Dawn of War II Gameplay Performance and IQ @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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Dawn of War II Gameplay Performance and IQ - Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II is here, sporting an updated Company of Heroes graphics engine! Join us as we examine this well-received strategy game using six of the most current video cards around today!


Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II successfully builds on the longstanding Warhammer 40,000 epic. It adheres to the guidelines and social structures set forth by the later rule-set from Games Workshop, and it does so in splendid graphical style. Real-time strategy games tend to be far less about eye-candy as your average first-person shooter, so they deliver a less visceral experience. They are far more about intelligent use of strategic set-pieces and seizing the tactical initiative, rather than grand explosions, guns and glory.
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Thanks, Kyle, for a very detailed review. As a 1680x1050 gamer, I found this review to be more useful than previous game reviews that only concentrate on the highest resolutions possible.

I hope you continue this format for future games. :)
 
snowcat said:
Thanks, Kyle, for a very detailed review. As a 1680x1050 gamer, I found this review to be more useful than previous game reviews that only concentrate on the highest resolutions possible.

I hope you continue this format for future games. :)
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We've done this for a good while for game-based evaluations.
 
Sorry about that. I have looked a lot more at the video card evaluations more than the actual game evaluations. That's what I was thinking of.
 
They include low resolutions on the card evaluations too, if it is all the card can handle. lately though, all of the cards have been laughing at the games out so we've been seeing really high resolutions.
All you miss is you dont get to see what kind of AA / ASF the cards can handle at lower resolutions for the monitor impaired, but I've never seen any review site that shows that.
 
I'm in the same 1680x1050 boat and really appreciate these run downs. This game would be tempting if I didn't already have my eyes on Tales of Valor.
 
Very nice review, guys. It is rather astounding that a core feature like AA is broken for ATi cards. It just seems like a game this big, that has been out this long, would have supporting drivers by now.
I could almost forgive them if it were something like Ambient Occlusion, or some other less standard graphics setting, but anti-aliasing?
 
I'm shocked that ATI doesn't have AA support for this game yet. Any rumblings/whispering as to why or what is the problem?
 
I like how 1680x1050 these days is being included in the "low" resolution options, and to think just a year or two ago something like 1600x1200 was still considered ultra-high. I'm in the 1680x1050 barrel and I think the resolution is just fine... meets a nice spot between pixel density and ease of use, plus AA is extremely effective without being totally performance-sapping like at higher resolutions. Sure, I'd prefer higher, but there's nothing at all wrong or "low-end" about it considering I know tons of people who still play at 1024x768 or 1280x720 as standard.
 
I know this isn't a game review but if you ever played the first Dawn of War series you will be highly dissapointed when you play this piss poor game.
 
vengence said:
I'm shocked that ATI doesn't have AA support for this game yet. Any rumblings/whispering as to why or what is the problem?
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The game does not support it, NVIDIA got around this by providing a profile in their drivers which allows the control panel to force AA. AMD has not done this, and thus no AA possible. They have no ETA on when they might have a fix for this.
 
sear said:
I like how 1680x1050 these days is being included in the "low" resolution options, and to think just a year or two ago something like 1600x1200 was still considered ultra-high. I'm in the 1680x1050 barrel and I think the resolution is just fine... meets a nice spot between pixel density and ease of use, plus AA is extremely effective without being totally performance-sapping like at higher resolutions. Sure, I'd prefer higher, but there's nothing at all wrong or "low-end" about it considering I know tons of people who still play at 1024x768 or 1280x720 as standard.
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You sure won't think 1680 is a "low" resolution when you see our Cryostasis performance article :eek:
 
Brent_Justice said:
I haven't, however, this game has done quite well in sells at the number 1 spot - http://www.gamedaily.com/news/biz/
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That's because of marketing hype by steam. I think we all know that high sales does not equal high quality. The game uses an old engine from Call of Honor and isn't even DX10. Not worth the $50.

Believe me, I've been playing the DoW series since beta back in 2004. This new game sucks. It has pretty graphics, but that's where it ends.
 
It's a TWIMTBP game, it's sort of expected there's ATI trouble.

Wish they had the money to start doing something like that themselves so we wouldn't get screwed just for chosing another brand of videocards..
 
Brent_Justice said:
The game does not support it, NVIDIA got around this by providing a profile in their drivers which allows the control panel to force AA. AMD has not done this, and thus no AA possible. They have no ETA on when they might have a fix for this.
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/nod. Well, hopefully ATI will get around to it soon.


Rob94hawk said:
That's because of marketing hype by steam. I think we all know that high sales does not equal high quality. The game uses an old engine from Call of Honor and isn't even DX10. Not worth the $50.

Believe me, I've been playing the DoW series since beta back in 2004. This new game sucks. It has pretty graphics, but that's where it ends.
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I played the demo because of steam, both the multiplayer and the single player. I was tempted to buy it after playing the demo for a couple of hours. Then I read that there was only 20 hours of single player content on the demo splash screen. Perhaps my standards are too high, but imho single player content should be much more than 20 hours. Then again, that's 2.50$ an hour for entertainment which is better than the movies.
 
sear said:
I like how 1680x1050 these days is being included in the "low" resolution options, and to think just a year or two ago something like 1600x1200 was still considered ultra-high.
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I ran a 1600x1200 desktop nearly 10 years ago back in 2000 on my 19" CRT. Now granted, most of my games back then didn't even support a 1600x1200 resolution much less play smoothly at that res, but that's besides the point. I distinctly remember playing games like Earth & Beyond and Quake 3 at 1600x1200. Years and years ago.
 
Whisperfang said:
I ran a 1600x1200 desktop nearly 10 years ago back in 2000 on my 19" CRT. Now granted, most of my games back then didn't even support a 1600x1200 resolution much less play smoothly at that res, but that's besides the point. I distinctly remember playing games like Earth & Beyond and Quake 3 at 1600x1200. Years and years ago.
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Think every CRT I owned could do 1600x1200 except a few very crappy OEM 15s that only did 1280x1024. My wifes ancient P4 dell laptop also did 1600x1200 (was why she picked it). Ahh, the good ol days of awesome pixel density on little bitty screens.
 
Rob94hawk said:
That's because of marketing hype by steam. I think we all know that high sales does not equal high quality. The game uses an old engine from Call of Honor and isn't even DX10. Not worth the $50.

Believe me, I've been playing the DoW series since beta back in 2004. This new game sucks. It has pretty graphics, but that's where it ends.
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First off, lemme say thanks for Kyle and you guys for such an in depth review!

Second, I am sorry if you feel that way, but there a many others, infact a lot of the current people playing dow 2 came from the original, and everyone I have talked to think that it is a great game. I for one hate rts's yet for some reason love dow 2 I cant explain it, I am a shooter by nature, but have really grown attached to dow, I believe it is the best PC release this year to date!
 
Brent_Justice said:
You sure won't think 1680 is a "low" resolution when you see our Cryostasis performance article :eek:
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I was actually plesantly surpised that I could run Cryostasis with max IQ(with sound) and still record FRAPS video at ~30FPS of the demo...at 1600x1200 on the system in my sig.
 
BIGJ said:
First off, lemme say thanks for Kyle and you guys for such an in depth review!

Second, I am sorry if you feel that way, but there a many others, infact a lot of the current people playing dow 2 came from the original, and everyone I have talked to think that it is a great game. I for one hate rts's yet for some reason love dow 2 I cant explain it, I am a shooter by nature, but have really grown attached to dow, I believe it is the best PC release this year to date!
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Some people love it because it's a dumbed down game. You use 2 buttons the whole game. Left click and the X button. There is no building. Your troop and vehicle choices are minimal and only 4 races compared to the 9 races of the first DoW series.

DoW1: 30+ maps, 9 races, 30+ vehicle choices, many many maps, 1v1's, 2v2's, 3v3's, 4v4's, automatch, custom games, free for alls, 30+ troop choices, a plethora of troop and vehicle upgrades, plus outstanding gameplay. No, scratch that, superior gameplay.

DoW2: 4 races, 2 maps, a broken automatch system, a completely dumbed down game. Nice graphics though.............

I think we're done here.
 
Thanks for the review guys. :)

Sad to see that AMD hasn't addressed the issues presented in this article as of yet.
 
This game is unplayable on AM2 X2 cpus for some reason. my mate has a 4400+ at 2.4ghz i think and as soon as opening the game it hits 100% cpu usage and crashes it takes multiple attemps to get the game running.

the same thing happens on my other computer which has a am2 5200+ at 3ghz.

however on my current pc in sig with the Q6600 get about 15% cpu usage with higher ingame settings.
 
chrisewaters said:
This game is unplayable on AM2 X2 cpus for some reason. my mate has a 4400+ at 2.4ghz i think and as soon as opening the game it hits 100% cpu usage and crashes it takes multiple attemps to get the game running.

the same thing happens on my other computer which has a am2 5200+ at 3ghz.

however on my current pc in sig with the Q6600 get about 15% cpu usage with higher ingame settings.
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strange, no problem playing dow2 on my o/c brisbane 4800+. might be something else causing the issue.
 
lol no aa i think game companies are moving backwards in tech no wonder that pc gaming is dying no aa hundreds of patchs after game release meh
 
Brent_Justice said:
The game does not support it, NVIDIA got around this by providing a profile in their drivers which allows the control panel to force AA. AMD has not done this, and thus no AA possible. They have no ETA on when they might have a fix for this.
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Eh? The game supports it. Anti-aliasing is right there in the menu screen.. am I missing something here?
 
MrLonghair said:
It's a TWIMTBP game, it's sort of expected there's ATI trouble.

Wish they had the money to start doing something like that themselves so we wouldn't get screwed just for chosing another brand of videocards..
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FYI, TWIMTBP doesn't preclude AMD from getting game builds for compatibility purposes.. not sure why everyone attributes ATI's issues to NVIDIA's partnership..
 
BlueStorm said:
FYI, TWIMTBP doesn't preclude AMD from getting game builds for compatibility purposes.. not sure why everyone attributes ATI's issues to NVIDIA's partnership..
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If the game is TWIMTBP then the code is possibly optimized for NV drivers and how they will handle the code. This can cause problems for other vendors as they may have to create work arounds in order to get certain functions working.

While I don't play DoW I do think it is unacceptable though for there to be two Catalyst releases since the release of the game and this is still an issue though. Would love more information about the issue though. Could it be something with the game and the upcoming patch that will correct the issue? Maybe a combination of both?

Kyle/Brent/Mark,

Any idea if previous Catalyst drivers allowed you to force AA or has it always been broken?
 
kumquatsrus said:
strange, no problem playing dow2 on my o/c brisbane 4800+. might be something else causing the issue.
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really? ive tried it on 2 different computers though. 2G ram my grpahics card 4850. the only thing is the cpu. is there a patch or something you need to install?
 
Game runs great on my old ass 8800gts at 1680x1050 and X2 4800 cpu. Beat it very quickly, but I keep going back to play the missions I bypassed. Fun game!
 
Sweet Review Kyle.

I love this game, I just got it late last week. Beat the campaign last night and will be checking out the multiplayer tonight :)
 
Rob94hawk said:
I know this isn't a game review but if you ever played the first Dawn of War series you will be highly dissapointed when you play this piss poor game.
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Aside from some balance issues, can you tell me what's wrong with it? The single-player is excellent and reminds me of the hero-only missions from Warcraft III, and the multiplayer is basically a faster Company of Heroes with more emphasis on preserving your units and resource control. I know they changed some stuff from Dawn of War, notably the scale of the games, but come on, is base-building all that crucial? When you find yourself micromanaging five or six squads of units at once I find it's nice to not have to deal with placing my structures just so.
 
How come you guys didn't enable AF as part of the test? It had a minimal hit on my 285.
 
Brent_Justice said:
This page, toward the bottom - http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTY0NSwzLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
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Thanks, you're right. Just checked and it has zero impact on texture IQ when enabled from the CP. Has a 3% performance hit though. It could be that Relic is already applying AF to terrain textures so forcing it won't improve IQ and the perf hit could be due to applying AF unnecessarily on other objects. I think this is the case as the textures don't seem to be that blurred when viewed from a steep POV.
 
Atech said:
One week of gameplay?
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I skipped some of the optional missions. Did some multiplayer last night and got my butt kicked, but still had a good time. I got kicked from some server because it said my graphics settings were too high, anybody else have this problem?
 
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