Splinter Cell: Conviction Hardware Performance Guide

Shadows and lighting play a large role in Splinter Cell: Conviction. Graphically speaking, they're also two of the more taxing graphical elements for video cards. Unchecking shadows invariably leads to great performance gains but, in a game like Splinter Cell, it's like playing hide and seek in an empty room. Fortunately if you've got a computer made in the last few years, you'll likely be able to run the game with adequate graphical settings.

We used FRAPs to measure frame rates while we took a 30 second run down a bustling street full of people, shadows, and draw distances that are probably longer than normal. The test adequately pushed our machines, and gives us a good reference point for how the game will perform under harsh playing conditions. We ran each test three times and then averaged the results.

Game Settings

Splinter Cell Conviction gives you handful of preset quality settings, but they tend to go heavy handed on how much they turn off. See what settings you need to tone down to reclaim performance while keeping the game looking pretty.

Graphics

Video cards make or break Splinter Cell: Conviction, but you don't need to go very high up the totem pole to make the game run well. We tested nearly twenty video cards ranging from the dual GPU monster Radeon HD 5970 down to the aging GeForce 7900 GTX.

CPU

A slow Core 2 Duo meets the minimum requirements, but it's by no means the ideal experience. We tested a large range of CPUs to help you figure out where to stop.

Memory

Conviction requires 1.5GB of RAM to run, which is likely the truth. We got to test with 2GB, 3GB, and 6GB of system RAM.

Systems

Like other games before Splinter Cell: Conviction the minimum requirements are barely enough to get the game running as a slide show. With the base system, a 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo paired with a GeForce 7800 GT and 2GB of RAM, we had troubles even navigating the menu with a reasonable frame rate at the lowest image quality settings and resolution. Moving up to the reccomended system, a 1.8GHz Core 2 with a GeForce 8800 GT and 2GB of RAM, the game looked more than playable and with high quality settings. At the worst you might have to drop the resolution a smidge, to keep the eye candy in more intense moments. Our high-end system, of course, had no issues whatsoever running the game with maximum image quality settings and at high resolutions.

System Setup:

High-End System: Intel i7-965, Intel DX58S0, 6GB OCZ PC12800 DDR3, 750GB Seagate 7200.11 SATA Hard Disk Drive, Windows 7 64-bit. Graphics Card: Radeon HD 5870, ATI Catalyst 10.3.

Recommended System:

Intel Core 2 E6320, eVGA 680SLI, 2GB Corsair XMS Memory, 750GB Seagate 7200.11 SATA Hard Disk Drive, Windows 7 64-bit. Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT, Forceware 197.41.

Minimum Requirements System:

Intel Core 2 E6320, eVGA 680SLI, 2GB Corsair XMS Memory , 750GB Seagate 7200.11 SATA Hard Disk Drive, Windows 7 64-bit. Graphics Card: GeForce 7800 GT, Nvidia ForceWare 197.41.

Settings

As a stealth game, Splinter Cell is all about shadows and lighting. Unfortunately, those are also some of the most taxing graphical elements found in games. You could ease off on some of the settings, but it's pretty hard to sacrifice anything in a game like this. Your best bet would be to drop the resolution before easing back on the settings. Lowering Soft Shadows won't affect the atmosphere of the game too much, as it mainly lower shadow resolution, and does not remove shadows from the game. Environmental detail removes lots of elements from the screen, we'd recommend leaving it at high if at all possible. Dynamic ambient occlusion also changes the tone of the game tremendously - you'll lose a lot of shadows by disabling this setting. Check out the screen shot comparisons on the next page to see what you lose with each of these settings.

System Setup: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T, MSI 890FXA-GD70, 6GB OCZ PC3 12800 DDR3, 750GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA Hard Disk Drive, Windows 7 64-bit. Graphics Card: GeForce 8800 GT, Nvidia ForceWare 197.41.

Image Quality Comparison

Graphic Presets

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Soft Shadows

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HDR Rendering

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Environmental Detail

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Dynamic Ambient Occlusion

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Video Cards

Splinter Cell Conviction can push video cards, but it's forgiving enough to run on quite a few older GPUs. That said, there are limits. Cards like the GeForce 8600 GTS don't stand a chance at running this game well, and the GeForce 7, and cards from that generation, are best forgotten as an option.

System Setup: Intel Core i7 965 Extreme, Intel DX58S0, 3GB DDR3, 750GB Seagate 7200.11 SATA Hard Disk Drive, Windows 7 64-bit. Graphics Drivers: Nvidia ForceWare 197.41/45, ATI Catalyst 10.3.

CPU

Splinter Cell is remarkably sensitive to clock speeds and CPU types. We reran the tests more than enough times to confirm the results. The Core i7 class CPUs run the game quite well. When we drop down to the Phenoms, the extra cores don't make as much of a difference as raw MHz. Turbo boost gives the X6 processors a leg up over the slower X4 Phenoms, but lose when compared to the higher clock speed Phenom II X4 965. Intel's Core 2 lineup begins to show its age, surprisingly. We tossed in the Pentium 4 3.8GHz for the heck of it. It didn't fare well at all.

System Setup: Above CPUs + Intel DX58S0, eVGA 680i SLI, MSI 890FXA-GD70, 6GB OCZ PC3 12800 DDR3, 4GB Corsair XMS Memory DDR2, 750GB Seagate 7200.11 SATA Hard Disk Drive, Windows 7 64-bit. Graphics Card: Radeon HD 5870, ATI Catalyst 10.3

Memory

The game requires 1.5GB of RAM, which should clear the minimum threshold to play the game well. It's rather uncommon to come by machines with that particular configuration of RAM, so our testing starts at 2GB and goes up. Performance stays static across all the tests.

System Setup: Intel Core i7-965, Intel DX58S0, 750GB Seagate 7200.11 SATA Hard Disk Drive, Windows 7 64-bit. Graphics Card: Radeon HD 5870, Catalyst 10.3