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 Performance

(Longer bars indicate better performance)

640x480, Low Quality

Minimum System

1280x720, High Quality

Recommended System

1920x1200, 4xAA/8xAF, Maximum Quality

High-End System

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.