Gears of War: Ultimate Edition is one of the first DX12-only titles. Developed by The Coalition, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition is powered by an enhanced version of Unreal Engine 3. The Coalition released yesterday a performance patch for this title, so time now to see how this game performs on the PC platform.
For this Performance Analysis, we used an Intel i7 4930K (turbo boosted at 4.0Ghz) with 8GB RAM, NVIDIA’s GTX980Ti, Windows 10 64-bit and the latest WHQL version of the GeForce drivers. Unfortunately, The Coalition has not added yet SLI support for this game, meaning that it was – kind of – meaningless to test our GTX690 (as it would perform similarly to a GTX680 and that GPU is not powerful enough for Gears of War: Ultimate Edition). The Coalition claimed that it’s working on adding multi-GPU support, so it will be interesting to see how the game scales on more than one GPU in the future.
Gears of War: Ultimate Edition is basically a remaster of the first Gears of War. As a result of that, the game stresses more the GPU than the CPU. In order to find out whether a modern-day CPU can run this game, we simulated a dual-core and a quad-core system. Both of dual-core and quad-core systems were able to offer a constant 60fps experience (even without Hyper Threading enabled). Therefore, owners of modern-day dual-core CPUs (like Intel’s i3) will definitely be able to enjoy this title.
To our surprise, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition used our GPU to its fullest. As you can clearly see from MSI Afterburner’s graph, our GPU was used at 95% during the in-game benchmark and our initial playthrough. The latest update that The Coalition released gave us a 10fps performance boost. Prior to that update, the in-game benchmark ran with an average of 95fps (after three loops). Post-patch, the benchmark runs with an average of 105fps.
However, there is nothing on screen to justify such requirements. Truth be told, the game looks better than its original PC version, however – and for today’s standard – it’s not impressive at all. Not only that, but some of the 4K textures that were used are not that great. In fact, there are a lot of other games that feature better and more crisp textures than those found in Gears of War: Ultimate Edition.
The Coalition has added a number of options to tweak, however these options seem laughable if you compare them to those of The Division. PC gamers can enable or disable FXAA, adjust the quality of textures (Low textures are meant for GPUs with 1GB of VRAM, Medium for 2GB of VRAM, High for 3GB of VRAM, Ultra for 4GB of VRAM and 4K for 6GB of VRAM), adjust the quality of shadows, enable or disable Ambient Occlusion and Motion Blur, and adjust the quality of Visual Effects.
Graphics wise, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition looks average. Yes, there is a visual improvement compared to the original version, however it’s not that wow-ish. Everything feels so old-gen; from the level design to the actual movement of the characters and their animations. There is limited environmental interactivity and only a few objects can be destroyed, something that explains why the game runs so well even on modern-day dual-core CPUs.
Gears of War: Ultimate Edition is a bit of a disappointment. A lot of us expected this game to showcase at least some of the benefits of DX12, however that’s not the case here. The game suffers from a lot of issues due to its UWP nature, and it remains to be seen whether The Coalition will be able to resolve them. Gears of War: Ultimate Edition also suffers from stutters when a new area is loaded, and from some texture streaming issues. Gears of War: Ultimate Edition requires a high-end GPU, however it does not justify those requirements. Thankfully, the game does not suffer from mouse acceleration or smoothing issues thanks to its latest patch, and there are proper on-screen indicators. Still, the end result is underwhelming.
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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The art style is really nice though, people need to commend the art style, Fallout 4’s art style is great, same with The Division, credit were credit is due not just sh*t on the game because you don’t like the company.
Actually it looks worse than the original aesthetically. The people who made the original game did not make this remake.
Want to credit someone? Credit Epic Games 10 years ago, not hacks at a “MS studio” that made the same game with a texturepack and some @#%% brown Instagram filters stutter on a 980Ti/Titan X.
You are buying a texture pack (that in itself is a joke) that looks worse than community texture packs on Mass Effect 2/3 (same engine), some ugly filters (that you cannot change or fix) that stutters on the most powerful PC you can buy, on a store that removes everything great about PC Gaming.
I’m not interested in your rants about Microsoft. because it’s out of context here.
I am not interested in your astroturfing to defend a broken port that stutters on any PC you attempt to run it on.
You are a criminal and will go to any length to defend MS on every single site you post on.
Oh STFU, people have a different opinion than you, deal with it.
No. You are defending a port that STUTTERS on a Titan X, not just the 980Ti John here tested it on.
The port is FUBAR and you are attempting spin to paint it in a good light.
The Xbox One version does NOT stutter and that is with a dirt slow 500 GB 5400 RPM potato HD that has been tested to be slower than some USB drives you can attach to the XBone.
Also it is not just a VRAM issue as even a Titan X stutters. The port is simply BROKEN. It is arguably the worst port of all time given it is a remake of a 10 year old game with nothing added but textures/instagram filters.
Calm down and take you pills.
What pills? The pills that could make me drugged enough to believe you are anything but a MS mouthpiece? You are the same idiot who ATTACKED my post on how to inject SMAA into Rise of the Tomb Raider or any game, while defending FXAA as a good AA?
You are a clown. You are not qualified to mow my lawn, let alone talk about any of these subjects.
Do you even own this game? Show us your youtube channel. Show us footage of you playing the campaign. Show us it stuttering and then explain why you are defending this POS when I can link you footage of a PATHETIC console with a 1.7ghz AMD CPU, a 1.3 TFLOP AMD GCN GPU, a 5400 RPM HD not stuttering.
You’re personally attacking me because I said the art style is nice, that makes you a sociopath, go seek help. No way was I defending Microsoft, the ethics of their store, so stop being an idiot.
I am personally attacking you because you are completely full of #%#$ and defending a game (and the same company all the time) you cannot even provide proof you own…that runs worse on a Titan X than it does on the console.
The console version is not a stuttering mess. The PC version is, no matter what you though at it.
People have different opinions than self appointed dictators such as yourself too…..
No idea what you’re talking about, perhaps you should make a proper point instead of jumping onto a stupid comment made my him. Perhaps you people just like sh*tting on the DSOG comment selection, I suppose every Article now will be sh*tted on by Bruce and anyone who disagree’s is a criminal and or Microsoft fanboy. it reminds me of the leftists idiots that use extreme comments to silence critics because they have a different opinion.
How dare I make an opinion about the art style, shocking isn’t it, it must mean I’m a Microsoft fanboy and support the Windows store. You people are f*cking reta*ded and don’t understand context.
The Unreal Engine 3 of today, latest build, is miles ahead in capabilities compared to what was used to make Mass Effect 2 or even 3. I mean, compared ME3 visuals to Batman Akrham Knight, Thief or yes, even this Gears of War. Or really, Gears 3, from 2011. A day and night difference in visual quality.
well Art is subjective. To me AC games have really nice artwork in them but in the end we judge games by their gameplays and content which most of them (division,ac,fallout) are mediocre.
Grats 😀 You Have now 980Ti 🙂
In the future please still include the 690 (or even with SLI not working 680) results. Even if they are sub-par it is still nice to see where they do perform at.
Yeah and I find it’s also another great way to find how far the optimization for a particular game has gone into !
VRAM on the 690 would probably fail to even load/steam lower texture options. Titan X/980Ti stutter and have texture streaming issues.
It is like Batman AK but far worse, especially considering this is 10 year old game design. You are not flying around or driving around in batmobile. This is a corridor shooter built for the Xbox 360.
The reviewer told you it STUTTERS/has steaming issues on his 980Ti which has three times the VRAM of a 690 (SLI can only use half on the dual GPU card). That tells you everything you need to know. You can also watch videos of people with a Titan X stuttering.
We will be including the 690 (especially when SLI is supported) in the future
What? Are we fcking console remaster idiots now too? This game came out 10 years ago on PC!
Yeah lets stop people having a choice, you know, that word where you can decide for yourself, instead of being PC elitist about it.
Even console gamers had it up to here with these remasters, you know!
Why don’t you tell John instead of sh*tting on the comment section about it, better yet if you don’t like the content, go somewhere else or ignore it.
Because Im telling you. How old are you kid?
Like I said #%%# brown instagram filter. It WRECKED the aesthetic. The aesthetic they were going for in the original game was the same look in Mel Gibson’s movie Payback. It was supposed to feel “cold” and uncaring. Not “warm”.
These were not the same people who made Gears. This is a badly done 30 dollar texture pack/sweet FX profile by different “artists” that stutters on the best PC you can buy or build.
Sad thing is we cannot even fix it with something like SweetFX due to UWP. Epic Games were masters of their craft, who got the most out of the hardware at the time and had a very stylized game. Black Tusk is a budget studio made by MS to churn out sequels/remasters of IP’s they didn’t even create or make.
Same with 343 and Halo games.
A 680 can’t run this game yet it looks just like the Xbox One version something is definitely wrong here
Such a nice game ruined by MS greed.
So the bottom picture is the new version?
Nice article john. now i guess we have more GOW articles/news than the game actually sold.
Can a GTX 770 run this? It seems like this could be the most poorly optimized game of the year.
you should do the test again with the game because Multiple GPU’s is now patched in. Same with Rise of Tomb Raider.