I want to experience the silky slide "God of War" on a PC, but the GTX 1060 is not enough

Once upon a time, even though I couldn't afford a PS3, I drooled over my classmate's game "God of War 3" and thought to myself, "If only I could play on the computer.". Today, several years later, "God of War" has truly landed on the PC platform. Regardless of the reason why you were unable to have a PS4 or PS5, you can now choose to play on a PC.

However, after experiencing the PC version in practice, I thought of a problem that FJ teenagers had never considered back then: if the PC version of God of War 3 were to be released, my machine might not be able to run.

Mr. Kui: Is this thing useful?

The "God of War" released in 2018 is already an "old game" almost 4 years ago. My expectation for its PC version was originally that the mainstream configuration could play 60 FPS at 1080p, but the actual situation was not as good.

*This article will focus on evaluating the hardware optimization, visual effects, and user experience optimization of the PC version of God of War (2018). Friends who want to learn about the plot and gameplay of this work can check out our PS4 version review written in 2018

**Due to limited image size, all game screenshots presented in this article have been compressed to a certain extent

The recommended configuration is simply not enough to use

As for PC platforms, the advantage over consoles lies in the large upper limit of expandable configurations. On PS5, we were already able to play God of War with a chessboard rendering of 4K resolution and 60 FPS. And the performance of the PC version has taken it to the next level.

The PC version of God of War supports 4K native resolution output, unlocked frame rate, 21:9 ultra wide screen, and provides richer picture quality setting options. You can call higher quality materials, shadows, screen space reflections, etc. to enjoy better picture performance than the PC version.

but does not support exclusive full screen, very mysterious

My PC configuration is i7-6700k+GTX 1060 (6 GB)+16 GB RAM, slightly exceeding the recommended configuration i5-6600k+GTX 1060 (6 GB)+8 GB RAM displayed on the Steam store page of this game. And this work also supports NVIDIA's DLSS and AMD's FSR, both of which can achieve better results with lower performance on PCs through algorithms.

In theory, should 60 FPS at 1080p be easy for my machine? The fact is not so. The official has long confirmed that the recommended configuration corresponds to 30 FPS at 1080p, so it can only be said that this "recommendation" is a bit different from what some players think of as a "recommendation".

Official Configuration Requirements

Since this game does not provide benchmark testing, I chose the Brock store in the Temple of Tyr as the testing scenario, which has some flame and particle effects, as well as a small amount of volume effects. In terms of settings, test the frame rate performance at different resolutions using borderless windowing, vertical synchronization off, FPS restriction off, and graphics option raw as benchmarks.

Due to the lack of a supported graphics card on hand, I was unable to test the effectiveness of DLSS and only tested FSR; The effect of.

Brock Store

Tests have shown that under native 1080p, my machine can only run at a frame rate of 49 FPS in this scenario, far from reaching 60 FPS. After turning on FSR, the situation will be better, reaching 58 FPS in "ultra-high image quality" mode, and the clarity on a 21.5-inch monitor looks good; Choosing the "performance" mode can achieve 72 FPS, but the appearance will be noticeably blurry.

Although I'm not hopeful, I also tested the 4K resolution performance. Under the same benchmark, turning on the FSR "performance" mode can output at 1080p to 4K resolution, and the viewing experience on a 55 inch TV is comparable to the 1080p FSR "ultra high picture quality" mode on a 21.5-inch display screen, with a frame rate of 39 FPS. If the FSR is set to "ultra-high picture quality", the viewing experience on a 55 inch TV is almost the same as that of a PS5 compatible host version, but the frame rate will drop to 24 FPS, making it feel like watching a movie during cutscenes.

It is obvious that the Brock Store is not the scene that requires the highest hardware performance resources. In actual gaming, the frame rate will fluctuate up and down by 5-10 FPS with changes in the scene. In addition, if you adjust the graphics options unique to the PC version, the frame rate fluctuation range will further increase.

The graphics options require a relatively high level of graphics memory, and from testing, 6 GB of graphics memory is not enough to turn all options to the highest possible level. On the Steam store page, you can also see that many players have encountered a situation of "exploding graphics memory", which may be related to the fact that this game does not support exclusive full screen and only supports borderless windowing.

If I want to open the highest graphics option for , I still need 200 MB left; Graphics memory

Borderless windowing is essentially windowing. Although the entire display device is occupied by game graphics, PCs still render desktop, browser, and other graphics, which to some extent still requires a certain amount of resources. Therefore, most PC games offer exclusive full screen and borderless windowing, allowing players to choose for themselves. I don't quite understand why this game doesn't offer exclusive full screen.

In addition, due to the unstable frame rate, vertical synchronization is basically an option that must be turned on, otherwise there will be frequent screen tearing. Players familiar with PC games must know that turning on vertical synchronization also takes up some resources, and the overall frame rate will drop slightly after turning it on.

But fortunately, although the frame rate of this game may fluctuate to a certain extent, the changes are relatively smooth. During my gameplay, I rarely feel the sudden drop in frame rate resulting in a sudden flash in the graphics card. It only occurs when I switch from free control to real-time computation in a few cases.

In short, although the recommended configuration provided by the official looks very friendly, this configuration is not enough to allow you to play at 60 FPS at 1080p. At most, it provides performance that surpasses the PS4 version of this game, and cannot be better than the version running on PS5. To achieve better results, you need an RTX 20 Series or higher graphics card with a graphics storage capacity of over 6 GB.

Based on the current situation, the cost is probably much higher than buying a PS5 directly.

Brave Adventure into the Nine Realms of Northern Europe with Keyboard and Mouse

There are many examples of porting to PC platforms without proper operational adaptation, but fortunately, the PC version of God of War did not repeat such a mistake.

This game provides good support for various types of controllers. It goes without saying that our own DualShock 4 and DualSense controllers, as Microsoft's home platform, support for Xbox controllers is also normal. What surprised me the most was that this game also supports Nintendo Pro controllers, which were confirmed by A and cancelled by B, which is in line with the habits of Nintendo players. Unfortunately, the UI has not been changed accordingly.

This is connecting to Nintendo; Pro  Is the control viewing interface displayed behind the handle still  Xbox  Your appearance

It is worth mentioning that this game does not specifically adapt to the adaptive trigger and tactile feedback of DualSense controllers. Considering that the optimized version on PS5 also does not have it, this is understandable.

Since it is a PC platform, of course, it also depends on the adaptability of keyboard and mouse control.

Overall, the default button arrangement for keyboard and mouse control in this game is quite reasonable. WSAD's left shift sprint, left key light attack, right key heavy attack, middle key lock, Q block E interaction, and R recall axe are all in line with the operating habits of PC players, and the buttons are also distributed near WSAD. The only slightly counterintuitive feature is the aiming button, which is placed on the left ctrl, but since the left and right mouse buttons are already occupied by light and heavy attacks, it seems helpless.

Like most PC games, this game supports modifying keyboard and mouse buttons and setting secondary buttons. If your mouse has side buttons, you can easily place common buttons such as aiming, blocking, and recalling axes on the side buttons of the mouse.

Compared to the controller, a major advantage of the mouse is its flexible steering, allowing players to adjust the mouse sensitivity in both aiming and non aiming, horizontal and vertical directions. It has to be said that using keyboard and mouse operations is really flexible. There is no need to quickly turn the button, and most of the time there is no need to deliberately run away from the enemy's encirclement. Moreover, it is much easier to solve the bell ringing puzzle of the Three Goddesses of Fate treasure chest with keyboard and mouse.

On the other hand, the feedback brought by controller vibration is something that keyboard and mouse cannot provide. In combat, vibration is a component of the sense of impact, and in performance, vibration can provide a stronger sense of immersion, which cannot be experienced with keyboard and mouse.

summary

From the actual performance, the optimization of the PC version of God of War cannot be said to be particularly good. The official recommended configuration does not make its experience surpass that of the console version, and may even be inferior.

But it supports many things that the console version does not support, such as native 4K, non lock frame, ultra wide screen adaptation, etc. It also provides richer graphics options, and players can adjust or adjust various projects according to their needs, trying to find their most comfortable picture quality and frame rate combination.

For console players, adjusting this kind of thing can be quite troublesome, but to some extent, this kind of "tinkering" is actually a fun way to play PC. Of course, the prerequisite for all of this is that you already have a decent graphics card.

In summary, logging into a PC has indeed provided more people with the opportunity to experience God of War. As for whether the effect of this operation can meet Sony's expectations, let's take a look at the situation of God of War Twilight in the future.