Once Human tech review: Laptop and desktop benchmarks
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Test systems
We currently carry out our gaming benchmarks with these devices. Clicking on the photos will take you to the respective manufacturer's website. More details on their specifications are listed at the end of the article.
Tech
Similar to The First Descendant, which we recently reviewed, Once Human is available for free on Steam and remains highly popular even one month after its release, according to the charts. However, our initial experience with the game has been rather mixed.
Once Human requires an approximately 40 GB download and occupies about 50 GB of storage space. When launching it for the first time, you’ll first need to download a nearly 10 GB patch and then restart the game – à la Call of Duty. This is followed by a loading process and shader compilation, which unfortunately has become a thing with a lot of current games. But it is quite rare that changing certain settings triggers this process again (e.g. in Atomic Heart).
That said, the experience is fairly positive once you make it onto a server at some point. The thrilling intro and mysterious scenario reminded us of a cross between Control and Ghostwire Tokyo. Later, the feel and gameplay shift more towards looting, crafting and survival, similar to what we’ve seen over the past months with games like Enshrouded.
Once Human leaves a relatively positive impression on the technical front. Although objects and enhanced textures do pop in occasionally and things can sometimes appear slightly blurry at a distance, the game’s visuals are definitely quite impressive. The engine also seems to run stably; we didn’t counter any crash at all during our testing. Performance is the one aspect that the developers could still do some tweaking. Despite having reasonable graphics requirements, the game is still prone to annoying stutters even when running on more powerful systems (i.e. low minimum fps).
There is not much to complain about the options menu of this multiplayer title. Whilst the Basic tab is very straightforward, the Performance section offers five presets and roughly ten quality settings. It’s unfortunate that some setting changes require a restart and that FSR is the only upscaling method supported (no DLSS or XeSS available).
Benchmark
For our benchmarks, we used a roughly 30-second run across the open world (see video) where the player reaches after the introductory sequence. The area features water surfaces, wide views and abundant vegetation. Since Once Human is a third-person game, a frame rate of 40 fps or more is likely sufficient to provide a good gameplay experience.
FHD (1,920 x 1,080)
As previously mentioned, the game’s system requirements are quite moderate. Integrated GPUs in the same league as the AMD Radeon 780M or Intel Arc 8 should allow you to play the game at no lower than 1080p and low preset. Devices with a mid-range dedicated GPU should have no problem handling much higher settings at this resolution (see table).
Note: From the article onwards, a popular gaming handheld in the form of the ROG Ally will join our lineup of standard test devices.
Once Human | |
1920x1080 Very High Preset 1920x1080 High Preset 1920x1080 Medium Preset 1920x1080 Low Preset | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, i9-13900K | |
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, i9-13900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU, i9-13900HX | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU, i9-13950HX | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, i9-13900HX | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU, R9 7940HS | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU, i7-13700H | |
Intel Arc 8-Core iGPU, Ultra 7 155H | |
AMD Radeon 780M, R9 7940HS | |
AMD Radeon 780M, Z1 Extreme |
QHD (2,560 x 1,440)
You likewise don’t need a high-end GPU for a combination of 1440p and Very High preset. A GeForce RTX 4050 is powerful enough to offer solid performance at these settings.
Once Human | |
2560x1440 Very High Preset | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, i9-13900K | |
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, i9-13900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU, i9-13900HX | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU, i9-13950HX | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, i9-13900HX | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU, R9 7940HS | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU, i7-13700H |
UHD (3,840 x 2,160)
As is often the case, Once Human becomes highly demanding once it reaches 4K resolution. The game requires at least a laptop with an RTX 4080 to run well at 4K and max settings.
Once Human | |
3840x2160 Very High Preset | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, i9-13900K | |
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, i9-13900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU, i9-13900HX | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU, i9-13950HX | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, i9-13900HX | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU, R9 7940HS | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU, i7-13700H |
Note
Because gaming tests are highly time-consuming and often constrained by installation or activation limits, we are only able to deliver part of the benchmark results at the time of publishing this article. More graphics cards will be added subsequently.
Overview
Details of the test systems
Notebook | Graphics card | Processor | Memory |
---|---|---|---|
XMG Neo 16 E23 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 @175 W TGP (16 GB GDDR6X) | Intel Core i9-13900HX | 2 x 16 GB DDR5 |
Razer Blade 16 Mid 23 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 @175 W TGP (12 GB GDDR6X) | Intel Core i9-13950HX | 2 x 16 GB DDR5 |
XMG Pro 15 E23 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 @140 W TGP (8 GB GDDR6) | Intel Core i9-13900HX | 2 x 16 GB DDR5 |
Razer Blade 14 Mid 23 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 @140 W TGP (8 GB GDDR6) & Radeon 780M | AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS | 2 x 8 GB DDR5 |
Medion Erazer Scout E20 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 @100 W TGP (6 GB GDDR6) | Intel Core i7-13700H | 2 x 8 GB DDR5 |
Lenovo Yoga Pro 7 14 | Intel Arc 8 | Intel Core Ultra 7 155H | 2 x 16 GB DDR5 |
Tower PC | Graphics card | Processor | Memory |
---|---|---|---|
Asus ROG Strix Z790-F | Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 (16 GB GDDR6X) AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT (20 GB GDDR6) |
Intel Core i9-13900K | 2 x 24 GB DDR5 G.Skill |
4K monitor | Operating system | Nvidia driver | AMD driver | Intel driver |
---|---|---|---|---|
Philips Evnia 329M1RV | Windows 11 | 560.70 | 24.7.1 | 101.5768 |