Well, who would have thought, The Division 2 is definitely actually good. And, what’s extra, it’s really actually good on PC too. In reality The Division 2 PC efficiency makes it higher on our favorite platform than on some other. The Massive sequel nominally launched March 15, however we’ve been within the Washington wastelands all week to see how the game runs on at the moment’s tech. Whether you’re gaming on a mainstream GPU, or an excellent high-end four-figure graphics card, you may get a fantastic, and great-looking, gaming expertise.
So lengthy as you’re okay with bullet-sponges in fact. And different individuals. You can lone wolf The Division 2 to a sure stage, however to get the most out of the game you’re going to need to make some friends.
What you’re not going to need to do, nonetheless, is lay our a fortune on a brand new PC simply to get the game working. Ubisoft introduced The Division 2 system requirements some time again, and so they’re very modest for a PC gamer chasing 30fps at 1080p. Of course if you wish to max out the game, on the highest 4K settings, then hitting 60fps goes to be extra of a problem to your {hardware}, however there are at the very least graphics playing cards out there at the moment that can get you there. You simply need to pay $1,200 for the privilege…
The very first thing to say about The Division 2 from a technical viewpoint is that the game actually doesn’t stint on the PC settings. Which shouldn’t come as a shock given how a lot Ubisoft has stepped up its game on the PC facet of issues lately, and since Massive Entertainment is the developer. Massive is a long-time PC dev, stretching again to the PC-only days of Ground Control and World in Conflict.
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It’s additionally price mentioning that, as an AMD-sponsored title, The Division 2 PC efficiency does fluctuate between the completely different graphics card producers. The excellent news for Radeon avid gamers is that, whether or not utilizing DirectX 11 or 12, the game performs higher on AMD GPUs than it does on Nvidia GeForce graphics playing cards.
Though, in contrast to the frustrations you may need confronted attempting to get Metro Exodus to run happily in DirectX 12 with Nvidia GPUs, The Division 2 appears to haven’t any such drawback… that we’ve encountered to date. In reality, not solely does the game not repeatedly crash like a NASCAR driver with a deathwish when working in DirectX12 it really performs higher than DirectX 11. And that’s on each Nvidia and AMD graphics playing cards.
I do know. Weird, eh?
Besides the DX11/12 choices, The Division 2 provides an enormous quantity of granularity within the graphics settings. With 25 completely different choices – and 4 completely different settings for shadows alone – you recognize there’s numerous fiddling you are able to do to get the very best efficiency out of your graphics card.
| Ultra | High | Medium | Low | |
| Shadow high quality | High | High | Medium | Low |
| Spot shadows | High | High | Medium | Low |
| Spot shadow decision | Ultra | High | Medium | Low |
| Contact shadows | All excessive | Sun low | Off | Off |
| Resolution scale | 100% | 100% | 100% | 75% |
| Sharpening | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 |
| Particle element | Ultra | Ultra | High | Medium |
| Volumetric fog | Ultra | High | Medium | Low |
| Reflection high quality | Medium | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| Local reflection high quality | Very excessive | High | Medium | Low |
| Vegetation high quality | High | Medium | Medium | Low |
| Sub-surface scattering | On | On | On | Off |
| Anisotropic filtering | 16x | 8x | 4x | 1x |
| Parallax mapping | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ambient occlusion | Very excessive | High | Medium | Low |
| Depth of Field | On | On | On | Off |
| Object element | 60 | 40 | 20 | 0 |
| Extra streaming distance | 10 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| Lens flare | On | On | On | On |
| Vignette impact | On | On | On | On |
| Water high quality | High | High | Medium | Low |
| Chromatic aberration | On | On | On | Off |
| Projected texture decision | 512 | 512 | 256 | 128 |
| High decision sky textures | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Terrain high quality | High | High | Medium | Low |
And the graphics card is most positively the important thing issue for The Division 2’s PC efficiency. We examined the game utilizing each the GTX 1060 and RX 580 playing cards, to provide comparative GPU producer efficiency on the mainstream finish of the market, however we additionally ran each playing cards throughout comparable Intel and AMD processors too.
The efficiency distinction between the game working on a six-core Intel Core i5 8400 and a six-core, 12-thread AMD Ryzen 5 2600 was only a single body per second on common in favour of the Intel CPU. In different phrases, as long as you’ve gotten a good mainstream processor it doesn’t actually matter whether or not it’s an Intel or AMD chip.
PCGamesN Test Rig: Intel i5 8400, MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC, 16GB Corsair Dominator DDR4 @ 3,200MHz, Corsair HX1200i, Philips BDM3275
The Division 2 PC efficiency benchmarks clearly spotlight the efficiency lead for AMD GPUs, although it’s doable this would possibly change with subsequent driver releases over the subsequent few weeks. We examined at each the Ultra and Medium graphics presets, and at 1080p and 1440p resolutions, to see how our mainstream GPUs address the spectacular Snowdrop engine Massive has used.
The predominant takeaway is that each the GTX 1060 and the RX 580 are able to delivering round 60fps at 1080p on Ultra settings. The Radeon card is way extra secure, and provides a mean body charge that tops the 60fps mark – throw some FreeSync goodness on the game on this sub-$200 GPU and also you’re taking a look at buttery clean, high-spec gaming.
At 1440p each GPUs will battle just a little extra to nail the requisite 60fps mark, however with the quantity of graphical tweakery on provide it gained’t take lengthy to determine simply tips on how to squeeze the required further efficiency out of your graphics card to get there.
Ducking all the way down to the High preset will get you many of the approach there on an RX 580, then knocking Particle Detail all the way down to High, and Ambient Occlusion and Spot Shadow Resolution all the way down to Medium, received us to the magic 60fps common. And it nonetheless appears lovely.
In reality the gameworld as an entire appears lovely nearly all the approach by way of the completely different graphical presets. There are additionally graphics settings over and above the highest Ultra preset, although with all the pieces set to most you’re going to want a beefy GPU to manage.
That stated, the RTX 2080 Ti is ready to ship on the promise of 4K gaming with all the graphical bells and whistle-y issues enabled, turned as much as max, and do it at 60fps. Of course that may be a $1,200 GPU, however at the very least it is doable with at the moment’s {hardware}. You simply have to promote a couple of kidneys with the intention to do it.
You will miss out on the detailed reflections and environmental shadow element by switching to the decrease graphics settings, and the feel element of objects and surfaces within the gameworld drops as you go down the preset scale, however the wealthy environments nonetheless look nice even when you aren’t capable of hit the upper spec choices. Most particularly among the spectacular climate results you’ll get in The Division 2; the darkish pre-dawn hours, wreathed in swirling fog, are severely atmospheric.
So, it’s a fairly game, even when among the colourisation appears just a little over-saturated, or a bit too vibrant, at instances. But that may be mitigated utilizing The Division 2’s complete choices screens. And all of it performs effectively too. On each Intel and AMD CPUs, and the favored mainstream AMD and Nvidia GPUs, we’re getting nice gaming efficiency.
Good job Massive, you’ve performed us PC avid gamers proud.
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