Risen 3 Benchmarked

David versus Goliath. While most RPGs have more than a 100 people in the development team, Risen 3 is produced by a very small studio. This shows in the gameplay of the game. Find out more about this game with our in-depth benchmarks.

Florian Glaser, ✓ Tanja Hinum (translated by Vinay Pradhan), Published 08/25/2014 🇩🇪

For the original German article, see here.

Game Engine

It was clear even before the release, that the graphics of Risen 3 would not be on par with that of competitors like The Witcher 2. Although the Piranha Bytes studio has improved the Genome Engine significantly since Gothic 3, they still need to do some work in a few areas: whether it is the texture quality or polygon count. For a game released this year, Risen 3 looks very old.

However, Piranha Bytes has managed to alleviate some issues: unlike the dull Gothic series, the colors in this game are much stronger which helps make the Caribbean Pirate atmosphere seem authentic. Furthermore, the natural landscape and lush wildlife provide an enjoyable immersion. We really liked the realistic transition from day to night and the water looks great.

Sadly, the game is plagued by a lot of flaws which should not be found in a modern game. The stiff (face) animation and clumsy combat system, which is based on luck and not skill or character attributes. The AI and pathing should also be improved. The familiar story comes across as staged and boring. Other games (like Mass Effect) present the world in a more exciting way.

However, Risen 3 deserves a play, especially due to the character system. Each character can be customized in multiple different ways and the RPG offers many different options when interacting with NPCs. Overall, the world of Risen 3 offers a lot to explore and discover.

We like the graphics menu as, although it offers a mere 10 settings, user to adjust the visuals in-game. We were sad to find out that there was no decent Anti-Aliasing available. The rough borders hint at FXAA which is not very demanding on the hardware.

The four graphics presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) allow the user to optimize the graphics and gameplay to suit their system. Medium settings look decent and the user should avoid the Low settings, as at this level, the shadows, textures and visibility are negatively affected. The graphics quality at High are decent as long as you don't get too close to objects. Ultra details do not change the graphics or hardware performance by much but are not available for each setting.

As expected of a Piranha Bytes game, Risen 3 is a little buggy (do not worry, it is nowhere near as buggy as Gothic 3). The following is a summary of the bugs we found in our test:

Notebooks with a dual-core CPU can have rare performance issues and stutters.
Powerful graphics cards stay stuck at 50 fps in some areas.
At medium details, sometimes a grid appears on the screen.
At times, High-End GPUs run the game more fluidly at max settings than at lower settings. With the GeForce GTX 780 Ti this resulted in a drastic difference (57 fps @ Minimum, 90 fps @ Ultra).
On the Radeon R9 M290X Risen 3 causes massive errors (Catalyst 14.7 RC1 and RC3 tested). As this is a notebook with switchable graphics, it could be that the Beta driver of the HD Graphics 4600 was responsible for these errors.

Benchmark

For our benchmarks we use the island of Antigua. The test starts at the west coast and moves along the beach to the main city. The benchmark ends at the villa of Admiral Alvarez after 50 seconds of gameplay (see video).

Results

Despite the mediocre game engine, Risen 3 requires significant graphics power. Entry-level models with a HD Graphics 4600 can only run the game at low resolution and settings (~42 fps @ Core i7-4700MQ). For Medium settings at 1,366 x 768 pixels we require a graphics card from the multimedia section. Even a GeForce GT 740M has to fight to get a good frame rate (~29 fps). 1,920 x 1,080 pixels and the High settings require a graphics card on par with the GeForce GTX 765M (~32 fps) or above. Modern high-end laptops, which have at least a GeForce GTX 860M, can run the game at Ultra details.

Risen 3: Titan Lords
1920x1080 Ultra/High, On AF:16x 1920x1080 High, On AF:8x 1366x768 Medium, Off 1024x768 Low, Off
GeForce GTX 780 Ti, 3770K Desktop-PC	90 (49^min) fps ∼85% 78.4 (49^min) fps ∼98% 67.3 (49^min) fps ∼71% 57.1 (49^min) fps ∼58%
Radeon R9 290X, 2600K, Samsung SSD 840 Pro 256GB MZ7PD256HAFV-0Z000 Sapphire Tri-X R9 290X Desktop	63 (57^min) fps ∼60% 64 (60^min) fps ∼80% 65 (60^min) fps ∼69% 65 (59^min) fps ∼66%
GeForce GTX 760, 3770K Desktop-PC	59.2 (38^min) fps ∼56% 63.1 (49^min) fps ∼79% 66.4 (49^min) fps ∼70% 56.7 (49^min) fps ∼57%
Radeon R9 280X, 3770K Desktop-PC	56.4 (47^min) fps ∼53% 50.4 (49^min) fps ∼63% 94.7 (59^min) fps ∼100% 77.9 (50^min) fps ∼79%
GeForce GTX 880M, 4700MQ Schenker W504	54.9 (45^min) fps ∼52% 52.7 (48^min) fps ∼66% 92.9 (50^min) fps ∼98% 89.7 (63^min) fps ∼91%
GeForce GTX 780M, 4700MQ Schenker W503	52.3 (43^min) fps ∼50% 53.9 (49^min) fps ∼68% 87.1 (49^min) fps ∼92% 94.8 (49^min) fps ∼96%
GeForce GTX 870M, 4700MQ Schenker W504	45.4 (36^min) fps ∼43% 55.1 (46^min) fps ∼69% 71.8 (48^min) fps ∼76% 99 (91^min) fps ∼100%
Radeon R9 M290X, 4700MQ Schenker W504	39.7 (33^min) fps ∼38% 49.3 (42^min) fps ∼62% 58.1 (48^min) fps ∼61% 97.6 (82^min) fps ∼99%
GeForce GTX 750 Ti, 3770K Desktop-PC	37.4 (26^min) fps ∼35% 46 (40^min) fps ∼58% 67.2 (48^min) fps ∼71% 57 (49^min) fps ∼58%
GeForce GTX 770M, 4700MQ Schenker W503	36.4 (29^min) fps ∼34% 44.4 (38^min) fps ∼56% 50.2 (48^min) fps ∼53% 98.8 (91^min) fps ∼100%
GeForce GTX 860M, 4700MQ Schenker W504	32.4 (26^min) fps ∼31% 41 (33^min) fps ∼51% 51.4 (48^min) fps ∼54% 98.2 (72^min) fps ∼99%
GeForce GTX 765M, 4700MQ Schenker W503	26.5 (20^min) fps ∼25% 32.4 (27^min) fps ∼41% 52.7 (47^min) fps ∼56% 85.1 (49^min) fps ∼86%
GeForce GTX 850M, 4340M Schenker M504	21.8 (14^min) fps ∼21% 25.9 (21^min) fps ∼32% 47.3 (38^min) fps ∼50% 75.9 (42^min) fps ∼77%
GeForce GT 750M, 4702MQ Schenker M503	15.4 (11^min) fps ∼15% 18.5 (14^min) fps ∼23% 40.2 (29^min) fps ∼42% 51.8 (48^min) fps ∼52%
Iris Pro Graphics 5200, 4750HQ, Intel SSD 525 Series SSDMCEAC180B3 Schenker S413	11.9 (9^min) fps ∼11% 15.3 (13^min) fps ∼19% 38 (29^min) fps ∼40% 52 (39^min) fps ∼53%
GeForce GT 640M, 2637M, Lite-On LMT-256M3M Acer Aspire M3-581TG	11 (8^min) fps ∼10% 13.1 (9^min) fps ∼16% 27.7 (17^min) fps ∼29% 49 (34^min) fps ∼49%
Radeon R7 512 Cores (Kaveri Desktop), A10-7850K, Samsung SSD 470 Series MZ-5PA256/EU A10-7850K Asus A88-XM-PLUS	9.9 (7^min) fps ∼9% 12.5 (10^min) fps ∼16% 28.5 (19^min) fps ∼30% 49 (37^min) fps ∼49%
GeForce GT 740M, 4200M HP Envy 15-j011sg	9.8 (7^min) fps ∼9% 11.8 (9^min) fps ∼15% 28.8 (21^min) fps ∼30% 52.2 (39^min) fps ∼53%
Radeon HD 8650G, A10-5750M, Samsung SSD 470 Series MZ-5PA256/EU Pumori Test Platform (A10-5750M)	9.9 (7^min) fps ∼12% 24.3 (15^min) fps ∼26% 42.6 (28^min) fps ∼43%
GeForce GT 630M, 3720QM, Seagate Momentus 7200.5 ST9750420AS Asus N56VM	7.9 (5^min) fps ∼7% 9.5 (7^min) fps ∼12% 26.4 (17^min) fps ∼28% 47 (35^min) fps ∼47%
GeForce GT 720M, 4200M, WDC Scorpio Blue WD10JPVX-22JC3T0 MSI CX61-i572M	8.1 (0^min) fps ∼10% 19.3 (0^min) fps ∼20% 27.2 (0^min) fps ∼27%
HD Graphics 4600, 4700MQ Schenker W503	6.4 (5^min) fps ∼6% 8.3 (7^min) fps ∼10% 23.8 (19^min) fps ∼25% 41.8 (35^min) fps ∼42%
HD Graphics 4000, 3720QM Asus N56VM	7.2 (5^min) fps ∼9% 17.6 (9^min) fps ∼19% 36.4 (24^min) fps ∼37%
HD Graphics 3000, 2637M, Lite-On LMT-256M3M Acer Aspire M3-581TG	3.4 (0^min) fps ∼3% 4.3 (0^min) fps ∼5% 9.5 (6^min) fps ∼10% 17 (13^min) fps ∼17%

Test Systems

Four of our test models came from Schenker Technologies (mysn.de):

W504 (Core i7-4700MQ, 8 GB DDR3, GeForce GTX 860M, GTX 870M, GTX 880M, Radeon R9 M290X)
W503 (Core i7-4700MQ, 8 GB DDR3, GeForce GTX 765M, GTX 770M, GTX 780M)
M504 (Core i5-4340M, 8 GB DDR3, GeForce GTX 850M)
M503 (Core i7-4702MQ, 8 GB DDR3, GeForce GT 750M)

These laptops ran with Windows 7 64 bit on a 480 GB Crucial M500, provided by Micron.

A further model, provided by Nvidia, was used:

HP Envy 15-j011sg (Core i5-4200M, 12 GB DDR3, GeForce GT 740M)

GPU driver: Nvidia 340.52, AMD 14.7 RC3 Beta, Intel 10.18.10.3652 Beta

We also ran benchmarks on other notebooks which may use different drivers.

Overview

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Editor of the original article: Florian Glaser - Managing Editor Gaming Laptops - 568 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2009

I discovered my interest in computers in my childhood, growing up with MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 in the early 1990s. I was especially fascinated with computer games, even from an early age. From Monkey Island through Lands of Lore to Doom, I tried every game I could get my hands on. I have been working for Notebookcheck since 2009 with my focus mostly being on high-performance gaming laptops.

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Florian Glaser, 2014-08-25 (Update: 2021-05-18)

Pos	Model	< Prev Next > Risen 3: Titan Lords (2014)
Pos	Model	low 1024x768 Low, Off	med. 1366x768 Medium, Off	high 1920x1080 High, On 8xAF	ultra 1920x1080 Ultra/High, On 16xAF
90	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Mobile				105.6
140	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980	57.6	68.1	79.7	90.2
153	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M SLI	35.2	35.2	35	37.6
168	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti	57.1	67.3	78.4	90
198	AMD Radeon R9 290X	65	65	64	63
205	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M	35.25ⁿ²	35.2ⁿ³	35ⁿ³	41.3ⁿ³
209	AMD Radeon R9 280X	77.9	94.7	50.4	56.4
220	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M	35.1	35.3	39.5	53.3
224	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680	64	64	64	63
242	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M	62.6ⁿ²	64.1ⁿ²	43.4ⁿ³	54.7ⁿ³
250	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760	56.7	66.4	63.1	59.2
251	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M	94.8	87.1	53.9	52.3
261	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M	99	71.8	55.1	45.4
262	AMD Radeon R9 M290X	97.6	58.1	49.3	39.7
282	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M	35.95ⁿ²	35.6ⁿ²	43.7ⁿ²	36.9ⁿ²
283	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti	57	67.2	46	37.4
306	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770M	98.8	50.2	44.4	36.4
311	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M	67.05ⁿ²	36.2ⁿ⁴	41.2ⁿ⁶	33.15ⁿ⁶
319	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M	43.05ⁿ²	49.05ⁿ²	27.6ⁿ²	21.35ⁿ²
Pos	Model	< Prev Next >Risen 3: Titan Lords
Pos	Model	low	med.	high	ultra
326	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M	78.65ⁿ²	49.25ⁿ²	26.6ⁿ²	22.5ⁿ²
333	AMD Radeon HD 6870			40.7	32
337	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M	85.1	52.7	32.4	26.5
404	AMD Radeon R9 M265X	60	46.8ⁿ²	28.75ⁿ²	15.6ⁿ²
414	NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M	51.8	40.2	18.5	15.4
417	NVIDIA GeForce 940MX	50.7	36.8	11.2	7.8
420	AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 (Ryzen 2000/3000)	36.3	40.7	14.6	9.5
421	NVIDIA GeForce 940M	46ⁿ²	32.45ⁿ²	14.45ⁿ²	12.7ⁿ²
446	NVIDIA GeForce 840M	52.3ⁿ³	31.3ⁿ³	20.1ⁿ³	12ⁿ³
451	AMD Radeon R7 512 Cores (Kaveri Desktop)	49	28.5	12.5	9.9
452	Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200	52	38	15.3	11.9
461	NVIDIA GeForce GT 740M	52.2	28.8	11.8	9.8
463	NVIDIA GeForce 930M	48.2	29.3	11	7.5
470	NVIDIA GeForce 830M	50	28.1	12.4	10.6
505	AMD Radeon R7 M270	51.4ⁿ²	31.45ⁿ²	13.75ⁿ²	10.85ⁿ²
511	NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M	49	27.7	13.1	11
513	AMD Radeon R7 (Kaveri)	27.1	17.1	8.2
518	AMD Radeon R7 M360	36.1	22.4	7.8	5.3
520	NVIDIA GeForce 920M	46.8	26.4	11	9.1
531	AMD Radeon R7 M260	28.7	20.1
Pos	Model	< Prev Next >Risen 3: Titan Lords
Pos	Model	low	med.	high	ultra
551	Intel UHD Graphics 620	39.8	24.1	7.6
593	AMD Radeon HD 8670M	22.3	14.7	8
594	AMD Radeon R6 M255DX	26.2	15.9	7.9
613	AMD Radeon HD 8650G	42.6	24.3	9.9
618	NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M	47	26.4	9.5	7.9
622	AMD Radeon R5 M330	25.3	16
624	AMD Radeon R5 M255	38.1	22
628	NVIDIA GeForce 820M	40	22.8	9.3
629	Intel HD Graphics 520	24.6	16.5	5.1
630	Intel Iris Graphics 6100	29	18.2	6.7	4.2
632	NVIDIA GeForce GT 720M	27.2	19.3	8.1
634	AMD Radeon R5 M240	28.05ⁿ²	17.35ⁿ²	8.7
636	AMD Radeon R5 M230	30.5	16.9	7.2
640	AMD Radeon R5 (Stoney Ridge)	20.9	12.9
649	Intel Iris Graphics 5100	37.3	20.3	8.7	7.3
653	Intel HD Graphics 4600	31.15ⁿ²	18.9ⁿ²	7ⁿ²	6.4
655	Intel HD Graphics 5500	25.05ⁿ²	14.55ⁿ²	6
682	AMD Radeon R5 (Kaveri)	21.8	12.8
686	AMD Radeon HD 7660G	40.2	24.3
689	Intel HD Graphics 5000	28.7	17.6	6.6	5.2
Pos	Model	< Prev Next >Risen 3: Titan Lords
Pos	Model	low	med.	high	ultra
705	AMD Radeon HD 8550G	39	22.2	8.6
725	Intel HD Graphics 610	20.9	13.7
726	Intel HD Graphics 4400	21.2ⁿ³	15.6ⁿ³
727*	AMD Radeon HD 8610G	21	11.5	5.2
759	Intel UHD Graphics 605	14.3	9.5
760	Intel HD Graphics 505	14.2	9.3
761	Intel HD Graphics 5300	17.3	11.7	4.6
770	Intel HD Graphics 4000	36.4	17.6	7.2
776	AMD Radeon R5 (Beema/Carrizo-L)	29.3	13.2	4.2	1.9
777	AMD Radeon R4 (Beema)	16.5	10.8
779	AMD Radeon R3 (Mullins/Beema)	19.9	11
780	AMD Radeon R2 (Stoney Ridge)	14.1	8.7
782	Intel HD Graphics 4200	19.9	11.7
791	AMD Radeon HD 8450G	23.7	13.9
795	AMD Radeon HD 8400	19.6
813	AMD Radeon HD 8350G	22	12.5
814	AMD Radeon HD 8330	14.6
816	Intel HD Graphics 500	10	6.3
836	Intel HD Graphics 405 (Braswell)	14	9.1
837	Intel HD Graphics (Braswell)	7.9	5.6
Pos	Model	< Prev Next >Risen 3: Titan Lords
Pos	Model	low	med.	high	ultra
838	Intel HD Graphics 400 (Braswell)	6.5	4.8
851	Intel HD Graphics (Haswell)	13.3	9.7
897	Intel HD Graphics 3000	17	9.5	4.3	3.4
915	AMD Radeon HD 8210	6.9
962	Intel HD Graphics (Bay Trail)	8.4	5.9

Legend
5	Stutters – This game is very likely to stutter and have poor frame rates. Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, average frame rates are expected to fall below 25fps
	May Stutter – This graphics card has not been explicitly tested on this game. Based on interpolated information from surrounding graphics cards of similar performance levels, stutters and poor frame rates are expected.
30	Fluent – Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, this game should run at or above 25fps
40	Fluent – Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, this game should run at or above 35fps
60	Fluent – Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, this game should run at or above 58fps
	May Run Fluently – This graphics card has not been explicitly tested on this game. Based on interpolated information from surrounding graphics cards of similar performance levels, fluent frame rates are expected.
?	Uncertain – This graphics card experienced unexpected performance issues during testing for this game. A slower card may be able to achieve better and more consistent frame rates than this particular GPU running the same benchmark scene.
	Uncertain – This graphics card has not been explicitly tested on this game and no reliable interpolation can be made based on the performances of surrounding cards of the same class or family.
The value in the fields displays the average frame rate of all values in the database. Move your cursor over the value to see individual results.