Total War: Three Kingdoms is the latest part in the PC strategy series, Total War, that a lot of PC gamers are looking forward to. Powered by the TW Engine 3 (Warscape Engine) and using the Denuvo anti-tamper tech, it’s time to benchmark this title and see how it performs on the PC platform.
For this PC Performance Analysis, we used an Intel i7 4930K (overclocked at 4.2Ghz) with 16GB of DDR3 RAM at 2133Mhz, AMD’s Radeon RX580 and RX Vega 64, NVIDIA’s RTX 2080Ti, GTX980Ti and GTX690, Windows 10 64-bit, GeForce driver 430.64 and the Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.5.1. NVIDIA has not included any SLI profile for this title, meaning that our GTX690 performed similarly to a single GTX680.
Creative Assembly has implemented a lot of graphics settings to tweak. PC gamers can adjust the quality of Textures, Shadows, VFX, Trees, Units, Texture Filtering, Anti-Aliasing, Terrain, Grass, Buildings, Unit Size, Post Effects and Depth of Field, and there are also options to enable/disable Screen Space Reflections, Screen Space Shadows, SSAO, Vignette, Proximity Fading and Sharpening.
In order to find out how the game scales on multiple CPU threads, we simulated a dual-core and a quad-core CPU. Due to severe stuttering issues, Total War: Three Kingdoms was unplayable on our simulated dual-core system (with or without Hyper Threading enabled).
Total War: Three Kingdoms features two in-game benchmark tools; one for battle and one for the campaign. These two benchmarks performed similarly on our system, which is why we’ve decided to only use the “Battle” benchmark. This benchmark pushes on screen a lot of units, so it should give you an idea of the actual in-game performance.
Now while the game only uses the DirectX 11 API, we saw some noticeable performance improvements – on both our six-core and simulated quad-core systems – when we enabled Hyper Threading. Total War: Three Kingdoms mainly uses six CPU threads, though it can also benefit from the presence of two or three more. At 1280×720 on Ultra settings, our six-core was able to offer a minimum of 53fps and an average 76fps, which is really great for a strategy game. We are pretty sure that a proper implementation of a lower level API, like Vulkan, would further improve overall performance. Still, the game – in its current state – can be enjoyed even on older CPUs like the Intel i7 4930K.
Surprisingly enough, Total War: Three Kingdoms requires really powerful graphics cards for even gaming at 1920×1080 on Ultra settings. Our AMD Radeon RX580 was able to push a minimum of 27fps and an average of 30fps, whereas the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 could not come close to a 60fps experience. The only GPU that was able to achieve a smooth gaming experience was the NVIDIA GeForce RTX2080Ti.
At 2560×1440/Ultra, our AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 was able to offer a minimum of 29fps and an average of 33fps, whereas our NVIDIA GeForce RTX2080Ti pushed a minimum of 50fps and an average of 58fps. As for 4K, our NVIDIA GeForce RTX2080Ti was only able to offer a 30fps experience so don’t expect to be playing this game in 4K/Ultra/60fps anytime soon.
Since Total War: Three Kingdoms is a GPU-heavy title, we’ve decided to test the game’s presets in 4K. On High settings, our NVIDIA GeForce RTX2080Ti was able to push a minimum of 33fps and an average of 42fps. In order to get a 60fps experience, we had to lower our settings to Medium. Lastly, those seeking for higher framerates will have to lower their settings to Low in order to achieve 100+ fps in 4K.
Below we’ve also included three screenshots showing the game running in 4K on our RTX2080Ti on High (left), Medium (middle) and Low (right) settings. Pay close attention to the GPU usage which is 98% even on Low settings, clearly indicating a GPU bottleneck.
Graphics wise, Total War: Three Kingdoms looks great for a strategy game. As pretty much all Total War titles, Three Kingdoms pushes a lot of detailed units on screen and comes with some really cool visual effects. Unfortunately, there are still some low-resolution textures when you zoom in, but for the most part Three Kingdoms looks great. It does not push the graphical boundaries of strategy games, however it at least looks great.
All in all, Total War: Three Kingdoms performs well on the PC platform. Even though the game uses the DirectX 11 API, it can take advantage of more than six CPU cores/threads, and it runs smoothly even on older CPUs (provided they have enough cores). The game is also GPU-heavy and will put even high-end graphics cards to their knees in 4K/Ultra. We also experienced some crashing issues on the latest NVIDIA GeForce driver, so we strongly suggest using the previous one (there isn’t any major performance difference between them).
Enjoy!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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i get free and sometimes early review codes for every game that ca makes and i haven’t touched their games since attila. i always considered warhammer games to be the lowest bar but this game proved me wrong. it’s cancer in a creative assembly form.
This is still the same Empire Engine. I hope this is the last game on this old technology.
Yup definitely agree, to add a bit more here, the Warscape engine they built for Empire in 2009, it was built in mind for Empire’s open field gunpowder warfare, that’s why the engine never was very good at close combat, and it’s why it’s absolutely terrible at sieges. It’s something they can never fix in patches or updates, because it’s literally the base code of the engine to behave a certain way.
2K’s Sports has the same issue with it’s NBA 2K games as they have become stale in recent years really showing their age, that’s because they’re still using a Dreamcast era, (repeat, EARLY 2000’s Dreamcase era engine!!) which relies on pre-ordained animations for game play, instead of actual physics like some newer titles have, like EA with their Fifa games.
I guess you’re not familiar with the history of Total War’s infamous “Warscape” engine….
long story short the engine has major problems utilizing multiple cores properly. The biggest issue isn’t even the Battles, those are GPU dependant and deliver playable framerates…. the problem is the CPU utilization on the Campaign Map, that’s where the Warscape engine just sits on 1 core while the others sit idle, and the FPS tanks drastically when you click on an army or settlement, sometimes dropping by half. It’s a well known problem in the Total War community, but it’s one Creative Assembly has always ignored, literally pretending the issue doesn’t exist.
In recent titles like this Kingdoms and the Warhammers, they’ve updated the engine to 64 bit and it’s been helpful but really nothing more than a band aid solution, as it’s still the same engine at the end of the day and suffers from the same issues it always has because of it.
Here’s a good example on Reddit which clearly shows the issue with Warscape
https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/99a4kh/the_biggest_problem_with_total_war_games/
This is linking to Rome 2, a six year old game, and the dude fails to mention his hardware.
Like I said, the newer TW games have 64 bit support so the core distribution is better, but it’s STILL THE SAME ENGINE, so the same issues will always be prevalent to a lesser degree. Besides, performance isn’t the only issue with Warscape, Battle AI is a big problem as well, ESPECIALLY in sieges…. Medieval 2 is still considered by hardcore TW players to have the best Siege AI in a TW game, and that game released in 2006.
As for the Reddit post, it is a 8-core Ryzen 2700x with a Asus Strix 1080ti, it’s in one of the comments, so no, definitely not a cheap laptop like you assumed.
Sounds like a you problem. Games run fine for me, using a 8700k and 1080ti. And you ignored the fact that it has good enough core scaling in this article, again.
No the problem is definitely on your end, because after making dumb assumptions failed you, you go on to ignore the fact that I literally said ‘newer titles perform better than older titles due to 64 bit support” you ignore the fact that I’m talking about Warscape’s limitations in general over a span of multiple games, you ignore the fact that it’s a known issue within the TW community and it’s most famous modders…
Everything I mentioned isn’t my opinion, it’s accepted fact within the hardcore TW community that’s been discussed across numerous internet outlets for years…. and guys within that community could care less what the newer TW converts have to say, guys like yourself probably that came over when Warhammer was made available. You dudes have never had to deal with Rome 2, or even worse Atilla… count yourselves lucky
“Everything I mentioned isn’t my opinion”
Exactly this is the problem bere. You haven’t tested the games first hand on modern hardware like I or the writer of this article has. You’re just copy pasting someone elses nonsense, and you don’t even have sources to back it up.
And yes, I am ignoring the older games, cause the past three have ran flawlessly for me. No point in going further into the past to discuss todays performance. Heck why even go into the past at all, it’s just to prove a point you can’t win.
there is no “point i’m trying to win” you seem to be an expert in trying to win internet battles so I’ll leave it to you… I been around the TW forums since 2013 on Rome 2 release…. Warscape has been a headache since that day, because like I said in another post, the engine is not only dated, but it was created for gunpowder warfare, not sword and slash….. they updated to 64 bit, helped alleviate the performance issues some, but engine still suffers countless other issues like terrible battle AI and sieges… countless threads, discussions over all the TW forums and Reddit over the years, gaming websites discussing the issues as well over the years, etc….
But I’m glad Warhammer ‘works’ for you, and thanks for revealing yourself as one of these new TWar casuals that came over with Warhammer btw…
And copy pasting nonsense? if you’re going to ignore VIDEO evidence of an issue, if you that type of guy, then I have absolutely and completely wasted every replied word to your simple a*s. im done
So let me get this straight
1. You completely ignored this article that shows an old Haswell CPU with DDR3 RAM running the game perfectly fine
2. You copy paste others negative opinions that you, for whatever reason, won’t replicate yourself, but somehow you think they are valid, cause they were when the game was still running on a 32 bit engine?
3. I’m a casual fan cause I actually play the games rather than hang out on forums to complain about them?
4. Why do you think I started playing with the Warhammer games, I never said that. Only that the past three games ran perfectly for me. Pretty much what you’re suggesting here as well since you keep coming back to older games than that.
5. What video evidence?
Well, first of all, I’m not a native english speaker so my syntax and spelling will be sh*t, anyway :
Stop saying sh*t, Streetfighter93 is right with everything he said around the Warscape Engine. He’s speaking about the software (the engine used in-game) and your counter argument is about the hardware, lmao.
I also have a really good hardware and I don’t suffer really much on any Total War Game but still that could be better if they reworked from scratch their engine. (software)
Lol, comments said it was a crappy old laptop. And from my own experience, Total War Warhammer (and 2) utilise cores perfectly fine, even in DX11 mode.
Did you even check the article? He’s showing six threads being near maxed out.
It’s not just in the Total War community, but all across PC gaming, that kids whine about their games not running buttery smooth, while pretending their cheap old junk is powerful enough to run the games they want. You get what you pay for, that goes for everything in life.
is that my old pc (win 10 64bit, i5 3570, 2x8gb ddr3, gtx 1080 8gb) still good to playing total warhammer 1-2, total war british, total war 3 kingdom ??