Tech Comparison: Call of Duty: Black Ops PC | Digital Foundry

Loading up the PC version, we have the opportunity to carry out a "what if?" experiment - we can use the top-end textures and run the game natively at 720p to get some idea of how Black Ops would look if the consoles had just a little bit more memory and processing ability. It also allows us to better put the differences between the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions into context, in terms of their differing sub-HD resolutions and the impact on the quality of the overall presentation.

[El_Colombiano]

It looks great on PC but man, do you need one hell of a PC to run it the right way. I'm baffled, this isn't the usual for PC games. This is the first game that I can not play at all on my PC. Hell, I run every single other game just fine and even about fine. Tryarch could have done better.

[FantasyStar]

It's questionable. How does a game that uses a 2-3 year old engine manage to run worse than the games before it? One could really say Treyarch modified the hell out of the Q3 engine, but c'mon.....

The only game that truly brought hardware to its knees because of how awesome it looks and how much it pushed is....you guessed it. Crysis.

[El_Colombiano]

You bring Crysis up. My computer plays Crysis just fine. Not maxed out but fine. Why on earth would Black Ops have any reason not to run at all? They may have modified the engine severely and that would be great, but they obviously needed to include more optimization in the schedule.

[Nihilism]

"do you need one hell of a PC to run it the right way"

I don't think so, the specs are pretty tame. You should still be able to get 30 frames with 4aa @ 1650x1050 or possibly 1080p with e mere 8800gt. That is assuming you have a quad core. A dual core would be the achilles heel in this game.

LOL, apparently they ran the PC version at 720p with 2aa....

I ran 1600x1200 in 2003 with 16msaa in doom 3, it's like we're going backwards in time

For some 'real' pc pics of this game, see the last few pages of the pc screenshot thread.

[El_Colombiano]

That's the thing, I have a dual core. Yes I know a quad is what a "true" gamer would have but to this day my Athlon X2 (yes X2 not Athlon II X2) has served me like a champ. I played Crysis, every COD, Starcraft 2, Just Cause 2, Fallout 3 and even GTA IV with it. Black Ops is the first game I simply can not play. Come on. Black Ops. A Call of Duty game. Treyarch didn't take their coding seriously here.

[AKS]

It's the optimization that's awful and allows only above average PCs to max it out. Treyarch did a horrendously bad job with the optimization.

[Nihilism]

Disagree is not from me.

P.S I don't know why you wrote 'true gamer'. My comment about 'real' PC screenshots was in regard to running PC games at a resolution you can't even get on PC monitors natively. I never said there was anything wrong with dual cores, just that a lot of newer games really need one to run their best. Crysis and starcraft are only dual core optimised, they only run better on quads because background processes etc can run on the vacant cores.

[El_Colombiano]

Actually, my "true gamer" comment had nothing to do with what you said about the massive screen shots in the gallery. I just wanted to point out that my dual core ran so many games so fine that there is no reason why Black Ops isn't running on it.

Either way I'm planning on getting a Phenom II X3 to rid myself of this bottleneck.

[NarooN]

Okay, check this shit out.

My desktop PC is modest and I only got it for some school-work back in high-school.

I ran MW2 with my evga 8600GT 256MB, AMD Sempron 2200+ dual-core @ 2.0GHz, 2GB of RAM on Vista 32. I ran it maxed out with 2xAA and got 40-60+ fps at all times. Native res of 1440x900.

Now I played Black Ops and I had to run it at medium settings @ 800x600 with no AA to even be able to aim consistently and get through the game. The game chokes horrendously in outdoor areas. I got 10-20+ fps in outdoor areas and 30+ in indoor areas.

The game was optimized like crap.

[dirthurts]

It's everything to do with crap programming.
You can tell from the patches they obviously didn't implement multi core cpu scaling in the game correctly.

[gypsygib]

I'm not seeing a major difference between the 360 and PS3 here, but definitely the PC is vastly superior.

[dirthurts]

I hate those jaggie jumpy shadows...

[da305kratos]

curious to see how its running on a stock 5750...

Specs:
AMD X4 Phenom Deneb 3.0Ghz
Sapphire 5750 1Gb (stock)
4Gigs of Ram @ 800

[karlowma]

5760x1080, 2x MSAA, all other settings maxed, 45+ FPS. The game runs like a champ on my rig.

http://s1220.photobucket.co...

[MGRogue2017]

It's "My knob is bigger than yours" in here.. :D

[Shadow0]

I could barely even notice the difference between the consoles and pc unless they were side to side.. I don't mind graphics at all. I still enjoy World At War graphics and believe console is a bit more fun anyway