KZN#22

Gaming
Mass Effect:
Andromeda's '
recommended' system
predicted to run
30 fps at 1080p
We've
received a
little clarification
on the
question of exactly how well
Mass Effect: Andromeda will
perform on a 3GB GTX 1060.
At PAX East today, we asked
producer Michael Gamble if
the card would really deliver
30 fps at best on high.
"No, I mean, it depends on
your machine," said Gamble.
"And it’s really hard
to benchmark individual
machines. We’re just saying
that that’s the bare minimum
that it’ll run at. It’ll
probably run at higher than
that for most of the game,
it’s just really hard to be specific
about it. We just want
to do the minimum and
we want to do the recommended.
The recommended,
at least on my machine at
home, I have a 1060, I run at
higher than 30 [fps] for the
majority of the game. But
it’s hard to actually to say,
'This is the specs, and this is
exactly what you’ll run at.'"
So the estimate may be
conservative, as we suspected.
We have a GTX 1060
in the office, so as soon as
we can we'll test Andromeda
with it and report back on
how it performs. The original
story follows below.
Original story (March 9):
The Mass Effect: Andromeda
system requirements were
made public a couple of
weeks ago, and they were a
little on the high side but not
really any more than you'd
expect from a big-budget
action-adventure released in
2017. More recently, though,
EA has posted performance
predictions based on
the minimum and recommended
system specs, and
those you might find a little
surprising.
The minimum system
requirement—a Core i5 3570,
8GB RAM, and a 2GB GTX
660 or Radeon 7750—is predicted
to be capable of 30
fps at 1280x720 resolution
on "low" graphics settings.
That's the sort of visual
experience that I'd expect
would convince an awful
lot of gamers that it's finally
time to upgrade. But it's the
high side of the scale that
I find more of a surprise:
A Core i7 4790, 16GB RAM,
and a 3GB GTX 1060 or 4GB
RX 480 will deliver 30 fps at
1920x1080, on 'high' settings.
That's not terrible, but it's
still very much a mid-range
setting for the game, since
Andromeda supports 4K resolutions
and, as you can see
at Nvidia.com, 'ultra' settings
across a wide range of
graphical options. I wouldn't
go so far as to say those middling
numbers are concerning,
because performance
predictors aren't carved in
stone, but it does make me
wonder what kind of setup
will be needed to achieve
those sweet 4K visuals at
anything resembling a playable
frame rate.
It's important to note that
one game's settings aren't
necessarily equivalent to
any other game's settings,
so Andromeda's 'high' could
hypothetically be the same
as another game's 'ultra.' It's
also possible that EA is trying
to manage expectations
by aiming low: Mass Effect:
Andromeda and Battlefield 1
are both built on the Frostbite
3 engine and have similar
system requirements,
and our performance analysis
of Battlefield 1 found
that both the RX 480 and the
GTX 1060 were able to dance
around the 100 fps mark at
1080p at "ultra" visual settings.
It could be a typo, too.
We've emailed EA to confirm
that the predicted performance
numbers are accurate,
and while we wait for
a response you can have a
look at the graphics settings
options below.
Kzn Lifestyle Magazine • Issue 22 39