Call of Duty Ghosts PC evaluation
Hardware Requirements, Performance & Conclusion
The CoD community blog gives the range of tested PCs for Call of Duty: Ghosts.
The requirements are very high – 6GB RAM minimum – for the game’s graphics quality.
CoD: Ghosts PC System Requirements
Nvidia has their own optimization suggestions which may be quite helpful, or a player can just use the GeForce Experience included with the latest recommended 334.67 GeForce drivers. The GeForce Experience will, at the touch of a button, set near-ideal custom settings for any PC and for more than 100 games including for Call of Duty: Ghosts.
Performance
A GTX 780 or 780 Ti can max out Call of Duty: Ghosts at the highest settings, including using TXAA at 2560×1600 although the minimums fall into the 30s in demanding scenes. A GTX 770 should be able to manage the highest settings at 1920×1080.
Performance (fps at 2560×1600)
We played Call of Duty: Ghosts at 2560×1600 at maximum details with a stock GTX 780 Ti, Core i7-3770K at 4.5GHz, EVGA Z77 FTW motherboard, and 16GB of Kingston HyperX RAM at 2133MHz.
All of the settings were maxed completely out with 3 variables – 4xMSAA (42fps), 2xTXAA (45fps) which takes less of a hit, and FXAA (57fps). Minimum framerates drop to about 30fps with 4xMSAA and with 2xTXAA, and to about 35fps with FXAA. The very latest patch (released last night) tested with Nvidia’s very latest driver 334.67 brought some performance improvements to our benchmarks although we did not spend a lot of time testing with it. We plan to update the numbers later, when the game is further patched and when the Fraps overlay works.
There are still some real inconsistency with the framerates and they will drop to the mid-20s for reasons apparently unrelated to the graphics settings. It appears that Call of Duty: Ghosts still needs further patching.
Replayability
Call of Duty: Ghosts has no replayability except at a higher difficulty or to find intel missed in the first playthrough. Mostly a completionist player will want to find all of them which may reach a dozen or more hours. Multiplayer is the real option which adds the most value to the game, and many CoD players ignore the single play missions completely.
Conclusion
Call of Duty: Ghosts single-player comes somewhat recommended and we give it a 7.0. The (second) ending is absolutely hideous as it is “forced” and unnatural, and it appears to be a set up for a sequel with the same lackluster villain. It would have been much better if the story just stopped when the credits first started to roll.
The graphics are decent, the gameplay is enhanced over the earlier games, and the story and voice acting are absolutely top-notch. On the other hand, the story is typically over-the-top ridiculous and the ending is generally awful while the game is not yet polished and still needs to be patched. We feel it is not worth the full asking price but may afford the player a decent few hours as a shooter, especially when it is bargain bin. Multiplayer is another story entirely, and if you like Call of Duty multiplayer, this game is more of the same, along with some new ideas, modes, and maps.
Call of Duty: Ghosts is not for those who are easily offended by violence. It is all about war and it includes shooting realistic-looking enemy soldiers at close range. The story only exists to advance the story and no thought was apparently given to making it logical.
Call of Duty: Ghosts may become an ABT’s benchmark after the performance issues are fixed. Stay tuned as we have many more reviews and evaluations coming up.
This weekend, you can expect a full review of the Kingston HyperX Predator RAM at 2800MHz, and we also continue our quest for (a highly unlikely) 5.0GHz overclock with our new Haswell Core i7-4770K. And of course, join us on ABT forum and speak your mind!
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