Platformer Madness – Alice Returns – in 3D with PhysX

Hardware and System Requirements

Alice: Madness Returns is quite stable and reasonably bug free; there were absolutely no issues beyond getting stuck a few times and having to restart from the checkpoint.  Generally there were no crashes in many hours of playtime which is quite an achievement for a modern game as many are released first and patched later.

It also runs well on low to medium systems and relatively high-end PCs can handle it with all in-game settings fully maxed out at 1920×1080 resolution and even in 3D Vision! Generally, the minimum frame rate for the review PC (i7-920/GTX 560 Ti) as measured by Fraps stayed above 60 frames per second – or 30 FPS for 3D Vision – it is a very fluid first person shooter experience with PhysX on medium and settings maxed out.

There is a brief description of the game on EA’s Alice site.  The minimum hardware required to play Alice: Madness Returns is as following.

Alice: Madness Returns Minimum System Rquirements

• OS: Windows XP/ Windows Vista/ Windows 7
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.6 GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+
• Memory Ram: 2 Gb
• Hard Disk Space: 8.5 Gb free
• Video: 256 Mb @ nVidia GeForce 7600 / ATI Radeon X1650
• Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
• DirectX: 9
• Mouse+KB (or controller)
• Installation: DVD-Rom Drive

As you can see, Alice: Madness Returns is designed to run on a Nvidia GeForce 7600, so it will be absolutely fluid on a GTX 560 Ti – even playing fully maxed out at 1920×1080 as we did, although not with PhysX on high in every situation. We started out by playing with a GTX 580 but soon realized it was generally overkill for Alice: Madness Returns except for playing with PhysX on high.

The only issue is when you run into intense scenes with PhysX on high.  In that case, you will probably want a GTX 580 for absolutely smooth game play.  It doesn’t happen often, but when you are fighting the oily ruin creatures at the same time you are firing off your gatling gun-like Pepper Grinder, your FPS can grind to low double-digits with even a GTX 560 Ti.

Setting PhysX effects to medium may get you through all of it with no slowdowns, but then you will miss the fluid PhysX elements and the maximum debris and effects.  A very fast quad-core CPU may help out a bit with medium PhysX, but you will need a either a very fast GeForce GPU like the GTX 580 to get the full effects of PhysX on high, or a GTX 560 and a second GeForce GPU dedicated to PhysX.

Digital Rights Management [DRM] and more

OTHER REQUIREMENTS & SUPPORTS

Initial installation requires one-time internet connection for EA authentication and activation

Test Configuration

Test Configuration – Hardware:

• Intel Core i7 920 (reference 2.66 GHz and overclocked to 3.8 GHz); Turbo is on.
• Gigabyte EX58-UD3R (Intel X58 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 2.0 specification; CrossFire/SLI 16x+16x).
• 6 GB OCZ DDR3 PC 18000 Kingston RAM (3×2 GB, tri-channel at PC 1600 speeds; 2×2 GB supplied by Kingston)
• Nvidia GTX 580 (1.5 GB, reference clocks), supplied by Nvidia
• Galaxy GTX 560 Ti (1 GB, reference clocks) supplied by Nvidia
• Galaxy GTX 560 Ti (1 GB, reference clocks) supplied by Galaxy
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 hard drive
• Thermaltake ToughPower 775 W power supply unit supplied by Thermaltake
• Thermaltake Element G Case supplied by Thermaltake
• Noctua NH-U12-P SE2 CPU cooler, supplied by Noctua
• Philips DVD SATA writer
• 3 ASUS VG236H 120Hz 3D Vision ready 1920×1080 23″ displays, supplied by Nvidia/ASUS

Test Configuration – Software

• Alice: Madness Returns, Retail boxed PC version; supplied by Nvidia
• Nvidia GeForce WHQL 275.33
• Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates
• DirectX July/November 2010
• The game is up to date
• vsync is forced off in the control panel but does not apply to 3D Vision as it is forced by the 3D drivers.
• Varying AA enabled – FXAA and FSAA
• All results show average, minimum and maximum frame rates except as noted.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used.

Now that we have an introduction to Nvidia’s 3D Vision and the hardware to play Alice: Madness Returns, let’s get a further feel for the game.