon HD 4870 benchmarks were performed by underclocking a reference Radeon HD 4890 down to Radeon HD 4870 speeds, which should deliver reference Radeon HD 4870 performance (as the Radeon HD 4890 is essentially an overclocked Radeon HD 4870).
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Graphic Test System | CPU Test System |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i7-920 (Nehalem),2.67 GHz, QPI-2400, 8 MB Cache | Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (Kentsfield),2.7 GHz, FSB-1200, 8 MB Cache |
| Motherboard | ASRock X58 Supercomputer Intel X58, BIOS P1.90 | MSI P7N SLI Platinum Nvidia nForce 750i, BIOS A2 |
| Networking | Onboard Realtek Gigabit LAN controller | Onboard nForce 750i Gigabit Ethernet |
| Memory | Mushkin PC3-10700 3 x 2,048 MB, DDR3-1066, CL 8-8-8-19 at 1.8 V | A-Data Extreme DDR2 800+ 2 x 2,048 MB, DDR2-800, CL 5-5-5-18 at 1.8 V |
| Graphics | Sapphire HD4650 512 MB DDR2 PCIeGigabyte GV-N96TSL-1GI 1 GB DDR3 PCIeDiamond Radeon HD 4770 512 MB DDR5 PCIePowercolor AX4830 512 MB DDR3 PCIeGigabyte GV-NX88T512HPV1 512 MB DDR3 PCIeAsus ENGTS250 DK 1 GB DDR3 PCIeAsus EAH4850 MT 512 MB DDR3 PCIeAsus ENGTX260 796 MB DDR3 PCIeATI Radeon HD 4870 reference | Asus ENGTX260 796 MB DDR3 PCIe |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital Caviar WD50 00AAJS-00YFA, 500 GB, 7200 RPM, 8 MB cache, SATA 3.0 GB/s | Western Digital Caviar WD50 00AAJS-00YFA, 500 GB, 7200 RPM, 8 MB cache, SATA 3.0 GB/s |
| Power | Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W1,200 W, ATX 12V 2.2, EPS 12v 2.91 | Ultra HE1000X ATX 2.2, 1,000 W |
| Software and Drivers | ||
| Operating System | Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit 6.0.6001, SP1 | |
| DirectX version | DirectX 10 | |
| Graphics Drivers | Nvidia GeForce 186.18, Catalyst 9.6 |
