Date:
Tuesday , May 12, 2009
Author:
Mark Warner
Editor:
Brent Justice
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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!

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Settings in Dawn of War II

The Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game genre is one of the few remaining holdouts for relative PC gaming exclusivity. There have been a number of attempts throughout the years to bring RTS gaming to popular gaming consoles, but compared to the propagation of such games on the PC, console offerings are rather slim. As such, the graphics customization options in Dawn of War II are respectably broad. Graphics options in most strategy games are still somewhat limited, but the situation is improving as companies like Gas Powered Games (Supreme Commander, Demigod) and Relic develop more advanced strategy game engines than we have seen in the past.

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Predictably, the first graphics option is the Resolution selector. Dawn of War II supports the full gamut of common video resolutions, including selections using 16:9, 16:10, 4:3, and 5:4 aspect ratios. Interestingly, only the 16:9 resolutions are tagged as “widescreen” options.

To the right of the resolution option is a Brightness slider, and below is a Predefined Settings selection box. Predefined Settings options include Low, Medium, High, Ultra, and Custom. If you the gamer wants to quickly select the maximum in-game options, simply select the Ultra option and the game will automatically select the highest possible graphics settings.

The Automatic Settings checkbox attempts to adjust the graphics options automatically based on the GPU that is detected. Please note that the automatically selected graphics options do not scale with the resolution selected or already being used. It will attempt to select the same settings for a video card running at 1024x768 as it will for the same video card running at 2560x1600.

Shader Quality

The Shader Quality option adjusts the quality of the lighting in Dawn of War II. Available options include Low, Medium, and High. The option’s tooltip indicates that selecting the Low option will disable other options. During our testing, we found that selecting the Low setting disabled postprocessing and reflections, even though the postprocessing and reflection options remained available and changeable in the graphics options panel.

Model Quality

The Model Quality option changes the geometric complexity of static and dynamic meshes used by the game. Available options are Low and High. Selecting the Low option here disables the High shader quality option.

AA

The Antialiasing option allows the game to enable multisampling AA. The available options are Off and On. We can’t be positive what sample rate is represented by the On setting, but it looks like 2X to us. Because we could not identify the precise AA mode that the in-game option uses, we chose to force AA from the control panel where applicable.

Texture Detail

The Texture Detail option controls the resolution of textures used by the game. Selecting a higher option will allow the game to show more detail on screen. Available options are Low, Medium, High, and Ultra. Obviously, using high resolution textures requires more local video memory than using lower resolution textures.

Shadows

The Shadows option changes the resolution of textures cast by game objects. Available options are Off, Low, Medium, and High. High resolution shadows exhibit less of the stair-stepping effect seen on shadows of lower resolutions. The option’s tooltip warns that use of an increased setting requires a faster CPU and video card. We did not find the shadow option to have a severe impact on performance during our testing.

Postprocessing

The Postprocessing setting is a toggled option, with On and Off as its only available settings. It enables the use of postprocessing graphical effects such as HDR.

Physics

The Physics option toggles the use of ragdoll physics for dead bodies in motion and debris from explosions. Available options are On and Off. Physics is calculated on the CPU in Dawn of War II, so gamers will want to make sure their CPU is up to the task.

Terrain Detail

The Terrain Detail option controls the level of detail found in the landscape in the world, as well as the distance at which landscape objects are obscured by fog. Available options are Low, Medium, and High. Increasing this option requires more system memory as well as more CPU and GPU power.

Effects Fidelity

The Effects Fidelity and Effects Density options control the quality and quantity of effects such as bullet tracers, muzzle flashes, explosions, and some lighting effects. Available settings in both options include Low, Medium, High, and Ultra. Increasing these settings adds to the workload of both the CPU and the video card.

Rain Detail

The Rain Detail option adjusts the quality of rain splashes on terrain and objects, including buildings and vehicles. Available options include Off, Low, Medium, and High.

Soft Particles

The Soft Particles option softens the edge of smoke particles where those effects touch geometry, reducing the hard line that we often see. This is a toggled option, so available settings are Off and On. This option requires additional video memory to function.

Caveat Emptor

We had a few issues testing this game, which we will disclose here.

No AF

First of all, Anisotropic Filtering does not work. There is no in-game texture filtering option, and forcing the option in the NVIDIA control panel and the ATI Catalyst Control center did not enable it in-game. The good news is that it is not terribly missed. About the only place where we noticed the lack of texture filtering during gameplay testing was on the ground textures.

AA Troubles

Second, anti-aliasing does not work on AMD’s video cards. We first tried the in-game AA option, and that did not work. We then tried the Catalyst Control Center options, and that did not work either. In the NVIDIA camp, AA worked just fine. With NVIDIA video cards, the in-game options worked and the control panel options worked, including Transparency AA. AMD responded and said that they are aware of the issue but could not give us an ETA on a fix.

There is a patch for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II coming “soon” from Relic. Our earnest hope is that it can fix some of these problems.

Testing Procedure

During our testing, we found that the dense jungle levels of the single-player and multiplayer game modes to be the most demanding of our hardware. For our testing procedure, we loaded up a battle between the Blood Raven Offense Force Commander and an Ork Offense Warboss on the “(2p) Green Tooth Jungle” as shown in the screenshot below.

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We then used FRAPS to record framerates for 10 minutes of the battle. Using a 2-player jungle map allowed us to control a few things. First, the jungle maps are the most demanding, so we are looking at a “worst-case scenario” for performance affected by the combat environment. Second, the smaller size of the map ensured that we would actually enter combat during the time we were recording framerates with FRAPS. Third, using a single CPU-powered enemy ensured that our performance would not be limited by too great a drain on the CPU, which essentially gives us an experience closer to the multiplayer experience where each force is controlled by a human.