The 10 Most High-End Graphically Demanding PC Games Ever Made

What are the most graphically demanding games? We’ve created a list of the gnarliest PC games that will give your precious gaming rig a kick-ass workout. We tested each game at maximum settings on a 1920×1080 display. We played each game for 15 minutes, and recorded its average frame rate using FRAPS. The rankings are listed from least taxing to most based on average frame rate count. See the list below.

[Stupid]

Unity and Far Cry 4 have awesome visuals ever but Unity was failed due to performance issues

[Hamzaali]

yeah unity is love

[Stupid]

U have PC, Xbox1 or PS4? Did you also had graphic bugs and low fps?

[clouds5]

Unity 1.04 on pc has no glitches and runs with 40-60 fps on my machine. (Phenom 2 x4 4ghz, gtx970) my hardware costs about the same as a ps4 :p

[bumnut]

^ Thats a lie, your 970 cost almost the same as a PS4 on its own.

[hiredhelp]

Hmmm

[nveenio]

@clouds5

Unity 1.04, huh? So…not the launch version? Or is that a day one patch to remove bugs and glitches?

[TheFirstClassic]

Lol gtx 970 is expensive as heck.

[Utalkin2me]

@clouds5

Did you really think people was going to believe that? Just made yourself look pretty stupid.

[starchild]

@clouds5

Yeah, I have a GTX 970 and a G-Sync monitor and it is silky smooth. It runs between about 40 and 80fps, but with g-sync it feels smooth and consistent even when it's running at the lower end of that range.

The game looks amazing running maxed out with those kinds of framerates.

[XBLSkull]

ARMA 3 for sure

[decrypt]

Unity is probably the best looking game ever released. I am currently playing the game on my PC at 5760 * 1080 maxed out ultra settings Fxaa and managing 70 - 100fps. Sure i have a monster rig however i think the game is well optimized.

[mikeslemonade]

I have two Zotac 970s. One I got for $290 and one for $250.

[JudgmentJay]

For everyone that doesnt want to click through the article

1. Far Cry 4
2. COD AW
3. AC Unity
4. Battlefield 4
5. The Witcher 2
6. Crysis 3
7. Tomb Raider (2013)
8. Far Cry 3
9. Hitman: Absolution
10. Crysis

[_-EDMIX-_]

In terms of tech, it would be AC Unity as its next gen only.

2. clearly should be Metro 2033.

3. should be Crysis 1 as Crysis 2 and 3 are technically downgrades to the engine, not upgrades in terms of technical stand point.

Far Cry 4, COD AW and even BF4 I would not see as those as they can be played on many PCs...dear god can the person writing the article actually LOOK AT THE SPECS OF THOSE GAMES!

AC Unity is factually the most demanding game on that list and rightfully so, its NEXT GEN ONLY, it can only be played on NEXT GEN LEVEL hardware PC and console.

The rest can be scaled back to be played on most system, AC Unity can not.

When one states "demanding" they must factoring in, what it TAKES to play on a PC....AC Unity factually TAKES MORE to run then that entire list ,regardless of how they feel about Unities performance issues.

[TheFirstClassic]

Witcher 2 should be on that list.

[Utalkin2me]

AC unity runs locked 60 full tilt on my setup. Farcry 4 and Ryse on full tilt does not run anywhere locked 60 on my setup, so i think they are a little more demanding then AC Unity.

[Kryptonite42O]

@cpayne93

its at #5

[TheFirstClassic]

Well don't I feel retarded.

[Jonny5isalive]

lol COD is on there. I just got that on ps4 and besides the 1080p it looks like shit. They need to make a new engine.

[Jaqen_Hghar]

and boredom. Seems like AC is about a 50/50 proposition. AC4, 2, and Brotherhood were great. 3 was good (mainly the Haytham parts were great and he's the best character in the series). 1, Revelations (other than the ending which had a man in tears), and Unity were mediocre at best. Too bad MS backed them in a down year. Funny how much crap Sony got for backing Destiny yet ACU got a lower meta.

[starchild]

Well, I don't agree. ACU is one of the better games in the series for me. I think the glitches and poor performance on consoles is what hurt it the most with some reviewers and resulted in the lower meta score. I don't care, though. It runs beautifully on my PC and it's one of the best games I played this year.

[bubblebobble]

i paid £300 for my set up brand new with assassins creed unity and gta 5 and it runs both games at super stable frame rate as well as far cry 4 its got ddr5 ram like 2 generations ahead of most other pc 8 core processor optimization that makes games run 2 times faster than the same graphics card in another rig and if anybody is interested in the best value set up on the planet you can buy them nearly everywhere just ask for ps4

[Gamingchange]

Far Cry 4 one of graphically best game i have ever seen

[IrishSt0ner]

Yea agreed, at ultra with enhanced godrays etc.. it's truly a marvel, I spend way too much time 'sight seeing'.

[RickyLee]

Hitman Absolution OMG want to play again and again

[Hellsvacancy]

I wouldn't play it again if someone paid me, terrible game compared to the older better Hitman games

Opinions opinions

:)

[scark92]

I agree 100%
The game is a step back compared to the others! imo of course.

[Jaqen_Hghar]

It's a good game but the confinement and scriptedness makes it a bad HITMAN game. Should have made a new spy storyline IP if they were going to use narrow levels like that. Hitman is about giving you an objective, a big map, and letting you loose. Still remember playing the missions in 2 about 10 different ways each.

[Hamzaali]

ummm i just love ma Assasin's Creed Unity .. cant stop playing it ...

[Maxor]

This game looks AMAZING on the PC. On most games, the gap between the nexgen console isn't that far apart aside from the higher resolution and better textures here and there. But in Unity the gap between the PC and the PS4 is freaking huge.

Comparing the difference between the PC version of Unity that I got for free from Nvidia and my PS4 Gamefly version, it looks like the PS4 version had all of the texture details rubbed out into a blurry mess.

[Tapani]

That's because it's a multiplatform title. Games developed solely on PS4 or Xbox SDKs, which will be updated all the time btw, are going to look much better than AC Unity in time. It's just the way it is, and always has been.

Even Xbox 360 and PS3 pulled off DX10-11 and OpenGL effects that "was not supposed to be possible" on those platforms.

Sure, the PS4 and a high-end PC have huge raw difference in power, but that's not all there is to it. I'd look at something like Uncharted 4 on PS4 vs AC:U on PC. That will give you an idea of how big the difference is in practice.

Personally, I'm tired of PC gaming and thinking of selling my rig. PS4 and Vita are just so fast and convenient for me. I never play multiplats, anyway. GTA 5 was an exception, but it takes forever to come to PC. Everything else I play are exclusives, except the indies. Substance over raw power.

I might get a Wii U or Xbox One for the exclusives, though.

[Utalkin2me]

I'm not that impressed with Ac unity. Its fairly nice looking game. I would not put it in the amazing category, that's for sure.

[starchild]

@Utalkin2me

You have to be kidding. ACU is easily one of the best looking games on PC. This isn't debatable. In terms of the graphics tech it's using and just how it looks it's definitely one of the best looking games around.

I max it out and get between about 40 and 80fps on my g-sync monitor and it definitely is one of the best looking games I have played, and I've played all the best looking games on PC.

[Jerrymonics]

OMG Crysis ,, all time i love to play .. n crysis 3 is just gonna awsome fo me

[sugawalls]

Batllefield Flaw harder to run than The Witcher 2 with Unbersampling. Pahahahaha. The Witcher 2 is still harder to run maxed out than anything to this day including Crysis 3 and it was optimized beatifully.

Its been proven on overclock.net numerous times. Most games mentioned on that list were difficult to run because of crap optimization from console to Pc. Metro 2033 is an example.

Article is flawed plus its a click fest. You have been warned.

[blockcoc]

Ya I get much better performance in Far Cry that The Witcher with ubersampling on. I absolutely hate this site I refuse to go through their bs.

[etownone]

Crysys 3 should get a remaster for xb1/ps4 since I passed playing it due to all the reviews saying it was a glitch mess and ran poorly on the 60/ps3

Or.... Just do the Remastered versión of all 3 Crysys games into one disc.

[WeAreLegion]

I'd settle for a console version of Crysis that played like the PC version. They made the PS3/360 version of Crysis linear! How ridiculous is that?!?

[RedDeadLB]

Umm.. that's just Crysis 1.. It never was open world, it was always linear, just large in scale. It's the same game as on PC minus the flying level.

[WeAreLegion]

Yes, it was. You can navigate the entire island from the beginning of the game on the PC version. On the PS3/360 version, they added invisible walls.

[Vegamyster]

You can explore the entire island on the PC version? Last i recall you could only go so far before ships would shoot at you or blocked by terrain. They had to use a less demanding engine just to get the game running on the 360/PS3 and the framerate still wasn't that great.

http://i.imgur.com/UqvNoSk....

[Ragthorn]

Again, no mention of "The Vanishing of Ethan Carter"? So disappointed with these lists, especially this PC list...

[andrewer]

The only problem I had this year was with COD. Damn it ate RAM like hell, I have 8GB but had to close several processes every time I'd play it...
From the working games *cough*Unity*cough* ofc

[kingduqc]

This list is just garbage.

[airshiraz]

assas uni is the new king of graphics and most demanding

[Iceman X]

Wow what's funny is that all these games are multi plats, PC don't have any exclusives to put on the list?? LOL Master race yeah, i bet if this was PS4 list it would have at least 5 exclusives on it.

[Pandamobile]

Yeah, it sure does suck having the best looking multi platform games /s

You kids with your hard-ons for exclusivity never fail to make me chuckle.

[starchild]

Haha it's pretty ridiculous the way they worship exclusives, even though many of them are poor or mediocre games.

I like good games regardless of whether they are multiplats or exclusives. PC has plenty of both. But the vast majority of good games on any platform are multiplatform.

The reason they focus so much on exclusives is because they know there are no other versions to compare them to, so they can claim they are the best looking games without anybody being able to do a direct comparison. Many exclusives get way overhyped for this reason.

[Stopher92]

It's ok. They're just jealous they'll never get to play The Last of Us :)

[specialguest]

Dumb comment lol. A lot of pc gamers also own consoles or can EASILY afford one if they wanted to play those exclusives. We just prefer the definitive non-30fps(all console open world games LOL) non-900p(bf4 LOL) versions of certain games

[Tibbers]

Why would you make a list about "graphically demanding" games. A graphically bad game could be demanding due to bad optimisation or the use of a bad engine.

Graphically demanding =/= great graphics.

[Ps4andxb1]

Rather buy a console to play these games and know that they'll just work.

PC has a lack of decent exclusives too.

[Stopher92]

Exactly! ^ the reason why I'll always be a console gamer. I'd rather not have to worry about the game potentially not running properly, and be forced to fool with performance settings. I'd rather play on my PS4, knowing the devs optimized the game to run as good as possible on my system. :)
For anybody who's going to disagree with me, I just simply appreciate the convenience that consoles offer. If you enjoy PC, then good for you.

[Tibbers]

"PC has a lack of decent exclusives too."

Bullshit.

[MadLad]

They like to throw that one around because they're sore on the performance and visual front.
All they do is follow it up with saying they don't like the laundry list of exclusives we get and then call it a win.

[sorane]

You should go read this then:

http://www.metacritic.com/f...

As you can clearly see PC had more good exclusives just in 2014 than every other system combined. PC had 45 good exclusives in 2014 compared to a pitiful 4&6 for the ps4 and xbox1. If you're saying the PC lacks decent exclusives then you must think the other systems are a barren waste when it comes to them. I doubt any console with even reach 45 good exclusives the whole gen.

[MadLad]

Some of those aren't even really demanding.
Others could easily be replaced by other titles in mind.

[lifeordeath617]

My GTX 970 runs Far Cry 4 on Ultra with no hiccups Like a Boss!!

[Kumomeme]

ac unity is the most unoptimized pc game ever made

[dreamoner]

Far Cry 4 has the same graphics as Far Cry 3, yet we see it as top quality graphics somehow. It's like calling AC Black Flag has top graphics last year. People should consider physics in the graphics. When you add enough physics to facial animations and clothes you have AC Unity and it's truly impressive. I mean 2007's Crysis has better facial animations than 2013's Black Flag and 2014's Far Cry 4. They're tricking us by a few new lighting effects and we are like "hell yeah!! best graphics evaaah!!!!". They're releasing huge mods for their 1 or 2 years old games as new releases, we're buying it.

[bubblebobble]

driveclub with update and infamous second son look far better than any pc game