Dragon Age 2 GPU Performance

After the disappointing showing in a Dragon Age 2 Gameplay Performance Review, NVIDIA has responded with a new BETA driver that claims to alleviate the game-crippling performance problems that its customers were experiencing.
The performance improvements are evaluated and again compared to AMD's.

Dragon Age 2 Performance Follow-up

On the 28th of March, 2011, the gameplay performance review on Dragon Age 2 was published. That article described the less-than-adequate performance observed with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580, GTX 570, and GTX 560 Ti video cards. In general, AMD's Radeon HD 6000 series of video cards were between 11% and 30% faster than NVIDIA's offerings.

Knowing that AMD worked with BioWare during the development of Dragon Age 2 , we were not necessarily surprised by the weak showing by NVIDIA's video cards at the game's launch. We stated that NVIDIA had some work to do to improve performance for its customers in this game, and NVIDIA has now responded by releasing the GeForce ForceWare version 270.51 BETA.

NVIDIA lists some impressive performance increases for Dragon Age 2, so we checked it out to see what the deal is with this new driver.

The following tests were executed on the same test system that we used in our original review. The only thing that has changed is that all of the video cards were using driver version 270.51 BETA for this follow-up.

GeForce GTX 580

The following test was run with Dragon Age 2 configured to run at 1920x1200 with 4X AA, 16X AF, and maximum available in-game graphics quality settings.





For the GeForce GTX 580, we measured a 29.5% performance increase with the new driver.

GeForce GTX 570

The following test was run with Dragon Age 2 configured to run at 1920x1200 with no AA, 16X AF, and maximum available in-game graphics quality settings.




The GeForce GTX 570 gained 26% with beta driver version 270.51.

GeForce GTX 560 Ti

The following test was run with Dragon Age 2 configured to run at 1680x1050 with no AA, 16X AF, and maximum available in-game graphics quality settings.





The GeForce GTX 560 Ti ran 30.5% faster with the new driver than with the previous driver.

NVIDIA/AMD Performance Comparisons

Now that we have a driver that works well for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 500 video cards in Dragon Age 2, let's see how it compares with performance we already measured from AMD Radeon HD 6000 series video cards. The NVIDIA video card data below comes from the tests we performed for the previous page in this follow-up. The AMD video card data below comes the tests we performed for our Dragon Age 2 Gameplay Performance Review.

GeForce GTX 580 vs. Radeon HD 6970

These tests were performed with DA2 configured to run at 1920x1200 with 4X AA, 16X AF, and maximum in-game settings selected.



Though performance with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 is improved, it is still outpaced by the AMD Radeon HD 6970. In these tests, the Radeon HD 6970 came out about 5% faster than the GeForce GTX 580 (which costs $130 more).

GeForce GTX 570 vs. Radeon HD 6950

These tests were performed with DA2 configured to run at 1920x1200 with no AA, 16X AF, and maximum in-game settings selected.



Here, the GeForce GTX 570 was about 5% faster than the Radeon HD 6950. It is a hollow victory, however, considering that the GTX 570 costs 50% more than the HD 6950.

GeForce GTX 560 Ti vs. Radeon HD 6870

These tests were performed with DA2 configured to run at 1680x1050 with no AA, 16X AF, and maximum in-game settings selected.



Lastly, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti outperformed the Radeon HD 6870 by about 6% at 1680x1050. The GTX 560 Ti is only about $25 more than the HD 6870, however, so this competition is closer than what we saw earlier and more positive for the GTX 560 Ti in this case.

The Bottom Line

NVIDIA was aware of the performance problems with Dragon Age 2, and have been working on performance. The official response from NVIDIA was that NVIDIA did not have access to early builds of DA2, however once it gained access to the game the driver team did jump on it and tuned up application performance. We have seen this happen with many games in the past, on both sides either favoring NVIDIA or favoring AMD by not having access to early builds, which means that when the game is launched the driver has not been properly tuned. It is a shame really, because from a gamers perspective we want the best experience we can get on game launch, not several weeks later. It is a state of the gaming and video card business, and it sucks mostly for us, the gamer, we always seem to get the short end of the stick due to these practices. Honestly we think teams Red and Green actually think this gives the companies some sort of competitive benefit, but truly we think it just shows how little the companies care about its customers' needs.

While the new driver improved performance with all of our GTX 500 series video cards, it did not restore much actual value to the GeForce GTX 580. Sadly, even armed with a fixed driver, it could not really compete with the Radeon HD 6970, which costs significantly less. The GeForce GTX 570 was no better off. At $360 USD, it only ran a paltry 5% faster in DA2 than the $240 Radeon HD 6950. Even the GeForce GTX 560 Ti was still challenged to compete with the Radeon HD 6870. It costs about $25 more, and only gave us about 6% better performance.

While gamers with GeForce GTX 500 series video cards who want to enjoy Dragon Age 2 are now more able to do so, we still cannot recommend the GTX 500 series for gamers looking to upgrade for whom DA2 is a serious consideration. AMD simply has the better value and gameplay experience for your money in this particular game.




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