Benchmark Results: Batman: Arkham City
From dirt track to dirty skyscrapers, let’s shift to the latest Batman installment, Arkham City.
Both AMD APUs deliver a playable experience at the lowest settings, albeit with minimums that dip below where we'd like to see them. Intel takes a Batarang in the back here.
For all of this heavy load, what do you get in return (if you can play at all)?
There are definite texture quality advantages in moving from Low to Medium settings. With DX 11 engaged, we see the High settings do a better job with light dispersion, which is particularly handy in a dark game like Batman. The shadows that appear in Medium offer an obvious upgrade to our Low settings. So, clearly, there are good reasons to want more horsepower. The problem is that you’re not going to get it from today’s integrated processors.
It’s arguable whether AMD gets a pass at Medium settings with minimum frame rates dropping into the teens. At High, everyone gets obliterated. But, given that we see the jump from Low to Medium being most significant here, we find this a promising case for AMD and another instance in which we’d lean on a little overclocking to help boost those minimum rates without sacrificing our other HTPC priorities.