Age of Conan Hardware Performance Review

Gameplay Areas Used for Testing

Test 1: Tortage Beach

Age of Conan includes a form of single player mode where gamers are often able to escape the hustle and bustle of the massive multiplayer world and work by themselves to further their character. This eliminates factors that otherwise would have a negative impact on frame rate. While you are not able to play the whole game in this state we have included results from Tortage Beach, the initial starting point, which features the visual feast of a tropical beach. We do a 5 minute loop which takes us around the beach to a point overlooking the ocean and through a group of pirates. We make our way back into the luscious jungle where we are again accosted by a pirate band and after kiting them through the foliage we find ourselves on a sandy shore in the midst of crocodiles (or alligators, who can ever tell?). A plunge into the water, with short trips beneath the surface, brings us back our starting point and the end of the loop.



Test 2: Tarantia

Our second test throws us smack dab in the middle of the city of Tarantia, one of the largest hubs in the game. Filled with players from all over the realm, it is littered with a variety of textures and geometry; arguably one of the most graphically intense areas in the Hyborian world. Our test starts in Old Tarantia at the docks, an area you arrive at after leaving the Island of Tortage. Here we make our way up the Avenue of Honour and across a massive stone bridge, overlooking a cascading waterfall into the harbour. We decided against venturing into the Noble’s District as entrance into the district requires the the PC to load a new zone thereby distrupting the test. Making our way back across the bridge our character meanders through the streets of Old Tarantia, past the temple and through markets, eventually making his way down the back streets to the Avenue and ending up again on the docks to view the massive walls of the city.



Test 3: Intro

Our final test is for those who prefer canned benchmarks. While not a perfect time demo, the starting intro after creating a new character uses the game’s engine for its visual rendering. While no where near replicating actual in game frames, it is an accurate and controlled demo for direct comparisons between hardware.



Image Quality Settings

AoC includes a smorgasbord of customizable visual settings, mainly involving view distance of certain aspects, but also includes textures, shaders and AA/AF options. There is also 3 preset visual settings: Low, Medium and High. For the majority of our benchmarks we used the presets Medium and High; however, for a few, we did our own customizations or those recommended by the developers.