Civilization: Beyond Earth Benchmarked

Apart from that, the game's performance is very closely tied to the GPU's raw power. Taking a look at the benchmark table, it's clear that the processor is only a limiting factor at the lowest quality setting -- at least when it comes to Intel notebooks -- and that only in systems with high-end GPUs. While the frame rate sometimes varies greatly from preset to preset (High/Ultra being exceptions), the differences in visuals are more limited. Excellent: According to our benchmarks, MSSA doesn't cost a lot in terms of performance.

The drivers we used are, of course, the current versions from Nvidia (344.48 WHQL) and AMD (14.9.2 Beta). Windows 7 users should be careful when downloading the Catalyst driver. Even though we selected the right option, the standard site ("AMD Catalyst Packages") only has a Windows 8 .exe file that doesn't function properly with Windows 7. The appropriate download is only available on the detail page.

We were not so pleased with the fact that the game doesn't display the results at the end of the sequence. Instead of presenting the minimum, average and maximum frame rates right after the test, Beyond Earth just stores them in the program folder (SteamSteamAppscommonSid Meier's...) in a file named lategameview. At first glance, the file appears to be full of arbitrary numbers -- only after some spreadsheet analysis did we finally get our sought-after results.

Because it was simple, we used an online tool we programmed ourselves to calculate the frame rates (see above screenshot), though this tool was only intended for internal use. If necessary, you could also record the benchmark using Fraps. Except for the minimum frame rates, the results are almost identical. Unfortunately, Fraps only works in DirectX mode, not in Mantle mode.

Even though Beyond Earth is no graphic wonder, the game requires a fair amount of computational power. For the lowest setting (1024 x 768), you'll need at least a GeForce GT630M, Radeon HD 8650G or HD Graphics 4600. Older entry-level GPUs like the Radeon HD 7660G or the HD Graphics 3000/4000 are already out of their league here.

Medium details and 1366 x 768 pixels can only be rendered more or less fluidly by a GeForce GT 750M or above. For the "High" preset and 1920 x 1080 pixels, we suggest a GeForce GTX 765M or better. If you want to activate the "Ultra" preset with 4x anti-aliasing, you'll need a card on par with the GTX 850M, GTX 860M or GTX 770M.