Ubisoft has released the next part in its The Settlers series, The Settlers: New Allies. Powered by the Snowdrop Engine, 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, 16GB of DDR4 at 3800Mhz, AMD’s Radeon RX580, RX Vega 64, RX 6900XT, RX 7900XTX, NVIDIA’s GTX980Ti, RTX 2080Ti, RTX 3080 and RTX 4090. We also used Windows 10 64-bit, the GeForce 528.49 and the Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 23.2.1 drivers.
Ubisoft has added a few graphics settings to tweak. PC gamers can adjust the quality of Effects, Environments, Shadows, Textures, Anti-Aliasing and Water. The game also supports both DX11 and DX12. During our tests, the DX12 API was the most stable, so we used that one.
The Settlers: New Allies does not feature any built-in benchmark. Thus, for our benchmarks, we used the following scenes from the first single-player mission. In these scenes, the AI attacks multiple locations, so this should give us a good idea of how the rest of the game runs.
At 1080p/Max Settings, our Intel i9 9900K had no trouble at all pushing framerates over 300fps. As such, we did not simulate any other CPU configurations. During our tests, the game appeared to be GPU-bound, and does not require a high-end CPU for high framerates.
At 1080p/Max Settings, all of our graphics cards were able to provide a constant 60fps experience. Yes, even the AMD Radeon RX580 can provide a smooth gaming experience. Thanks to the DX12 API, the AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX can come close to the performance of the NVIDIA RTX4090. However, and contrary to some other recent DX12 games, NVIDIA’s GPU remains faster, even at that relatively low resolution.
At 1440p/Max Settings, our top seven GPUs were able to provide framerates higher than 60fps at all times. Yes, even the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 and the NVIDIA GTX980Ti had no trouble running this strategy game. And as for 4K/Max Settings, our top five GPUs were able to provide a smooth gaming experience.
What’s also important to note is that the game does not suffer from any stuttering issues. The Settlers: New Allies is buttery smooth, even when moving/panning the camera. We did notice some slight texture streaming issues, but those only happened occasionally. Furthermore, the game has very low VRAM requirements.
Graphics-wise, this new The Settlers game looks actually great. There are a lot of high-quality textures, and there are some cool destructible buildings. To be honest, we’re shocked by how well the game performs and looks. My only gripe is with its static vegetation. Seriously, the game can run on a potato machine so I don’t know why the developers have not implemented bendable vegetation.
All in all, The Settlers: New Allies is one of the most optimized PC games I’ve seen lately. While it does not push the graphical boundaries of PC strategy games, it performs exceptionally well on a variety of PC configurations. The fact that it does not look like a cheap mobile game is another big plus. The game does not also have any stuttering issues, and works wonderfully with the K&M (well, duh)!
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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