Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus Performance Review

By Yannick Guerrini, Bruno Cormier
published

Conclusion

With exceptionally beautiful rendering enabled by the id Tech 6 engine, Wolfenstein II proves to be also quite hungry for hardware resources. Although the minimum and recommended configurations seemed higher-end than most games call for these days, they're perfectly justified.

We Recommend a Strong GPU

If you really want to experience this game's beauty, you'll need to push the graphics preset as high as it'll go. In that case, forget entry-level graphics cards. A GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, or better yet, a Radeon RX 580 is the bare minimum for smooth game play at 2560x1440. It goes without saying that, if you have the means, a Radeon RX Vega 64 or GeForce GTX 1080 is going to fare better.

With a GeForce GTX 1060 3GB or Radeon RX 570, expect to hit a ceiling at 1920x1080. Below that, you'll have to start dialing back quality and lose certain visual effects.

Forget about budget-oriented boards like the Radeon RX 460 and GeForce GTX 1050. They're completely overwhelmed by this first-person shooter.

Pay attention to system memory, too. Eight gigabytes is a strict minimum, and we strongly recommend that you go for 16GB of RAM.

Finally, the id Tech 6 engine does a wondrous job of utilizing multi-core CPUs. Our Ryzen CPU's six cores with simultaneous multi-threading has horsepower to spare, which suggests that processors with "only" four cores and no SMT could bottleneck certain configurations. With respect to multi-threading, Wolfenstein II is a perfect precursor of that which is to come in gaming.


MORE: Destiny 2 Performance Review

MORE: DiRT 4 Performance Review

MORE: Prey Performance Review

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus - PC
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus - PC
View Deal
Yannick Guerrini
.
Topics
Gaming
Software
25 Comments Comment from the forums
  • HEXiT
    something i noticed about this game. i have an ancient 920@3.5 and a gtx 970
    i can run the game at near max settings (just turn the textures down from ultra) and when vsync is on it shows a solid 60fps... i turn vsync off and get between 40 and 55 fps. so im guessing the fps counter isnt that accurate in game.
    Reply
  • toddybody
    Not sure why the RX 64 and GTX 1080 Benchmarks are separate as a "bonus"...and why other top tier (i.e. 1070, 1080ti) cards arent included.

    Don't have one myself, but 4K/2160p benchmarks would be nice too. Kinda underwhelmed, considering how long the title has been out.
    Reply
  • Sakkura
    Would have liked to see a 4GB card in the mix, and ideally even the 1060 3GB. So we could see how much VRAM is actually needed for solid performance. VRAM utilization is imprecise because games can allocate a lot more VRAM than they really need.

    I would also like to have seen other CPUs tested. It's great that the game uses 6 cores and 12 threads, but will it still run well on 4c/4t? Lots of people are still on processors like that.
    Reply
  • spdragoo
    Would have also been nice to see some actual CPU benchmarking, especially since the spread of minimum/recommended CPUs represents a very wide range (i.e. Ivy Bridge Core i5/i7 CPUs & 4C/8T FX CPUs all the way up to current Ryzen CPUs), as well as some idea as to whether newer Intel CPUs have much of a boost over the 3rd/4th-gen versions.

    Something strange as well: the minimum/recommended Intel CPUs were 4C/4T or 4C/8T CPUs, implying that you need at least 4 physical cores to run this (i.e. just having 4 threads won't work, so no 2C/4T Core i3/Pentium CPUs). And that's kind of supported by the listed FX CPUs. But why would Machine Games say that you can't use a Ryzen 3 (4C/4T) CPU to run this game? The R3 1200 is almost identical to the minimum R5 1400 listed (same Boost/XFR speeds, only 100MHz slower on base, & is a 4C/4T CPU vs. the 4C/8T 1400), & the R3 1300X runs almost as fast as the 6C/12T R5 1600X. Also, would this perhaps be a game that a Coffee Lake Core i3 (4C/8T) could handle, or would you still need to use a Core i5 or i7?
    Reply
  • spdragoo
    20435970 said:
    Would have liked to see a 4GB card in the mix, and ideally even the 1060 3GB. So we could see how much VRAM is actually needed for solid performance. VRAM utilization is imprecise because games can allocate a lot more VRAM than they really need.

    I would also like to have seen other CPUs tested. It's great that the game uses 6 cores and 12 threads, but will it still run well on 4c/4t? Lots of people are still on processors like that.

    Just what I was wondering, especially since they listed Ivy Bridge/Haswell Core i5 (4C/4T) CPUs in the minimum/recommended CPU sections.
    Reply
  • Kahless01
    did you read different articles than i did? there is a damn 1060 3g and several 4gb cards included in the test. the 3g 1060 takes a huge hit compared to the 6g.
    Reply
  • quilciri
    Looks like the game requires a large amount of GPU memory, and doesn't necessarily need the highest end GPU. I don't know how they came to that conclusion that they did when the 8GB 390 did so well in the test.
    Reply
  • quilciri
    20435970 said:
    Would have liked to see a 4GB card in the mix, and ideally even the 1060 3GB.

    There were four 4GB cards tested, and so was the 1060 3GB.

    What it looks like they should have tested, given their results, is something along the lines of an 8GB 560 - a mid or lower range GPU with a large amount of memory.
    Reply
  • phobicsq
    I thought it runs really well all maxed out. I was a bit sad there wasn't a lot of openess though. It was rather linear.
    Reply
  • spdragoo
    20436405 said:
    20435970 said:
    Would have liked to see a 4GB card in the mix, and ideally even the 1060 3GB.

    There were four 4GB cards tested, and so was the 1060 3GB.

    What it looks like they should have tested, given their results, is something along the lines of an 8GB 560 - a mid or lower range GPU with a large amount of memory.

    Don't know about that, since the minimum was supposed to be the GTX 770. But I do think they should have used a different GPU list:
    ■ They probably should have skipped the GTX 1050 or RX 460, as both are 2GB GPUs (well below the supposed minimum 4GB VRAM threshold) & well below the minimum GTX 770/R9 290 minimums. Although it did confirm that low-end cards aren't going to cut it. Maybe they would have been better in a follow-up article, i.e. "Can low-end GPUs handle Wolfenstein II?".
    ■ They should have tested the GTX 770 & R9 290, since both are listed as the minimum GPU needed for the game. Yes, I know that the 6GB GTX 1060 is roughly comparable (1 tier up from the 770, same tier as the 290), but there have been a number of games where similarly-tiered GPUs don't always have similar performance.
    ■ Not only was it strange that the GTX 1080/RX Vega 64 testing was "bonus" testing, but they didn't even bother testing with the GTX 1070/1070TI (or even anything like the Fury X or Vega 56). Considering that those GPUs are the current recommendation for 1440p gameplay (which was a resolution they tested), it would have been nice to see that testing.
    Reply