I must embarrassingly admit that I’ve never played a Metal Gear game before, though that’s partly because the series has focused exclusively on console and portable gaming devices for much of its existence, only recently becoming a regular release on PC. Created by Hideo Kojima and developed and published by Konami, Metal Gear debuted almost three decades ago in 1987 on the MSX2 (a 3.58MHz computer). Since then, MGS has often only been available on PlayStation with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance being the first modern title to hit PC, though it arrived a year after its launch on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 so it didn’t exactly make waves.
That same year, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes arrived but was also delayed on PC for nine months after being released on console. The extra time ensured that the game looked noticeably better on PC thanks to additional lighting, shadows, higher resolution render targets and shadows as well as increased detail over distances – not to mention that it could be played at 60fps and supported resolutions up to 3840x2160 (4K). The end result was a breathtaking game that we admittedly overlooked. That said, the 60fps lock and the huge delay to PC were probably factors in our decision to skip a performance review of that release (the frame rate lock is also why you don’t see the game being used widely to test the latest GPUs).
Now almost a year after Ground Zeroes hit PC we have a new Metal Gear Solid V title and this time around it shipped simultaneously for PC and console players on September 1. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was built using the same Fox Engine as Ground Zeroes so you can expect to see subsurface scattering, physically-based rendering and other impressive technologies.
Testing Methodology
We expect stunning visuals as Konami recommends an Intel Core i7 and GeForce GTX 760 – interestingly, no AMD hardware is mentioned and you can probably thank Nvidia’s influence for that. Using the latest AMD and Nvidia drivers, we tested 26 DirectX 11 graphics cards covering most price ranges. Our test rig was outfitted with an Intel Core i7-5960X to remove CPU bottlenecks that could influence high-end GPU scores. Using FRAPS we recorded 120 seconds of gameplay. The benchmark was recorded while riding a horse through the desert, taking out some enemies along the way. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was tested at three resolutions: 1920x1080, 2560x1440 and 3840x2160 using the maximum in-game quality settings. Features such as motion blur, volumetric clouds and depth of field were all enabled while the following options were all set to ’extra high’: model detail, textures, texture filtering, shadows, lighting, post processing, effects and ambient occlusion.
Test System Specs
Intel Core i7-5960X (3.00GHz) x4 4GB Kingston Predator DDR4-2400 (CAS 12-13-13-24) Asrock X99 Extreme6 (Intel X99) Silverstone Strider Series (700w) Crucial MX200 1TB (SATA 6Gb/s) HIS Radeon R9 390X (8192MB) HIS Radeon R9 390 (8192MB) HIS Radeon R9 380 (2048MB) HIS Radeon R7 370 (2048MB) HIS Radeon R9 290X (4096MB) HIS Radeon R9 290 (4096MB) HIS Radeon R9 285 (2048MB) HIS Radeon R9 280X (3072MB) HIS Radeon R9 270X (2048MB) HIS Radeon HD 7970 GHz (3072MB) HIS Radeon HD 7970 (3072MB) HIS Radeon HD 7950 Boost (3072MB) HIS Radeon HD 7950 (3072MB) HIS Radeon HD 7870 (2048MB) Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X (12288MB) Gainward GeForce GTX 980 (6144MB) Gainward GeForce GTX 980 (4096MB) Gainward GeForce GTX 970 (4096MB) Gainward GeForce GTX 960 (2048MB) Asus GeForce GTX 950 (2048MB) Gainward GeForce GTX 780 Ti (3072MB) Gainward GeForce GTX 780 (3072MB) Gainward GeForce GTX 770 (2048MB) Palit GeForce GTX 760 (2048MB) Gainward GeForce GTX 680 (2048MB) Gainward GeForce GTX 660 Ti (2048MB) Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64-bit Nvidia GeForce 355.82 WHQL AMD Catalyst 15.8 Beta
