Call of Duty: WWII Laptop and Desktop Benchmarks
Technology
For the original German review, see here.
Unlike the 2016 game Infinite Warfare, which was developed by Call of Duty franchise founders Infinity Ward, Call of Duty WWII comes from the Sledgehammer Games, which has been previously responsible for the 2014 game, Advanced Warfare.
Although the technical innovations tend to be rather measured, we were nonetheless pleasantly surprised upon inspection of the graphics menu. Could we describe the menu in the previous iteration of Call of Duty as rather convoluted and difficult to navigate, then the latest attempt would be known as a surprisingly long list that requires a lot of scrolling. With 29 changeable options, WWII bests its recently tested competitor Wolfenstein II, itself with an equally notable 28 changeable options. Whether or not the possibility to tinker with such a large number of settings is excessive remains to be seen.
Points are definitely to be awarded for the descriptive text and comparison images, which explain, or rather exemplify the consequences of changing different settings and are strongly reminiscent of Assassin's Creed Origins. Unlike the aforementioned Egyptian adventure by Ubisoft, no restart of the game is necessary following a change or a tweak, which would not have been a big problem anyway on account of the skippable intro videos and decent load times. On the other hand, it is a shame that WWII keeps up a series long tradition of offering no presets for quickly changing all graphics settings at once.
That is to say, one must first, with great effort, click through each and every possible option before arriving at their optimal setup. Even more annoying is the lack of uniformity across different settings. While some range from low to high, others, for example, offer only a selection between medium and high. There is also inconsistency in the way that some options are adjusted with sliders while others can be changed via a drop-down menu, especially since there are a few small bugs here and there (changes not always being displayed correctly in the menu). In addition, changes to the display resolution often resulted in black screens, although it never actually crashed the device.
But how does WWII actually look in practice? Since Call of Duty continues to use the same in-house IW Engine with only slight year-to-year modifications, we can expect that there will be no great leaps forward in terms of the technology. Although improvements can be seen throughout the game in the details (surface buildings, bloom and ambience, character models...), the graphics on display often lag behind the genre-leading Battlefield 1.
Battlefield 1's Frostbite 3 Engine is superior in almost every respect, although WWII, with its storm of special effects typical for the Call of Duty franchise, does quite a good job covering up its weaknesses in this area. The numerous "Hollywood moments" filled with smoke, explosions and debris make it an intensive and immersive gaming experience. In saying so, the game lacks destructible terrain, and some effects (e.g. extreme blurring) are somewhat overused.
As for the content, buyers can expect the typical Call of Duty action shooter with a greater focus on movie-style entertainment rather than realism, which is, in our opinion, regrettable for a game set in a historical context. The driving and static emplacement sequences in particular feel extremely arcadey and are reminiscent of shooting fish in a barrel.
The storytelling also was not able to win us over. Although Sledgehammer Games have tried their hand at fairly deep character development (at least by Call of Duty standards), nonetheless, most of the missions ended up being "assault X" or "destroy Y".
There is not much to complain about when it comes to the shooting mechanics themselves, which the Call of Duty series is famous for and have often been copied. The controls are fluid, and combat runs comfortably and smoothly with appropriate feedback on hits. There is room for improvement in terms of sounds and animations when compared to many other triple-AAA shooters. We reserve our strongest criticism for the feather-brained AI which churns out stupidity as if by a production line.
Some refinement could also be made in terms of file sizes. According to our stream download, 76 GB is required on the hard drive, of which currently the single player mode "only" takes up 42 GB (we have not tested the multiplayer mode). The game also uses a sizeable amount of video memory. The VRAM display in the graphics menu shows between 3.6 GB (Full HD) to 4.3 GB (Quad HD) of usage on maximum settings.
Benchmark
Since WWII does not offer an integrated benchmarking option, we had to manually select a sequence for our benchmarking tests. This was no easy task on account of the severe FPS fluctuations that could occur depending on the level and the situation. We eventually decided on the beginning of the second mission, "Operation Cobra", which represented by no means the worst case scenario, and offered a safe area without enemy contact that allowed for a consistent testing environment. As you can see in the videos below, we made our way around the camp filled with tanks and flown over by aeroplanes for about 30 seconds.
As WWII is a fast-paced first person shooter, and the framerates - as we have already mentioned - tend to have bigger fluctuations, our benchmark tests should produce at least 50 to 60 FPS. Accordingly, we make the following recommendations.
Results
At the end of the day, to be able to play WWII at all, one requires a dedicated graphics chip. Common integrated graphics solutions such as the Intel HD Graphics 630 are already failing at 1280x720 on the lowest graphics settings. From 1920x1080 onwards, a mid-range graphics card is required for normal settings (GeForce MX150 or above). Those wanting to experience the latest Call of Duty installment in Full HD resolution, high details and SMAA anti-aliasing are recommended to pack at least a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. A display resolution of 2560x1440, maximum setting and Filmic SMAA T2X run well enough on a GeForce GTX 1060 or a GTX 980 (although the latter suffered from occasional stuttering). Those wanting to enjoy their 4K displays at the highest graphics settings will, generally speaking, be satisfied with cards equal to or greater than a GeForce GTX 1080.
TThe different graphics levels show not only great gaps in performance, but also extreme differences in graphics quality, as our screenshots above show. We would not describe the game as looking good overall on anything lower than high graphics settings. On the lowest and medium graphics settings, WWII loses a lot of quality and runs into CPU limitations, especially on powerful graphics cards.
Call of Duty WWII | |
3840x2160 Extra / On AA:Filmic T2X SM 2560x1440 Extra / On AA:Filmic T2X SM 1920x1080 Extra / On AA:Filmic T2X SM 1920x1080 High / On AA:Filmic 1X SM 1920x1080 Normal / Off 1280x720 Low / Off | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (Desktop), 4790K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (Desktop), 6700K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Mobile, i7-7820HK | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (Desktop), 6700K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile, 6820HK | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980, 6700K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (Desktop), 6700K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile, 6820HK | |
AMD Radeon RX 480 (Desktop), 4790K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mobile, i7-7700HQ | |
AMD Radeon RX 460 (Desktop), 4790K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile, i7-7700HQ | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M, 6700HQ | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M, 6700HQ | |
NVIDIA GeForce MX150, i7-7700HQ | |
NVIDIA GeForce 940MX, 6700HQ | |
NVIDIA GeForce 940M, 5700HQ | |
NVIDIA GeForce 920M, 2970M | |
Intel HD Graphics 630, i7-7700HQ |
Overview
Test Systems
Device | Graphics Card | Processor | RAM | Operating System |
---|---|---|---|---|
Desktop-PC I | MSI GeForce GTX 1080 (8 GB GDDR5X) MSI GeForce GTX 1070 (8 GB GDDR5) Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (6 GB GDDR5) Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 (4 GB GDDR5) |
Intel Core i7-6700K | 2 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
Desktop-PC II | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (11 GB GDDR5X) Asus GeForce GTX 980 Ti (6 GB GDDR5) XFX Radeon R9 Fury (4 GB HBM) Sapphire Radeon R9 290X (4 GB GDDR5) Sapphire Radeon R9 280X (3 GB GDDR5) MSI Radeon R7 370 (2 GB GDDR5) |
Intel Core i7-4790K | 2 x 4 GB DDR3 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
Alienware 17 R4 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 (8 GB GDDR5X) | Intel Core i7-7820HK | 2 x 16 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
Asus G752VS | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 (8 GB GDDR5) | Intel Core i7-6820HK | 2 x 16 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI GT62VR | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (6 GB GDDR5) | Intel Core i7-6820HK | 4 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI GE72 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4 GB GDDR5) | Intel Core i7-7700HQ | 2 x 4 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
Asus GL753VD | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 (4 GB GDDR5) | Intel Core i7-7700HQ | 2 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI GL62 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 (2 GB GDDR5) | Intel Core i7-7700HQ | 2 x 4 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI GE72 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 965M (2 GB GDDR5) | Intel Core i7-6700HQ | 1 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI PE60 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 950M (2 GB GDDR5) | Intel Core i7-6700HQ | 2 x 4 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI PL62 | Nvidia GeForce MX150 (2 GB GDDR5) | Intel Core i7-7700HQ | 2 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI CX72 | Nvidia GeForce 940MX (2 GB DDR3) | Intel Core i7-6700HQ | 2 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI GP62 | Nvidia GeForce 940M (2 GB DDR3) | Intel Core i7-5700HQ | 1 x 8 GB DDR3 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI CX61 | Nvidia GeForce 920M (2 GB DDR3) | Intel Celeron 2970M | 1 x 8 GB DDR3 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
Asus N551ZU | AMD Radeon R9 M280X (4 GB GDDR5) | AMD FX-7600P | 2 x 4 GB DDR3 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
4K Monitor | Nvidia Driver | AMD Driver |
---|---|---|
2 x Asus PB287Q, Philips 328P6VJEB | ForceWare 388.13 | Crimson 17.11.1 |