Most Optimized PC Games

I wanted to start a thread about the games that are actually made well for the PC. Meaning games that look good while running great, aren't buggy or problematic, have controller support, etc.

Here's a list of how I would rate my games on how well optimized they are for the PC

Every source engine game ever - 10.0

F.E.A.R. - 10.0

Doom 3 - 10.0

Burnout Paradise - 10.0

Unreal Tournament 2004 - 10.0

Devil May Cry 4 - 9.9

Resident Evil 5 - 9.9

Borderlands - 9.8 (huge fps hit from AA/not available in game)

Warcraft III - 9.8

World of Warcraft 9.8

Fallout 3 - 9.6

CoD4: Modern Warfare - 9.5

Modern Warfare 2 - 9.0

Just Cause 2 - 9.0

Dead Space - 8.5 (anti-aliasing and v-sync problems)

Dragon Age: Origins - 8.5

FarCry 2 - 8.5

Crysis - 8.0 Vanilla/9.5 with mods

Battlefield Bad Company 2 - 8.0

Mass Effect - 7.5

GTA IV - 7.0

The Sims 3 - 5.5

_____________________________________

Need to try:

Dirt 2

Unreal 3

eh mentioning Dirt 2 and Modern Warfare isn't quite right - why?

Well it's "optimized" because they run on pretty old textures combined with some great game effects - same about FEAR2 or all Source games such as HL2 episodes with included HDR and other nice effects.

which game is more optimized? DiRT2 or NFS: Shift? DiRT2 will probably run on every gaming rig, Shift you need some decent modern gaming rig to run in on max textures and effects on

Fallout 3 - 9.6

QuitoFOOL

You're funny.

[QUOTE="QuitoFOOL"]

Fallout 3 - 9.6

Barbariser

You're funny.

I have it on the 360 but there are a lot of people who have problems with this game. For one of my friends, it crashes every 15 minutes.

Is Sims 3 that buggy? Devil May Cry 4 10.0 F.E.A.R and any other games that use Doom 3 Engine 10.0 Unreal Tournament 3 10.0 Dirt 2 10.0 I'd knock a further .5 points off Dead Space for being anti V-Sync as well.ninjabeaver1

Oh yeah I forgot about FEAR and Doom 3. Those games ran ridiculously well.

Wut your rating is messed up Fallout 3 9.5? Yeah right... Mw2? Uhm, no leaning.... Dirt 2 should be number 1, scales immensely. Or maybe Unreal Tournament 3 based games, they scale on multiple graphics cards and cpu wonderfully. I have not seen any other game engines scale like these doJigglyWiggly_

First of all, how does no leaning make a game unoptimized? That was a gameplay decision.

Also other than Fallout 3 crashing maybe 3 times over my 100+ hours on it, it gets a perfect 10 for running great, looking great, and having fantastic controller support (the pipboy even changes when a 360 controller is detected).

Sims 3 may have been patched since I played it, but when it first came out the framerate was erratic.

I'll look into Dirt 2, haven't tried it yet.

- Sims 3 runs great

- GTA IV is a 9.5 for me since it ran great considering the hardware I have and the controls are perfect for the PC imo

- Fallout 3, I didn't have problems with it, not major ones, but I had glitches, quite a lot of em, 8.5 there

- Dragon Age is an 9.2 because sometimes the character just teleports behind objects that are far from your reach, or places that are not accessible but it's easily fixed

- Far Cry 2 would be a 9 but not the game itself

- ME 1 is a 9.5 because I hated the long load times in the Citadel

- ME 2 is a 9 because the character sometimes climbs random objects

- MW was perfect so I'll give it a 9.8 since some had weird sound issues with it but they were extremely rare (unlike W@W and MW 2)

- BF BC 2 is pretty much broken but it works so it deserves an 8

- Crysis is a 9.5, mods won't make it run better, that's a false impression, it works just the same, mods just affect the general look, a change that you might like more, but gameplay remains the same, CCC or other such mods don't make it more stable, and gamepla mods are at best as good as vanilla Crysis, they might be fun but most of them are full of bugs and glitches

Also PC games aren't optimized well because they have controller support...

Anyway there are way too many games available and a list would be two long so at the end of the day a normal question containing specific games will help a person more than a list with lots of games from lots or genres.

I don't want to start a new thread - but guys, have you noticed how badly optimized Metro 2033 is? I didn't have a problem playing Crysis at very high settings with acceptable framerates, but this game is downright unplayable for me, even when I go as low as medium settings @ DX9.

I have a Q6600@2.4 with 2GB of RAM and a Palit 8800GT 512MB. It's the first time I try a game and it throws unplayability right in my face.

I have to lower the resolution to 1440x900 for MW2 instead of my regular playing style of 1920x1080....

Fallout 3? You've got be kidding. That was anything but optimised and buggy as all hell.

sooo what is "looks good"?

I don't want to start a new thread - but guys, have you noticed how badly optimized Metro 2033 is? I didn't have a problem playing Crysis at very high settings with acceptable framerates, but this game is downright unplayable for me, even when I go as low as medium settings @ DX9.

I have a Q6600@2.4 with 2GB of RAM and a Palit 8800GT 512MB. It's the first time I try a game and it throws unplayability right in my face.

NoAssKicker47

I don't want to start a new thread - but guys, have you noticed how badly optimized Metro 2033 is? I didn't have a problem playing Crysis at very high settings with acceptable framerates, but this game is downright unplayable for me, even when I go as low as medium settings @ DX9.

I have a Q6600@2.4 with 2GB of RAM and a Palit 8800GT 512MB. It's the first time I try a game and it throws unplayability right in my face.

NoAssKicker47

[QUOTE="NoAssKicker47"]

I don't want to start a new thread - but guys, have you noticed how badly optimized Metro 2033 is? I didn't have a problem playing Crysis at very high settings with acceptable framerates, but this game is downright unplayable for me, even when I go as low as medium settings @ DX9.

I have a Q6600@2.4 with 2GB of RAM and a Palit 8800GT 512MB. It's the first time I try a game and it throws unplayability right in my face.

JangoWuzHere

if by optimised we mean gutting it off all the things we loved from the previous then the award goes to SUPCOM 2. damn that game runs well on my old e6400, but the damn maps are TINY and u just cant get a huge army like the original...

also borderlands ran really nicely on my e6400 with 2gb of ram and a 4850 512mb

[QUOTE="QuitoFOOL"]

Fallout 3 - 9.6

Barbariser

You're funny.

I concur. Fallout 3 has an extremely clunky engine with barely any real optimization at all, and the engine gets bugged way too often to be called "optimized", even for console standards.

No mention of Blizzard games, only Mass Effect for Unreal Engine games (you say 7.5 and it runs flawlessly on 2006 hardware) also adds up and makes me think this is a joke post.

I have to lower the resolution to 1440x900 for MW2 instead of my regular playing style of 1920x1080....

JangoWuzHere

MW2 runs smooth as butter at 1920x1080 100% max everything for me. And I only got a 4890 and a dual-core.

I never had any real problems with fallout 3, so I gave it a good score, if it was buggy for everyone else then thats a shame. Try running it on High and not Ultra because the Ultra settings don't look that much better but it rapes your frame-rate.

What? No blizzard games? Also source engine games.

What? No blizzard games? Also source engine games.

LordAinav

WoW and Warcraft III runs fantastically, I'll ad them in a sec. I probably won't add D2 and Starcraft since they are 2D sprites games.

It seems you don't know much about hardware if you think you have "just a 4890", that's an overkill for a game like MW 2 even at resolutions that are over 2K.DanielDust

I actually probably know a lot more about hardware than you do. There are MUCH better cards than the 4890 and it's certainly not overkill. BFBC2 runs like crap on a 4890 and I constantly have to turn the graphics down in multiplayer to achieve the frame-rate I want. MW2 however it's perfectly smooth all the time, hence the creation of this thread and why some games run so much better on the same exact hardware.

The HD 4890 is over a year old and certainly wasn't the fastest card when it came out.

I disagree with COD, sure it runs well but it has nothing going on under the hood and plenty of crappy low res textures.

EDIT- It is still well optimized i'd give it a 7 or something but the engine is also pretty dated no sexy particle effects or anything.

It's not top of the line obviously but it's an overkill for MW 2, the game is terrible optimization wise, like recent NFS games and Burnout on PC from EA, you can get an outrageous amount of frames on any settings, maxed out, exaggerated resolutions at 2xAA, if you turn it to 4x then things aren't as great anymore, the performance loss is way too high and it's not because of the hardware.

And now I'm sure you don't know much about hardware, you have a great graphics card, your PC doesn't just go from very good to trash in just one year, it's still a great card even if it's not the best, it's still good enough to max games.

I disagree with COD, sure it runs well but it has nothing going on under the hood and plenty of crappy low res textures.

sammysalsa

Source engine has low res textures but that doesn't mean it's not optimized. COD runs much smoother than a lot of other games that look about the same graphically.

It's not top of the line obviously but it's an overkill for MW 2, the game is terrible optimization wise, like recent NFS games and Burnout on PC from EA, you can get an outrageous amount of frames on any settings, maxed out, exaggerated resolutions at 2xAA, if you turn it to 4x then things aren't as great anymore, the performance loss is way too high and it's not because of the hardware. And now I'm sure you don't know much about hardware, you have a great graphics card, your PC doesn't just go from very good to trash in just one year, it's still a great card even if it's not the best and still good enough to max games.DanielDust

Actually I do know a lot about hardware, maybe that's why I bought the damn card in the first place. I never said the card was trash, it's a fantastic card for the money, there are just a lot of faster cards out there.

Every source engine game ever couldnt agree more!

F.E.A.R 10/10

Doom 3 10/10

Fallout 3 6.5/10 buggy, whenever there is smoke like when the vault opens the frames drop to like 10 FPS

COD 4 and 6 9.5/10 some little glitches but barely noticeable

Dead space 8.5 (anti-aliasing problems and Vsync problems for me)

Just Cause 2 9/10 amazing for how good it looks

Far Cry 2 8/10 While driving a few glitches but like crisis its set for future hardware

Crysis 5/10 it may be set for future hardware but now the future is here its been three years of upgrading and still no smooth frames the cryengine 2 was designed a little poorly.

Mass Effect 9.8/10 Smooth as a shaved pu**y! probably one issue and that is loading times for me anyway.

GTA IV 2/10 Appauling i cant see why it has such high system requirments when really the graphics arent really that great. Dhocking performance and buggy the game is sooo long that playing it at 25 fps is just crap. The console versions are worth playing.

I have really rated my games in how their performance is on a high end pc

[QUOTE="DanielDust"]It seems you don't know much about hardware if you think you have "just a 4890", that's an overkill for a game like MW 2 even at resolutions that are over 2K.QuitoFOOL

I actually probably know a lot more about hardware than you do. There are MUCH better cards than the 4890 and it's certainly not overkill. BFBC2 runs like crap on a 4890 and I constantly have to turn the graphics down in multiplayer to achieve the frame-rate I want. MW2 however it's perfectly smooth all the time, hence the creation of this thread and why some games run so much better on the same exact hardware.

The HD 4890 is over a year old and certainly wasn't the fastest card when it came out.

Every source engine game ever couldnt agree more!

F.E.A.R 10/10

Doom 3 10/10

Fallout 3 6.5/10 buggy, whenever there is smoke like when the vault opens the frames drop to like 10 FPS

COD 4 and 6 9.5/10 some little glitches but barely noticeable

Dead space 8.5 (anti-aliasing problems and Vsync problems for me)

Just Cause 2 9/10 amazing for how good it looks

Far Cry 2 8/10 While driving a few glitches but like crisis its set for future hardware

Crysis 5/10 it may be set for future hardware but now the future is here its been three years of upgrading and still no smooth frames the cryengine 2 was designed a little poorly.

Mass Effect 9.8/10 Smooth as a shaved pu**y! probably one issue and that is loading times for me anyway.

GTA IV 2/10 Appauling i cant see why it has such high system requirments when really the graphics arent really that great. Dhocking performance and buggy the game is sooo long that playing it at 25 fps is just crap. The console versions are worth playing.

I have really rated my games in how their performance is on a high end pc

Add a LOL to Fallout 3. Bethesda make some of the worst optimized games in the history of the PC.

bad company 2 I'd give a 4.0 you need at least a quad core and anything under a 9800 cant run it that well

Add a LOL to Fallout 3. Bethesda make some of the worst optimized games in the history of the PC.

BornGamer

[QUOTE="BornGamer"]

Add a LOL to Fallout 3. Bethesda make some of the worst optimized games in the history of the PC.

kevy619

agreed.

bad company 2 I'd give a 4.0 you need at least a quad core and anything under a 9800 cant run it that well

steve216

That may be my problem. I have a dual-core. Some games are more CPU dependent than others.

Yeah I've tried those as well, I'll add those in a sec.

Wut your rating is messed up Fallout 3 9.5? Yeah right... Mw2? Uhm, no leaning.... Dirt 2 should be number 1, scales immensely. Or maybe Unreal Tournament 3 based games, they scale on multiple graphics cards and cpu wonderfully. I have not seen any other game engines scale like these doJigglyWiggly_

what does leaning have to do with this topic? this is about optimization, not about gameplay.

PC games aren't optimized well because they have controller support...DanielDust

[QUOTE="DanielDust"]PC games aren't optimized well because they have controller support...JackBurton

[QUOTE="JackBurton"]

[QUOTE="DanielDust"]PC games aren't optimized well because they have controller support...QuitoFOOL

Interestingly while in the past "port" often equaled crappy optimization nowadays it actually translates to "optimized for high-end dx9 hardware similar to found in 360", which means it also runs easily on modern 8800+ systems.

Though with devs wanting to throw extra crap on it, PC gamers wanting higher resolutions and sometimes downright lazyness/incompetence(Saints Row 2 etc.) it doesn't always work like that.

Devil May Cry 4 is optimized for DX 9, DX 10, and even 64-bit Windows.

It also has a video benchmarking app built-in that runs game scenes and tells you your framerate.

[QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"]Wut your rating is messed up Fallout 3 9.5? Yeah right... Mw2? Uhm, no leaning.... Dirt 2 should be number 1, scales immensely. Or maybe Unreal Tournament 3 based games, they scale on multiple graphics cards and cpu wonderfully. I have not seen any other game engines scale like these doWasdie

Thank you.

The most optimized game i have seen in a long time is MW 1&2...they scale VERY well.

[QUOTE="sammysalsa"]

I disagree with COD, sure it runs well but it has nothing going on under the hood and plenty of crappy low res textures.

QuitoFOOL

Source engine has low res textures but that doesn't mean it's not optimized. COD runs much smoother than a lot of other games that look about the same graphically.

Yes, and a lot less going on under the hood too. You probably didn't see my edit, i still think it is optimized just not 9/9.5 optimized.