CI Games has released the latest part in its Sniper Ghost Warrior series, Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts. Contrary to its Sniper Ghost Warrior 3, Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts is a more linear title. The game is using CRYENGINE so it’s time now to benchmark it and see how it performs on the PC platform.

For this PC Performance Analysis, we used an Intel i9 9900K with 16GB of DDR4 at 3600Mhz, AMD’s Radeon RX580 and RX Vega 64, NVIDIA’s RTX 2080Ti, GTX980Ti and GTX690. We also used Windows 10 64-bit, the GeForce driver 441.20 and the Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.11.3 drivers. NVIDIA has not included any SLI profile for this title, meaning that our GTX690 performed similarly to a single GTX680.

CI Games has added very few graphics settings to tweak. PC gamers can adjust the quality of in-game effects, object detail, particles, physics, post-processing, shader and shading. And while there isn’t any resolution scale option, the team has provided a Field of View slider.

The game does not come with any built-in benchmark tool. As such, we’ve used the first level for both our CPU and GPU benchmarks.

In order to find out how the game scales on multiple CPU threads, we simulated a dual-core, a quad-core and a hexa-core CPU. And even though it’s only using the DirectX 11 API, Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts does not require a high-end CPU. With Hyper Threading enabled, our simulated dual-core system was able to provide a constant 60fps experience at 1080p/Very High.

It’s also worth noting that even though our older Intel i7 4930K was bottlenecking our NVIDIA RTX2080Ti, it was still able to provide a smooth gaming experience. Thus, owners of older CPUs will be able to enjoy this latest Sniper Ghost Warrior game.

The game also does not appear to require a high-end GPU, however it appears that it has some weird performance issues with the Vega architecture. For some reason, our AMD Vega 64 under-performed in this particular title. What’s really crucial to note is that our AMD RX580 performed incredibly well. In fact, the RX580 was way faster than the Vega 64 at 1080p/Very High. Furthermore, we experience noticeable stuttering issues on the Vega 64 that were completely absent on the RX580. We were also able to replicate these performance issues multiple times. Therefore, AMD will have to address these performance issues via a new driver for its Vega GPUs.

Excluding the AMD Vega 64 with its performance issues, our AMD RX580, GTX980Ti and RTX2080Ti were able to run the game with 60fps at 1080p/Very High. At 1440p, the only GPU that was able to offer a smooth gaming experience was the RTX2080Ti. As for running the game in 4K/Very High, NVIDIA’s RTX2080Ti was dropping below 60fps in various scenes. Similarly to other titles, we suggest using a custom 1800p resolution for the RTX2080Ti. That is of course if you want to get a constant 60fps experience at Very High settings.

Graphics wise, Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts looks actually pretty great. CI Games has used a lot of high-resolution textures and there are some really cool weather effects. The team has also added a new dismemberment system. While it does not push the graphical boundaries of what current FPS games can achieve, Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts looks great. Moreover, it looks and runs better than its predecessor, Sniper Ghost Warrior 3.

In conclusion, Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts appears to be running great on the PC platform. Still, there is undoubtedly room for improvement here. A lower-level API like Vulkan or DX12 could further improve performance on older CPUs. Furthermore, CI Games will have to work with AMD in order to resolve the performance issues on the Vega GPUs. A wider range of graphics settings would also be a welcome addition.

Enjoy!