Warhammer Online Hardware Performance Guide

By: Sarju Shah - Posted on September 19, 2008

Warhammer Online, the newest MMO entrant to challenge World of Warcraft, brings the old-school tabletop Games Workshop fantasy-classic universe to the massively multiplayer online community. MMORPGs like Warhammer are deceptive in their complexity. The graphics aren't as intense as a Crysis or BioShock, but that doesn't mean they don't tax your computer in other ways. With a heavy focus on player-versus-player combat and features that allow you to band together with loads of teammates, the game will need the right hardware to run smoothly with all the onscreen action.

To test Warhammer Online, we tried to create a consistent walk-through that was taxing on the system and long enough to ride out any inconsistencies that happen when you're testing on a live server with hundreds of other people who enjoy running in and out of your benchmarking path. We settled on a 100-second walking tour of the region in and around Grimmenhagen (conveniently nestled between the hamlets of Doomville and Despairburg). The high population counts, dense vegetation, and constant in-game action ensured that the systems would have plenty of work. We measured the frame rates using FRAPs.

Settings
When the action starts to pick up (and it will), you'll want to know what settings to ease off on and how the game will look as a result.

Video Cards
Newer video cards don't have too much of a problem running Warhammer Online. To figure out just how much power is enough, we went ahead and tested Warhammer on more than 20 different video cards from four graphics generations.

CPU
Warhammer can't get enough CPU power. Be it core count or straight GHz, the game wants it all. We tested out Intel Core 2s, AMD Phenoms, and the Pentium 4 to see just how little we can get away with.

Memory
Warhammer Online's minimum system requirements state that the game requires 1GB of RAM to run. It'll run, but not well. Our testing showed that adding more memory will yield a significant performance improvement.

Systems
As usual, minimum requirements don't really make for a great playing experience. We're inclined to say that the game wouldn't be playable at all on the minimum spec system if you actually wanted to go into battle with a group. Everything from the CPU to the GPU to the RAM screams "bottleneck." Our midrange system handled the game just fine, although a faster CPU would have come in handy. It goes almost without saying, our high-end rig could run Warhammer at full settings without a problem.

System Setup:

High-End System: Intel Core2 QX9650, eVGA 780i, 2GB Corsair XMS Memory (1GBx2), 750GB Seagate 7200.11 SATA Hard Disk Drive, Windows Vista 32-bit SP1. Graphics Card: GeForce 280 GTX, beta Nvidia ForceWare 177.92.

Mid-Range System: Intel Core2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz, eVGA 680i, 2GB Corsair XMS Memory (1GBx2), 750GB Seagate 7200.11 SATA Hard Disk Drive, Windows Vista 32-bit SP1. Graphics Card: GeForce 9600 GT, beta Nvidia ForceWare 177.92.

Minimum System: Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz, Asus P4C800, 1GB Corsair XMS Memory, Seagate 160GB 7200.7 SATA Hard Disk Drive, Windows XP Professional SP2. Graphics Card: GeForce 6800, Nvidia Forceware 177.92.

Settings

Like most other games, dropping the resolution is the easiest way to increase frame rates. However, we'd recommend getting rid of shadows first. You'll get back a decent amount of performance, and the image quality will suffer negligibly. Next up is draw distance. Even at half draw distance, you'll have a solid view of the world around you. Feel free to give grass the boot as well for a few extra frames. Outside of those settings, our test couldn't stress the other settings enough to make us recommend a path of action. We're guessing that effect and animation quality would come more into play when larger groups are duking it out.

We couldn't test the lighting and specular settings as the game does not allow them to be disabled. Later builds of the game might allow for the option. The graphics cache size setting seemed to destroy performance to the point of unplayability if changed. Don't touch it for the time being.

System Setup: Intel Core 2 X6800, Intel Core 2 Duo X6800, eVGA 680i, 2GB Corsair XMS Memory (1GB x 2), 750GB Seagate 7200.11 SATA Hard Disk Drive, Windows Vista SP1. Graphics Card: GeForce 7600 GT, Nvidia ForceWare 177.92.

Graphics Comparison

The last image set contains shots comparing the game with and without transparency antialiasing. If you have the spare horsepower, we highly recommend enabling it to clean up the look of the game. It may not look like much in the shots, but when you're moving around the world it does wonders. You can find transparency antialiasing in the 3D quality section of your video card drivers.

Quality Settings

Gallery

Shadows

Gallery

Draw Distance

Gallery

Transparency Antialiasing

Gallery

Video Cards

Warhammer will gladly accept faster GPUs in exchange for better performance and image quality. Luckily, you don't need all that much to power this game to absurd levels. Most of our newer video cards could easily run Warhammer at resolutions high enough to power a 30-inch LCD at native resolution. High-end video cards had enough spare power left over for us to enable 8x antialiasing and a whole slew of other image-enhancing features. In fact, excess video card power, such as that found in the Radeon 4870 X2, is put to waste, as the game quickly becomes CPU-limited in high-population areas or when the action starts to heat up. Older, weaker video cards have to give up some of the eye candy and resolution settings to run the game at acceptable frame rates.

Owners of newer video cards should look to upgrading their CPUs first. Owners of older-generation video cards might require both a new video card and CPU in order to run the game at higher resolutions and image quality. We detail how CPU affects gameplay on the following page.

System Setup: Intel Core2 X6800, eVGA 680i SLI, 2GB Corsair XMS Memory (1GBx2), 750GB Seagate 7200.11 SATA Hard Disk Drive, Windows Vista 32-bit SP1. Graphics Cards: GeForce 280 GTX, GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB, GeForce 9600 GT 256MB, GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB, GeForce 7900 GS 256MB, GeForce 7600 GT 256MB, GeForce 6800 128MB, GeForce 6600 GT, Radeon HD 4870 X2, Radeon HD 4870, Radeon HD 4850, Radeon HD 4670, Radeon HD 3870 X2, Radeon HD 3870 512MB, Radeon HD 3850 512MB, Radeon HD 2900 XT 512MB, Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256MB, Radeon HD 2400 Pro, Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB. Graphics Drivers: beta Nvidia ForceWare 177.92, ATI Catalyst 8.8

CPU

Warhammer Online loves a great CPU. In fact, that's about all it needs: higher clock speeds and more cores. Every bit of processing power counts when you have to deal with countless enemies, non-player characters, and a never-ending stream of adventurers. As can be seen in the graph, the game gets faster with every MHz bump. You could run out and buy a top-of-the-line quad-core CPU, but you can easily get away with a very quick dual-core.

System Setup: Intel Core2 Extreme QX6850, Intel Core 2 X6800, Intel Core 2 Duo 6600, Intel Core2 E6320, Intel Pentium 4 3.8GHz, AMD Phenom X4 9600, AMD Phenom X3 8750, eVGA 680I, Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H, 2GB Corsair XMS Memory (1GB x 2), 750GB Seagate 7200.11 SATA Hard Disk Drive, Windows Vista 32-bit SP1. Graphics Card: GeForce 280 GTX, Nvidia ForceWare 177.92.

Memory

Warhammer Online runs horribly with the minimum 1GB of RAM. Expect to have considerably longer load times, lower frame rates, and a constant hard drive churn. The game ran much better when we upgraded to 2GB of RAM; 3GB of RAM didn't do anything for performance or load times.

System Setup: Intel Core 2 X6800, eVGA 680i SLI, 3GB Corsair XMS Memory (2GBx2), 2GB Corsair XMS Memory (1GBx2), 1GB Corsair XMS Memory (512MBx2), 750GB Seagate 7200.11 SATA Hard Disk Drive, Windows Vista 32-bit. Graphics Card: GeForce 7600 GT, Nvidia ForceWare 177.92.