High On Life review: Laptop and desktop benchmarks
Technical review
High on Life is made by Squanch Games, a previously lesser-known studio, and is built on the popular and highly successful Unreal Engine 4. You'll find a few weaknesses in its graphics upon a closer look (for example, facial animations are quite crude). That said, the first-person shooter is definitely a good looking game.
At medium settings and above, High on Life has rather impressive visuals characterised especially by an extremely colourful presentation, high contrast and wacky weapon design. The game also has some very thoughtfully designed areas with nice details (see screenshots). In general, the game stands out with its zany and self-deprecating vibe as well as its laid-back game- and gunplay that you have come to known from games such as the Serious Sam and Borderlands series.
The graphics menu is similarly impressive. Even though many triple-A games provide more options by comparison, the number of settings in High on Life is adequate for a PC game. At the top of the menu, users can change settings like window mode, resolution, gamma, FOV and render scale. There are also toggle switches for VSync, motion blur and chromatic aberration. Below, you'll find the advanced options section with eight quality settings, which can be changed at one go without restarting by adjusting "Graphics Quality".
The game feels reasonably sophisticated from a technical standpoint. When loading, however, the game and its main menu stutter a little on some systems (especially those with Intel and AMD GPUs). Loading times are thankfully nice and short. High on Life takes up around 50 GB of storage space (the Steam version was used for our benchmarks).
Benchmark
For the benchmarks, we used the stylish alien city where the main character arrives shortly after the introductory section and tutorial. We recorded the game's performance over a predefined route for roughly 30 seconds using CapFrameX. You can take a look at the section in the video below. In our opinion, High on Life is playable if the average frame rate is at least 40 fps. But ideally the game should run at 60 fps or higher.
Results
FHD (1,920 x 1,080)
There are very significant performance differences between the various graphics presets. Whilst Intel iGPUs are at most only good enough to run the game at 1,280 x 720 and the lowest settings, more powerful iGPUs from AMD (e.g. the Radeon 680M) can handle the game at 1,920 x 1,080 and medium settings. A GeForce RTX 3050 Ti or better is required to run the game at high to max settings at Full HD.
High On Life | |
1920x1080 Low Preset 1920x1080 Medium Preset 1920x1080 High Preset 1920x1080 Very High Preset | |
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, i9-12900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, i9-12900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, i9-12900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU, i9-12900HX | |
AMD Radeon RX 6800M, R9 5900HX | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU, i7-12700H | |
AMD Radeon RX 6600M, R7 5800H | |
AMD Radeon RX 6800S, R9 6900HS | |
AMD Radeon 680M, R9 6900HS | |
Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 96EUs, i7-1165G7 |
QHD (2,560 x 1,440)
To play the game at 2,560 x 1,440 and Ultra preset, you should at least have an upper mid-range graphics card, such as a GeForce RTX 3060 or a Radeon RX 6600M.
High On Life | |
2560x1440 Very High Preset | |
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, i9-12900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, i9-12900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, i9-12900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU, i9-12900HX | |
AMD Radeon RX 6800M, R9 5900HX | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU, i7-12700H | |
AMD Radeon RX 6600M, R7 5800H |
UHD (3,840 x 2,160)
Once we get to 3,840 x 2,160, not only does the game become way more graphically demanding, but this increase is also disproportionately large compared with other titles. At this resolution, even high-end desktop CPUs, such as the GeForce RTX 3080, have their work cut out for them.
High On Life | |
3840x2160 Very High Preset | |
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, i9-12900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, i9-12900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, i9-12900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU, i9-12900HX | |
AMD Radeon RX 6800M, R9 5900HX | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU, i7-12700H | |
AMD Radeon RX 6600M, R7 5800H |
Note
Because gaming tests are very time-consuming and are often constrained by installation or activation limits, we are only able to provide you with part of the benchmark results at the time of publishing this article. We will be adding more graphics cards over the coming days and weeks.
Overview
Test systems
Device | Graphics card | Processor | RAM | Operating system |
---|---|---|---|---|
Laptops | ||||
MSI Titan GT77 12UHS | Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti @175 W TGP (16 GB GDDR6) | Intel Core i9-12900 | 2 x 16 GB DDR5 | Windows 11 |
Lenovo Legion 5 Pro | Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 @140 W TGP (6 GB GDDR6) | Intel Core i7-12700H | 2 x 8 GB DDR5 | Windows 11 |
Asus ROG Strix G15 | AMD Radeon RX 6800M (12 GB GDDR6) | AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX | 2 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 11 |
Lenovo Legion 5 | AMD Radeon RX 6600M (8 GB GDDR6) | AMD Ryzen 7 5800H | 2 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 11 |
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | AMD Radeon 680M | AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS | 2 x 16 GB DDR5 | Windows 11 |
Desktop PCs | ||||
Custom I | AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX (24 GB GDDR6) MSI GeForce RTX 3080 (10 GB GDDR6X) MSI GeForce RTX 3070 (8 GB GDDR6) |
Intel Core i9-12900K | 2 x 16 GB DDR4 | Windows 11 |
Custom II | Palit GeForce RTX 4090 GameRock OC (24 GB GDDR6X) Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 FE (24 GB GDDR6X) Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (8 GB GDDR6X) Nvidia Titan RTX (24 GB GDDR6) Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super (8 GB GDDR6)Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super (8 GB GDDR6) KFA2 GeForce GTX 1660 Super (6 GB GDDR6) PNY GeForce GTX 1660 (6 GB GDDR5) KFA2 GeForce GTX 1650 Super (4 GB GDDR6) AMD Radeon RX 6800 (16 GB DDR6) AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (12 GB DDR6) AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (8 GB GDDR6) AMD Radeon RX 6600 (8 GB GDDR6) AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (8 GB GDDR6) AMD Radeon RX 5700 (8 GB GDDR6) AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (6 GB GDDR6) AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT (8 GB GDDR6) |
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X | 2 x 16 GB DDR5 | Windows 11 |
Custom III | Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super FE | Intel Core i9-11900K | 2 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 11 |
Mini PCs | ||||
Zotac ZBOX CI665 Nano | Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 (96 CUs) | Intel Core i7-1165G7 | 2 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 11 |
Morefine S500+ | AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 | AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX | 2 x 16 GB DDR4 | Windows 11 |
Minisforum NUCXi7 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 @125 W TGP (8 GB GDDR6) | Intel Core i7-11800H | 2 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 11 |
Minisforum HX90G | AMD Radeon RX 6600M @100 W TGP (8 GB GDDR6) | AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX | 2 x 16 GB DDR4 | Windows 11 |
4K monitors | Nvidia driver | AMD driver |
---|---|---|
Asus PB287Q, Philips Brilliance 329P9H, Gigabyte M32U | ForceWare 528.02 | Adrenalin 22.11.2 |