After years of growth hell and studio modifications, the second Prey recreation is lastly right here. Time has seen it morph from bounty hunter-style FPS to System Shock religious successor, however has that PC traditional affect carried on via the remainder of its DNA? Is Prey a PC recreation for the ages, or will it undergo from the identical efficiency points as Arkane’s Dishonored 2? There’s just one technique to discover out: welcome to the experiment that’s the SE7EN.WS Prey tech evaluation.
Related: the best shooters on PC.
Our tech evaluations are written to give you the broadest image potential, specializing in just like what nearly all of gamers have put in of their machines. We take a look at the sport on all graphical settings utilizing an i5 powered rig with 8GB of RAM, and attempt to hit 60 fps with 4 of the preferred graphics playing cards. Even in case your PC will not be an identical to our take a look at set ups, you need to nonetheless be capable of estimate the efficiency ranges you possibly can anticipate from your individual machine.
Graphics choices
(Unlike many big-budget video games on PC, Prey has a quite slim assortment of graphic settings. The seven choices cowl the core areas – shadows, textures, anti-aliasing, and anisotropic filtering – in addition to extra superior tech like display screen area directional occlusion and display screen area reflections. While a number of extra granular settings would have been appreciated, it’s good to see a few very particular choices among the many extra generic ones.
There is a really upsetting omission from the bunch although; an FOV slider. Field of view choices are fairly necessary on this planet of FPS video games, and it appears a stunning oversight for Prey to not embody one.
In different menus you’ll discover choices to regulate mouse and keyboard inputs, together with sensitivity, axis inversion, and a full re-mapping menu. Prey additionally natively helps the Steam controller, ought to that be your enter of alternative.
Graphics evaluation
Tested on an Intel i5 6500okay @three.2GHz, 8GB of RAM, Nvidia GTX 1060, Windows 10
For our graphics evaluation we evaluate screenshots taken on the 4 customary presets of very excessive, excessive, medium, and low. Bucking the development of many current releases, Prey doesn’t require the sport to be rebooted to use new texture settings. There’s a loading bar you’ll have to attend for, however apart from that in-game setting modifications are fast and painless.
Very High
(Any recreation from Arkane goes to return with excessive expectations for artwork, and Prey definitely delivers. While it’s not probably the most technologically superior recreation you possibly can play as we speak, it does possess an exquisite artwork fashion that’s not dissimilar to Dishonored’s ‘oil painting in motion’ look. You can see within the screenshot above an incredible number of detailed fashions, from the exceptionally fiddly-looking GLOO cannon to the flowery art-deco monuments adorning the Talos-1 foyer. Textures are hi-res, and the lighting displays splendidly on the right surfaces, such because the marble pedestals and golden lions.
The huge query, in fact, is what efficiency fee is required in change for these graphics? Well, I’ve bought excellent information. On my affordable i5/GTX 1060 take a look at rig, very excessive settings ran at a mean of 107 fps. That’s a far cry from Dishonored 2’s notorious efficiency woes, and an unbelievable determine in comparison with even the very best optimised video games from this 12 months. Arkane have labored wonders with the CryEngine to realize this.
High
(Dropping right down to the excessive preset ends in a really minimal picture change. If you look carefully you’ll discover that the feel decision has undoubtedly been lowered; the writing on the lion’s pedestal is a contact blurrier than earlier than, and the sides of issues within the distance, such because the indicators behind the far lion, seem much less outlined. Aside from that, although, there’s little or no change. The lighting remains to be nice, and the final high quality of the picture remains to be very excessive.
There’s a small enhance in efficiency if you happen to go for these settings; the typical body price jumps to 112 fps. If you’re utilizing an analogous PC to my take a look at rig then it’s definitely not price shedding out on the crisper textures, however for anybody with older or lower-priced these few further frames could also be very welcome.
Medium
(A drop in high quality turns into far more apparent on the medium preset. You can immediately see that the feel on the drum of the GLOO cannon is much decrease decision than at larger settings; the 524 marking is smeared, the chipped paintwork is much less outlined, and extra minute particulars look considerably pixelated. The delicate brass work in direction of the again of the gun doesn’t have the depressed circle on the nut; as a substitute it seems to be drawn on. Similarly, the marble detailing seems to be splotchy, quite than pure stone.
The change ends in a extra notable efficiency hike, although. At medium settings you’ll discover a related rig to mine will produce 121 fps on common.
Low
(While definitely not horrible, issues do change into notably ugly at low settings. Textures are so low decision that issues tackle a ‘models painted by a seven year-old’ look, with splotches of purple and gray making up the GLOO cannon as a substitute of genuine metallic and paint textures. The drum and fan unit seems to be positively circa 2001. An entire lack of anti-aliasing introduces jagged strains in every single place, notably on the marble ledge beneath the plant and lion. Shadows and lighting are far much less complicated, resulting in an total flatter picture.
Sacrificing all of the bells and whistles ends in a mean body price of 133 fps, so you will notice notable positive aspects. Considering how nicely Prey runs at most settings, although, these settings must be reserved for under these with probably the most fundamental PCs.
Performance benchmarks
To see how Prey performs on numerous setups, we take a look at the sport on 4 graphics playing cards; two from Nvidia, and two from AMD. We’ve sampled the preferred playing cards from the present and final era of GPUs as a way to provide probably the most helpful info.
All 4 playing cards are examined at very excessive settings, with each texture possibility set as excessive as they’ll go and each graphical impact turned on. For the take a look at we play a two-minute pattern that entails strolling, operating, leaping, and ranged and melee fight. The similar part is repeated thrice as a way to discover a mean.
In the graph beneath you possibly can see how all 4 playing cards carry out.
You’ll instantly discover how excessive Prey scores throughout all of our take a look at playing cards. At max settings, even the cheaper last-gen AMD R9 380, 60 fps is left within the dust. The trendy favorite Nvidia GTX 1060 gives 100+ fps with out breaking a sweat, whereas the lower-priced AMD RX 470 retains up the tempo with a mean of 82 fps.
These figures will come as a reduction to anybody who was burnt by the efficiency points seen in Dishonored 2. Despite having areas with related ranges of element, Prey is just a distinctly higher performer all-round. Part of this may little doubt be because of the extra interior-focused nature of the sport’s environments, however a lot of it’s seemingly right down to the chosen engine. Prey runs on CryEngine, versus the id Tech 5-based Void engine used for Dishonored 2. Perhaps choosing tried-and-tested expertise this time has achieved Arkane an incredible favour.
How does Prey run in 4k?
Prey runs splendidly at 1080p, however what if you happen to personal a 4K show? Our UHD take a look at rig – rocking an i7 6700Okay CPU, an Nvidia GTX 1080, and displaying on an Acer Predator 4K monitor – copes respectfully. At an enormous 3840 x 2160 decision on very excessive settings, Prey runs at a mean of 41 fps, and a minimal of 30 fps. While that’s clearly a far cry from 60 fps, it’s nonetheless a really playable body price, particularly contemplating the solo, offline nature of the sport. Naturally it seems to be nice at such a decision, so if you happen to’ve bought the ability Prey is definitely a recreation you’ll need to see in 4K.
How to run Prey at 60 fps
If you’re operating one of many playing cards we’ve examined you’ll little doubt be feeling fairly assured about your means to run Prey at an incredible body price. In this part I’d usually define what sort of tweaks you’d must make as a way to squeeze a mean of 60 fps from you GPU, however with Prey there’s simply no want. Simply set the sport to the very excessive preset, and also you’ll make sure to expertise a beautiful clean, high-end body price.
Regardless of if you happen to’re operating a pleasant current-gen, mid-range card, or one among AMD’s older fashions, the above very excessive settings, with SMAA 2TX anti-aliasing and full 16x anisotropic filtering, will do you proud at 1080p. This glorious efficiency additionally opens up much more potentialities with larger resolutions; I discovered the identical settings resulted in round 65 fps at 1440p.
Conclusion
Back when Dishonored 2 launched, I used to be one among a small quantity of people that managed to play with out too many points. But regardless of my experiences there, it was nonetheless simple to go into Prey anticipating one thing to go improper. There’s a lot current in each surroundings – there are books, mugs, chairs, and computer systems actually in every single place – that it felt unattainable that Prey may very well be something lower than an extremely demanding recreation. What a pleasure, then, to have the ability to report that Arkane have created an extremely nicely optimised immersive sim.
Indeed, Prey is the very best performing triple-A recreation I’ve performed for a lot of months. It’s extremely uncommon to have the ability to boot up a recreation at most settings and get constant reviews of 90+ fps when utilizing mid-tier , however right here we’re. No matter what number of benchmarks I ran, the reviews got here again clear and constant: on a GTX 1060, a mean of over 100 fps is straightforward to realize.
It’s a win for Arkane, then, and a win for PC avid gamers. I’ve stated earlier than that Prey feels like a true PC game, and this efficiency evaluation solely cements that. As talked about beforehand, I’m positive utilizing CryEngine was an enormous assist, however I’d prefer to see Arkane finally hit this sort of efficiency with their very own Void engine, too. But if Dishonored’s tech put you off Arkane’s work, I utterly encourage you to provide them one other probability now. Prey is one thing to not be missed, and it deserves to be performed at its greatest on PC.
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