Introduction:
For how popular of a game as World of Tanks is, I haven't seen many benchmarks comparing different graphics cards/GPUs to the game performance. You might see one popping up every year or two with limited info about testing methods. When I read that 9.14 was going to move the sound processing to another CPU core, I decided that after 9.14 was released, it would be a good time to compare different GPUs. I'm going through the process of using different GPUs with the same replays to compare their performance.For smooth game play you want to keep your minimum FPS(Frames per Second) above 30 FPS. Games can start looking like a slide show below 30 FPS. Games tend to look smoother and are easier to play when you keep your minimum frame rates higher. Generally 50-60 FPS is where games start to look much smoother to most gamers. Some people with 60 Hz monitors prefer to have their minimum FPS never drop below 60 FPS then enable V-sync to reduce the visual effect called screen tearing. Other players have monitors that are capable of 75, 100, 120, or 144 Hz refresh rates and want higher average FPS in game. Minimum and average frame per second are a matter of both game play quality and personal preference and can be limited by the hardware. Maximum FPS isn't as important for game play as minimum FPS and average FPS.
There is a myth that the human eye can't distinguish any difference above 30 frames per second, so that having more than 30 FPS is useless. In scientific testing, it has been proven that the human eye may be able to see differences in frame rate at over 200 frames per second. Other tests have shown that computer gamers can see a difference between 30 frames per second, 60 frames per second, and 100+ frames per second while playing computer games on newer monitors that have the capability of using refresh rates above 100 Hz. Also, some people say that television and movies are shown at approximately 30 FPS, so more than 30 FPS isn't necessary. However movies and television shows often use motion blur to hide what would seem to be jerky movement due to being played at 30 FPS.
Another advantage of higher frame rates is less input lag and less game lag. You may have a great ping and no packet loss, but if you are averaging 30 FPS it may feel that you have higher ping when you play because there is more lag in the game itself. For example, if you play at 30 FPS, each frame is about 0.0333 seconds. If you play at 60 FPS, each frame is 0.0167 seconds. If you play at 100 FPS, each frame is 0.0100 seconds. To many players, having higher frame rates feels and acts like having a better in game ping. Some players feel that higher FPS in a game makes it easier to hit moving targets in game and to hit smaller targets in game.
Methods:
Replays:I downloaded quite a few replays from WoTReplays.com and found a few to find what I was looking for. I ended up using three different replays that I downloaded from WoTReplays.com. Two replays were used more than the third replay.
The first replay is a Comet on Serene Coast. Link: http://wotreplays.com/site/2546813
The second replay is a Type 64 on Abbey. Link: http://wotreplays.com/site/2536214
The third replay is an IS-6 on Kharkov Link: http://wotreplays.com/site/2544611
I used the Comet replay because a large part of the battle occurs near the water, has tanks driving through water, and it is a good replay to see how the water quality settings affect game performance. The Type 64 replay was used because it has a wide variety of game play events, game environments, and was stressful to even higher end GPUs giving the lowest average frames per second and lowest minimum frames per second of all the different replays I tried. I also used the IS-6 replay because I wanted to see how stressful on the graphics heavy tank play is around buildings. It ended up that heavy tank play in the city is not very stressful on the GPU for most mid and high end GPUs. Several other replays of heavy tank play on city maps showed that it seems to be less stressful and yielded higher FPS than other types of replays. The IS-6 replay is more of a best case scenario instead of an average or demanding replay. Because of this I didn't use the IS-6 replay to test many of the GPUs.
Computer systems used:
