The new renderer is a more technological and modern mechanism for working with graphics.

With manual settings, you will initially be able to select the type of graphics: "Standard" or "Enhanced". Both of them are remastered in HD quality. The only difference between them is that "Enhanced" supports a full range of new technologies and effects.

If, after auto-tuning, the game client prompts you to choose the “Enhanced” graphics type, we recommend using it. If the performance does not suit you, you can change the advanced graphics settings yourself, but we do not recommend switching to the standard renderer.

Some graphics settings affect client performance more than others. By lowering the correct setting, you can achieve good FPS without significantly reducing image quality. We recommend starting with effects (anti-aliasing, quality of textures and objects, draw distance, lighting and post-processing). These are resource-intensive settings, and reducing them in most cases will help increase FPS.

Each computer has its own configuration, and exactly the same settings changes can have a different effect on different PCs.

Review the list below to review each setting and see how they all affect the picture. Graphic settings are grouped starting with the most resource-intensive, so that you can understand which ones to turn off first.

1. Smoothing: evens out rough pixelated or jagged edges of objects using different technologies in Standard and Enhanced graphics.
   * In Standard graphics, anti-aliasing is optional and is not tied to graphics presets.
   * In Enhanced Graphics, anti-aliasing is required to provide the best picture and is tied to graphics presets.
2. Texture quality. The option does not depend on the performance of the card, but it is demanding on video memory. It is recommended not to set high values ​​on older computers. The option is available both in the improved graphics version and in the standard one.
3. Decals quality (special kind geometry, which allows you to increase the detail of game environments). This option is responsible for the quality of image detail. Traces of dirt, fallen leaves, broken paving slabs - all this is regulated by the decal settings. The more "fine details" you want to see on the screen, the more powerful your computer needs to be. This option is not very dependent on the performance of the video card, but it is demanding on the amount of video memory. For weak computers, it is recommended to set it to a low level, or disable it altogether. This option is not available for standard graphics.
4. Water quality. At the moment, the image of water has been improved, new effects have appeared: circles from hits, more perfect reflections, splashes, which are also calculated. Lowering the water quality should improve game performance. The option is available only for the advanced graphic scheme.
5. Lighting quality. In the new render, lighting is calculated in more detail. The player gets a more detailed and high-quality picture that better reflects the atmosphere of the game map. There are transitions between darker and lighter areas. The performance of the game with this setting depends on the power of the video card. Owners of low-power graphics cards should set this parameter to a minimum value or disable it. The option is available only for the advanced graphic scheme.
6. Additional effects. Here you can adjust the display of smoke, dust, sparks, flames, explosions, etc. The display quality of all these objects depends not so much on the video card, but on the CPU. Therefore, if you do not have a very powerful PC, it is recommended to set the quality level as low as possible. The option is available for both enhanced and standard graphics schemes.

If you could not achieve high performance from your computer even after you have carried out the necessary manipulations with manual settings, we advise you to use the standard graphics option.

Triple buffering- a method of displaying an image in computer graphics to avoid or reduce the number of artifacts. Triple buffering allows for faster image output compared to double buffering.

However, it is worth noting that both of these options should be enabled if you have a sufficiently powerful video card. Do your own tests and see for yourself. I for example left vsync and triple buffer on in all my tests- so my FPS rose, sometimes very significantly (depending on the location).

System and environment

For a comfortable game, it is very important that the game has enough RAM. If you have 2 gigs of RAM or less, I strongly recommend closing ALL programs you don't need, such as ICQ, Skype, background defragmenters, desktop widgets, players (especially iTunes) and other unnecessary software.

Also, some antiviruses and firewalls have a "Game" mode, in which the system will be optimized so that the antivirus does not slow it down.

In general, the goal is to free up as much RAM as possible. You can also enter the task manager with a combination CTRL+Shift+ESC(simultaneously) and see which of the processes are eating more RAM and CPU resources. Just please do not close the processes, the purpose of which you are not sure! This may cause the system to crash.

How I ran FPS tests in World of Tanks

I ran a series of tests measuring FPS with different graphics settings. In addition to the settings of the game itself, I edited the file preferences.xml, and also changed the settings of the video card, which we have already discussed with you above.

Purpose of the test- set the optimal settings to get the maximum FPS in the game World of Tanks. You can also do these tests yourself to set the highest possible graphics settings for a comfortable game, so the article will be quite detailed. I strongly recommend that everyone do these same tests, as everyone has different hardware and the same game settings may not work the same on different computers.

To take FPS readings, I used the program Fraps(fraps.com), which, by the way, can still record video, but we will not need this function for our tasks. Of course, you can be guided by the frame per second counter built into the game, but Fraps has one indisputable advantage.

It's about writing the FPS to a log file, which is very convenient for my test, as it clearly demonstrates the FPS statistics. Writing to the log is done by pressing the hotkey (by default F11), optionally the log can be kept for a limited period of time - I set it to 100 seconds, this is quite enough. In 100 seconds, you can ride a tank to your heart's content, rotate the camera, get involved in a battle, and, in general, do a stress test for a video card. The log is written to two files:

• text, indicating the average, minimum and maximum FPS values;
• a table in csv format (Excel) in which FPS is displayed per second.

Below in the screenshot you will see the Fraps program and its interface. The free version has all the features we need.

To collect FPS statistics, we are just interested in this tab, shown in the picture. Let's take a look at what it all means.

• Line Folder to save benchmarks in- path to the folder where the FPS log (log files) will be saved. For my convenience, I have defined a folder on the desktop to make it easier to find it.
• Benchmark hotkey- the key, when pressed, starts recording FPS readings to the log file.
• Benchmark Settings - data that will be written to the log. We have enough ticks on the FPS.
• Stop benchmark after- if the checkbox is checked, then logging to the log will be terminated after a specified period of time after pressing the hotkey.

I didn't touch the rest of the settings. If you do not want to conduct tests yourself, then you do not need to download Fraps, you can read the article to the end and make the indicated changes in the game and computer settings.

Looking ahead, I want to say that the number of frames per second can vary not only because of the graphics settings, but also because of the card that the great random sent you to. Thus, on desert maps, FPS is usually higher than on urban ones. This is explained by the fact that there are more various objects in the city, such as houses, bridges and other buildings, the drawing of which requires much more video card resources than desert landscapes. Therefore, I tested the same settings several times on different game cards.

FPS testing in World of Tanks

The first test, let's call it "FPS 1" conditionally.

So, Fraps is installed and running, it's time to enter World of Tanks and measure the FPS. For the first test, I chose Autodetect in the graphics settings in the game. The game engine, having requested data on the characteristics of the system, concluded that my laptop would pull:

• improved graphics
• lighting, shadows, medium detail, and average water quality.

Well, it's debatable of course, but let's try to play like that. The battle started, waiting for the 30 second countdown and pressing F11 to start logging the FPS to the log. I skated several fights with these settings and you can see the average test results below:

• Avg: 26.84
• Min: 9
• Max: 43

Avg - average FPS value; min and max I think is clear. It was not very comfortable to play - frequent FPS drawdowns, slowdowns. Because of this, there were several unpleasant plums.

Test two, FPS 2

For this test, I decided to determine the graphics settings in the game myself. I set everything to minimum, except for the draw distance. I will not dwell on this moment for a long time, just take my word for it - draw distance did not affect FPS in any way, so leave it at maximum.

For this test, I set:

• standard graphics;
• everything else is set to a minimum or disabled, except for the draw distance - it is set to the maximum.

Test result:

• Avg: 35.1
• Min: 18
• Max: 62

Well, that's already good! There is an increase, the minimum drawdown has doubled, which was reflected in the gameplay in the fact that there were no strong brakes. The average FPS level increased by 8.26 units, which is also good in principle, but there was no desire to stop there.

Test three, FPS 3

This test turned out to be a little different from the rest, and you will soon understand why. First, I left all the settings as in the second test, but changed the graphics from standard to improved. And what do you think? FPS became slightly better than in the second test (literally by a few units). But, as I said, I did not want to stop there. Still, the developers were right about the new render;)

To further increase the performance of the game, I overclocked my video card. This is also called overclocking. The result made me very happy.

Video card overclocking

Attention! You do all the actions below at your own peril and risk!

"Yes, it's very difficult!"- tell me and you will Not are right. Today it is very easy to overclock a video card and with the presence of a head with brains, and not a hole that you eat into, it is also safe. Before overclocking a video card, you need to prepare your computer.

The most important thing in overclocking a video card is its proper cooling. To measure the temperature of a video card, install some widget on your desktop, for example GPU Meter. In the passive state, the temperature of the video card should be in the range of 50-60 degrees Celsius, and in the active (in the game) no more than 85-90, if higher, you have problems with its cooling.

To cool the video card, you can put an additional cooler if your system unit can accommodate it, or if you have a laptop, you can buy a special stand for it with additional cooling fans. When overheated, it certainly will not melt, but only if your PC has an emergency shutdown (almost all laptops have such a feature).

It would also be a good idea to replace the thermal paste on the video card board and other places if you have never done this before, and you have had a computer for a long time. You can find how to apply thermal paste again in Google, on youtube there are even a lot of videos about this.

As for me, I completely disassembled my laptop in order to clean all the boards from dust and replace the thermal paste. Real hardcore, but the article is not about that, unfortunately. By the way, after assembly, it works fine, I write from it. Can you open your workshop?

Let's assume that you are now all right with temperature and cooling, so how do you overclock? To do this, you do not need to disassemble anything, just download and install one of the following utilities:

1. Riva Tuner is a utility for overclocking Nvidia based cards. More suitable for professionals, as it has a huge mass of settings. It can be easy to get confused if you don't know what's what.
2. - a very easy to use utility, supports Nvidia and AMD cards, so it will suit almost everyone. You can read about the features and see the list of supported cards, and download the program itself from here (links to the official website of the program).

We start the program. In it, you can control the power of your video card, as well as the frequency of its processor + several other functions. It looks like this:

Unfortunately (or fortunately) on my laptop it is impossible to control the power of the video card, as well as the speed of rotation of its cooler (because it does not have a separate cooler), but you can change the frequency of the processor and memory. Let's not go into too much detail if you're interested - google all the concepts, but at the initial stage I recommend the following (it's safer):

• increase values ​​only core clock And memory clock;
• increase NECESSARILY gradually, by about 5-10%, and constantly monitor the temperature of the video card!
• IN NO EVENT DO NOT IMMEDIATELY SET THE MAXIMUM VALUES! Burn your card, then don't come to me with pretensions.

On the right side of the program shows all the necessary statistics of the video card. What is indicated on the graphs is signed in the program itself, you will understand. After setting the new Core and Memory clock values, you must press the button apply for the changes to take effect. You don't need to restart your computer, the changes happen instantly.

Before running to measure the FPS in the game, I carefully set up the overclocking of the card, choosing a mode in which the card did not heat up above 85 degrees at maximum load. For this, the 3D Mark program was used. Again, I will not delve too deeply into this issue, I will only show the results of my tests:

• without overclocking: 6371 points
• overclocked: 7454 points

Now back to World of Tanks, the third test, aka FPS 3

Having chosen the optimal overclocking mode for the video card, I launched WOT and logged the FPS readings in several battles. Here are the averages:

• Avg: 39.90
• Min: 11
• Max: 82

For the first time in the history of playing World of Tanks, I saw an FPS value of more than 80! Despite the most minimal drawdown of the three tests - 11 FPS, the game was much more comfortable. The tanks are flying!

Comparative analysis

I ended up running three different graphics settings tests on my computer. In each test, I skated at least 10 fights at different locations, and then averaged the data and this is what happened:

FPS test 1: auto-detect graphics settings - improved graphics, lighting, shadows, medium detail, as well as average water quality and effects.

FPS Test 2: Custom setting - standard graphics, everything else off or low except draw distance, which is at maximum.

FPS Test 3: custom setting - improved graphics, all other settings to the very minimum, or turned off completely (effects such as lighting, shadows); draw distance - maximum + overclocking the video card using MSI Afterburner (you can not overclock, everything will still be ok).

Grass and track marks were disabled for all tests.

Test results in graphs and numbers

Graph of FPS changes per second (tests were carried out for 100 seconds). The y-axis is FPS, the x-axis is time:

Average FPS values ​​for three tests:

As a result, I was able to increase the average FPS from 26 to 40 (rounded), which amounted to an increase of about 1.5 times! And the peak value increased from 43 to 82, which is already twice as good.

In custody

If the advice from this article did not help you, then three conclusions follow from here:

1. You did something wrong, you made a mistake somewhere.
2. Nothing will help you because the computer is initially very weak. It is necessary to upgrade (first of all, the processor).
3. Windows is completely screwed up and needs to be reinstalled. I noticed that over time, these tips in the article began to help less even to me, the author of the article. And I have already stopped seeing the target 80 FPS. The solution was to reinstall the system and voila - everything works like clockwork again!

Did this article help you? Leave the answer to this question in the comments. If it helped, give a link to your friends tankers and clanmates.

Everyone Thanks a lot for your attention, in the comments you can also leave your tips for increasing FPS in World of Tanks.

World of Tanks introduces new graphical effects designed to make tank battles even more spectacular. However, it is important to understand that these innovations will also affect performance. For this reason, when launching the game for the first time after installing update 9.0, the player will be prompted to leave the current graphics settings or run auto-detection.

If you encounter performance drops after installing the update, we recommend that you spend a few minutes fine-tuning the client manually.

1. Select the graphics quality from those offered in the drop-down menu, or use the "Recommended" button - the system will automatically select the most suitable graphics quality for the game, based on the parameters of your computer. The values ​​of the "Graphics Quality" setting affect the settings of the "Advanced" tab. Select a value in the Graphics Quality field if you don't want to configure every option on the Advanced tab.
2. 3D render resolution. Decreasing the value of the parameter can increase the performance of the game on computers with a weak video card.
3. Select the size of the game window. If "Full screen mode" is enabled, then the name of the field changes to "Screen resolution". The mismatch between the set resolution in full screen mode and the current resolution of the monitor may distort the image. Increasing the setting increases the load on the video card and may slow down the performance of the game. You can reduce the load on the video card by adjusting the 3D rendering resolution.
4. Enabling full screen mode expands the game to the entire monitor of your computer.
5. Frame rate limited to 60 frames per second. It is used in case of jitter or lag of the image on the bottom of the screen relative to the top.
6. When this setting is enabled, the edges and edges of objects become smoother.
7. Vision angle. The usual viewing angle for a person is about 95 °. The smaller the angle, the closer the objects become, but the peripheral view is reduced. Does not affect game performance.
8. A mechanism for adapting the color palette for people with color perception disabilities.
9. Monitor refresh rate. You can view the monitor refresh rate in the monitor settings or its driver. Please note that the displayed values ​​depend on the current resolution of the monitor. Install monitor drivers to display supported values.
10. If the set aspect ratio does not match the monitor's current aspect ratio, the image may stretch or shrink horizontally. The setting allows you to equalize the aspect ratio on monitors with non-square pixels.
11. Here you can select a monitor for the game, if you have more than one connected to your computer.
12. Changing the brightness of an image. Works only in full screen mode. Windowed mode uses the current operating system settings.
13. The color filter allows you to choose the visual design of the game from the proposed options.
14. Moving the slider changes the visibility of the selected color filter in the interface. The figure above shows the changes.

If you need more fine-grained graphics settings, go to the "Advanced" tab. Please note that most of the settings below are only available for the Enhanced Graphics renderer.

Some settings and their values ​​are not available for standard graphics.

Settings that significantly affect the performance / performance of the game are placed in a separate block "Significantly affecting performance". In the image, they are indicated by the numbers 3-7 and 12-16.

Lowering or disabling these settings can significantly improve game performance.

Here it is important to pay attention to some points:

3. By choosing from the two proposed graphics quality options, you predetermine the choice in the remaining categories in this tab.

4. The texture quality does not depend on the performance of the card, but it is demanding on the video memory.

5. The performance of the game with this setting depends on the power of the graphics card.

6. The quality of shadows is highly dependent on the overall performance of the system, affecting both the video card and the CPU.

12. Here you can adjust the display of smoke, dust, sparks, flames, explosions, etc. All these objects depend not so much on the video card, but on the central processor.

15. Various additional graphic effects: air refraction, bloom effect, etc. It strongly depends on the performance of the video card and moderately on the amount of video memory.

Items 8-19, 21 slightly affect the performance of the game, which means that when setting values, you should be guided by your own wishes for the quality of each element (water, trees, landscape, etc.).

Many users will benefit from item 20 "Dynamic change in the quality of effects" - automatic simplification of effects when system performance drops. Enabling the option will allow the game to adjust to the speed of your computer.

For a comfortable game and the correct display of textures, adjustment is required. world charts of tanks. If everything is done correctly, the game will be fun, and the percentage of wins will increase. Therefore, follow simple tips so that the WOT graphics settings help you complete combat missions.

Basic moments

For beginners, in order to perform optimal World of Tanks graphics settings, immediately after installation, you need to set up the client in such a way that it is displayed in full screen. After that, you can specify a resolution other than the original one. The maximum resolution should only be selected if you are using an LCD monitor. If everything is correct, then the image will not flicker and stretch. Otherwise, change the aspect ratio. Also in the World of Tank graphics screen settings, you can select low, medium, high, maximum and ultra image quality. Each item has its own set of settings. Those who download the game from a weak laptop should set the "3D Render Resolution" from 100% to zero and enable dynamic change.

You should not disable "vertical sync" as this will negatively affect performance. This can only be done if you have a powerful computer, so noticeable frame breaks appear in the picture. The same applies to anti-aliasing and triple buffering. When setting WOT graphics on weak computers, due to the inclusion of these parameters, fps drops sharply, that is, the number of frames per second.

Advanced settings

In the "Graphics" window, there is also a separate column with advanced settings that allow you to make the correct graphics settings in WOT more subtly according to the player's personal preferences. There you can choose between standard and enhanced graphics, allowing you to adjust the quality of textures, shadows, mud from under the tracks, lighting, water, and even the detail of foliage and the amount of grass on the map. All this allows you to set up World of Tanks graphics, similar in quality to a high-definition movie.

But there is also a fly in the ointment in this sweet barrel of honey - this is the notorious fps. And the better the graphics, the lower it is. The fact is that the human eye sees 24 frames per second, with a decrease in this number of frames, the picture flickers and twitches. For a computer game, normal fps is more than 30 frames. Better, of course, 50-60. But not every average computer can pull such numbers at maximum speeds. Therefore, high quality graphics in the game is available. mainly for e-sportsmen, VODs and streamers with powerful gaming hardware.

Therefore, the optimal graphics settings in WoT 1.0 are offered by the game client initially. These are the notorious standard optimal WOT graphics settings. And any player can play with them for his own pleasure. At least, if you want high detail, you can download not an SD client, but an HD client, even though it weighs more than twice as much as usual.

In WOT, the graphics settings for a weak computer mean, on the contrary, disabling any additional effects - smoke, fog, dirt flying from under the tracks, caterpillar tracks and other delights of game design. Moreover, many not entirely honest representatives of the gaming community can specifically remove some graphics settings using prohibited game modifications in order to gain a gaming advantage. This is often punishable by a permanent ban.

Therefore, graphics settings in WOT from professionals - trust the WOT 1.0 graphics quality recommended by the game client, optimally matched to your processor, RAM and video card. The replacement of the hard HDD with an SSD also affects the loading of textures, which will undoubtedly increase both fps and graphics quality. If you need to remove the graphics settings in WOT, then this can always be done in the game client by setting the parameters as you wish. Experiment and find the most comfortable option for you!

• Version 1.0 release date: March 19, 2018
• Genre: online arcade tank simulator
• Publisher: Wargaming.net/New Disk
• Developer: Wargaming.net

World of Tanks (WoT) is a massive multiplayer action game in the arcade tank simulator genre, developed by the Belarusian company Wargaming.net. The game is based on team tank battles with a general free-to-play business model, when you do not need to pay for downloading the client and entering the game, although there are so-called premium vehicles in it, as well as some other advantages for those players who will pay the money.

The very idea of ​​the game came from the developers from Wargaming.net at the end of 2008, and the official announcement was made in April 2009. At the beginning of 2010, closed beta testing of the game was launched, and in June, open beta testing was launched, in which the tanks of the USSR and Germany were available to players on seven different maps. The game World of Tanks finally appeared on the public on August 12, 2010 in the form of a Russian-language version, and the European and American versions became available on April 12, 2011.

The gameplay in WoT is based on the battle between two teams of 15 players on tanks of different nations and years of release, which includes both real-life tanks and prototypes. To win, teams need to completely destroy enemy tanks or capture their base while staying there for a certain time. Communication and coordination of actions of players in battle is carried out using text or voice chat. In further updates, other game modes appeared: "Assault" (one team must repel the attack of the other), "Encounter Battle" (teams capture the only base on the map), "Team Battle" (teams of seven players participate, selected based on the personal rating of the players ). The game has rating system, which displays the statistics and achievements of each player.

In World of Tanks, players get into multiplayer battles right away, without training in single player mode, although there are still training missions in it. Initially, the player receives tanks of the first level, and then, participating in battles, he earns in-game resources, trains the crew and accumulates experience points, gradually gaining access to new tanks and upgrades.

Each tank has several separate units (gun, turret, chassis, engine, radio station), which can be upgraded, which is done in the "hangar" between battles. Resources are spent on the repair of tanks, the purchase of ammunition and consumables, as well as additional equipment. The player of the destroyed tank can watch the battle or return to the hangar and start another battle on another tank, since the damaged tank is not available until the end of the battle.

They try to keep historical accuracy at a fairly high level in World of Tanks, tanks have a recognizable appearance, close to real armor, equipment and crew location. A complex damage model has also been implemented, taking into account the type and thickness of armor, projectile speed and angle of impact, type of ammunition, and other factors. The general behavior of a tank is affected by the condition of the engine, running gear, guns, crew members, etc. Thus, engine damage will immobilize the tank, a broken tank will cause a fire, and a wounded commander detects enemy tanks with less efficiency.

The game has several camera modes: third-person view and through the scope, which helps with aiming at long distances, and the howitzer camera mode is activated when using self-propelled guns with mounted fire. The location of enemy armored vehicles is initially unknown, tanks become visible only if the commander is able to see enemy vehicles. After that, it becomes visible to other team members who are in the range of the radio.

The game is constantly updated, adding and improving both the graphics engine and the physical one. So, update 0.8.0 added realistic motion physics, vehicles began to climb slopes, descend and fall from hills, getting damaged, etc. Update 0.9.14 added new motion physics, interaction with other tanks and objects on maps, as well as the possibility of a coup. However, with all the attention to the development appearance with a damage model and ballistics close to reality, tank control is simplified, tank movement and gun reloading are accelerated, and visibility is improved. That is, it is, rather, not a hard tank simulator, but a kind of hybrid with an arcade.

After all the updates, the game features more than five hundred types of tanks and self-propelled guns developed in different countries: the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Germany, the USA, France, Great Britain, China, Sweden, Japan, Poland and other countries. All armored vehicles in WoT are divided into five classes: light, medium and heavy tanks, as well as anti-tank and howitzer self-propelled guns. The game has both real tanks and experimental models that existed only on paper or in the form of prototypes. It is also possible modifications of technology that did not exist in reality.

For a long time, World of Tanks has been using the BigWorld engine, developed by the Australian company Micro Forte, also known for creating the tactical role-playing game Fallout Tactics. Back in 1994, the company received a grant from the Australian government to research MMO technologies, and as a result, they created BigWorld technology, the first platform of its kind, which began to be used in a large number of MMO games. At the time of the development of the first versions of WoT, this engine was the best for games of this kind, capturing a large part of the market, and its choice was not surprising.

BigWorld technologies provided Wargaming.net with everything needed to create the first versions of WoT, including the graphic part. In addition, plug-ins from other companies were available for BigWorld, including Umbra (occlusion culling), Scaleform (creating a user interface), Speedtree (working with vegetation), and others. The client side of the engine was available in versions for Windows, iOS, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Given the success of WoT, it is not surprising that on August 7, 2012, Wargaming.net announced the purchase of the company and the engine for further use in their projects.

Wargaming.net constantly improved the graphic part of WoT (as far as it was possible within BigWorld), adding new algorithms, techniques and effects. But the last really big engine update happened sometime in 2014, and since then too much time has passed, and with all the improvements and improvements, WoT has been falling further and further behind the modern level of graphics in games. That is why it was decided to develop a completely new graphics engine, which received the simple name Core.

The Core graphics engine has seriously improved the appearance of the gameplay in World of Tanks, because all the contents of the maps (lighting, shadows, landscape, objects, vegetation, clouds, water surface: lakes, rivers, seas) have been replaced with ones designed from scratch. At a glance, you can see both improved lighting with a global illumination system (GI - Global Illumination), and a completely redrawn landscape, details and buildings on the maps, as well as a new dynamic sky.

All objects on the updated maps use high-resolution textures, the effects of wetting, pollution and dusting of equipment have been added, and advanced DirectX 11 tessellation features are also used - the landscape is divided into small polygons and the vertices are displaced according to displacement maps (with "Maximum" and "Ultra" settings), as well as tessellation is used to deform water - creating geometric waves on the surface, which looks very impressive.

In the new version of the game, tracks from caterpillars, soil punching, etc. have been redone, procedural generation of grass and bushes has been added, all vegetation also interacts with the tank: grass is crushed, bushes are folded back. Water is rendered with high-quality reflections (Screen Space Reflection), interacts with tanks and shots (waves, circles, ripples, etc.)

Various effects based on particle systems (explosions, smoke, etc.) have been improved, to which the effect of hot air has been added, also tanks now cast shadows, hit trails with volume simulation have been changed. More importantly, in terms of realism, the destruction system has been reworked once again, using the well-known Havok Destruction technology (at graphic settings "High" and higher). The new “Color Correction” setting has become very useful for players, allowing you to adjust the color saturation, brightness and contrast of the image.

The difference in graphics between World of Tanks 1.0 and previous versions does not need to be looked for for a long time, it immediately catches the eye. A few years ago, Wargaming.net realized that BigWorld technologies were pretty outdated in order to take the required step forward in improving graphics. Therefore, the company's specialists had to create a new graphics engine, adding graphics technologies and features that were previously not available in the game. But in order to get an improved game world, it is not enough just to add a couple of effects, the developers also had to recreate the main part of the content from scratch - already using all the new technologies supported by the new graphics engine.

Back in update 9.15, support for DirectX 11 was added to improve performance, and even then it was planned to improve graphics using the same tessellation. And in order to ensure that the performance of average systems does not drop below the baseboard, the new engine has been heavily optimized and as a result provides sufficient frame rates and high stability on most common configurations.

If we consider individual improvements, then the rendering of the sky has been seriously changed in the new version of the game. Whereas earlier in the game the sky looked static, now the clouds are moving and the sky is changing its color. For version 1.0, the sky of each map was worked on separately, and in World of Tanks it became almost indistinguishable from the real one. Also, all post-processing is now done in HDR, post-effects have been significantly improved: bloom, lens flare, god rays, depth of field (depth of field), chromatic aberration and others.

Lighting is the most important element of graphics, as it largely determines the color of all pixels. Particularly important in version 1.0 is the appearance of Global Illumination, which adds realism by calculating lighting in much the same way as it happens in reality. This technique takes into account the interaction of light rays and scene objects. Light passing through a translucent surface creates colored shadows on other surfaces, and light reflected from colored objects also affects neighboring surfaces, as can be clearly seen in the following example:

Physically correct shadows are another important detail in realistic rendering. They are not always striking, but they significantly affect the atmosphere and overall realism, and if the shadows are implemented well, then the game looks more impressive. WoT 1.0 uses Adaptive Shadow Maps technology, which calculates shadows from stationary objects on maps, storing them in a shadow map so as not to redraw shadows in dynamics, which would increase the load on both the CPU and the GPU. And for moving objects (tanks and vegetation), fully dynamic shadows are calculated. The hybrid approach strikes a good balance between quality and performance.

Also, the new Core graphics engine is different in that effects using particle systems (steam, dust, smoke, etc.) cast translucent shadows on surrounding objects. This is also necessary in order to add realism, because dust and smoke will no longer be unnaturally lit, as it was in previous versions of the game.

Due to the transition to a new graphics engine, it was possible to seriously increase the geometric detailing of locations and improve the resolution of textures. Thanks to this, even the smallest details become noticeable, because the level of detail of maps in version 1.0 is much higher than in previous ones. To increase the level of detail, state-of-the-art virtual texturing technology is used, which provides a greater variety of landscape and object textures than usual.

For improved image quality, up to 16 textures per pixel are used: several basic textures with blending, several detail textures and additional maps, such as wetness. When creating materials, several techniques were used: recently popular photogrammetry, procedural texturing, and the traditional approach. The use of photogrammetry made it possible, in particular, to further increase the realism of the final picture.

An even higher level of geometric detail on the ground and other objects on the maps is achieved in WoT 1.0 using tessellation, which became available in DirectX 11. The complexity of various objects is increased by adding more triangles to the ground surface, which increases the overall level of detail and adds realistic landscape:

Specifically for a tank simulator, it is also especially important that the space outside the map is now drawn right up to the horizon. And on some maps, the space outside the game area is many square kilometers, but this almost does not negatively affect the overall performance of the game, but it gives what is happening a sense of reality.

One of the most spectacular features of World of Tanks 1.0 is a completely new technology for rendering the surface of the water. There are several states of water in the game: calm, intended for lakes, in motion - for rivers, and with waves - for the sea surface. To make the water look more realistic, the technology of reflections in the screen space (Screen Space Reflections) is used. With the help of this technology, everything is reflected in the water: landscape, objects, explosions, gunshots, smoke, shadows, etc. For the realism of water, particle systems and textures have also been added that simulate effects such as foam and splashes.

But the most important change is noticeable only in the dynamics. If in previous versions the surface of the water was flat and unrealistic, then with the new graphics engine, ripples form on the surface of the water, and waves break on the shore. And when driving a tank through the water or when shooting, waves form next to it, which looks very impressive! Dynamic waveforms use adaptive tessellation to increase detail exactly where needed, and shift vertices based on information in displacement maps.

Vegetation has also been seriously changed in the WoT 1.0 update. To improve the appearance of plants, SpeedTree 6 technologies have been introduced into the new version of the game - even with some changes so that the vegetation interacts better with tanks and other objects in the game. As a result, the trees have become well detailed, there are now more than 100 species, and nature looks much more realistic. This vegetation creates a special atmosphere on a variety of maps, from sunny suburbs to snowy forests.

The maximum detail for trees in the game is 3-4 thousand triangles per tree, so it is important to use a fairly aggressive dynamic LOD for them. And since Speedtree 6 does not support physically based rendering, Wargaming.net had to use special hacks to add it to their engine.

Grass is also rendered using Speedtree 6, similar to trees. She now looks more natural due to realistic shadows, which greatly improved maps such as Karelia and Mines. Most importantly, all vegetation reacts to what is happening in combat by leaning back when moving and shooting, although these effects are only displayed on the player's computer so as not to give out his position to the enemy. By the way, the physics of interaction with vegetation is planned to be improved in the future, since so far the trees are not falling very realistically.

Architecture plays an important part in World of Tanks: buildings, bridges, fences and other objects create an atmosphere in the game, influencing the gameplay as well. The new graphics engine made it possible to seriously increase the texture detail, and the artists noticeably improved all the locations. In order to avoid performance problems, streaming loading (streaming) of textures is used, which gradually loads the textures if necessary.

The armored vehicles themselves are not forgotten either. The tanks already looked very realistic, but now the effects of wetting, dusting and snowing the car while moving were added to them, and all materials were improved. All these changes can be seen in the screenshots and in the video released by the developers specifically for the release of perhaps the biggest game update in its history.

It is expected that the engine and content developers will not slow down the pace of their work and will continue to work on improving the graphics in WoT, including through the introduction of new technologies in 2018 and beyond. Future versions of the game are expected to optimize performance and further increase the number of objects using tessellation, which will increase the realism of the landscape and the military equipment itself. It is also planned to pay even more attention to the interaction of the landscape with tanks and shots.

System requirements

Minimum system requirements:

• CPU: dual core with SSE support Intel Pentium G or AMD FX-4xxx;
• RAM size 2 GB;
• video card Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT or AMD Radeon HD 2400XT;
• 25 GB;
• operating system Microsoft Windows XP/7/8/10;

• CPU Intel Core i5 or AMD FX-6xxx;
• RAM size 4 GB;
• video card Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 or AMD Radeon HD 7850;
• video memory 2 GB;
• free space on the drive 36 GB;
• 64-bit operating system Microsoft Windows 7/8/10;
• broadband internet connection.

Any modern version of the Microsoft operating system, starting from the old Windows XP, is suitable for the World of Tanks 1.0 game, since the game uses the DirectX graphics API not the latest version, for which Windows 10 is required. There is also no need to use a 64-bit version of the operating system, although it is recommended, as this helps to avoid the 2 GB limit of used RAM per process.

It is curious that the minimum system requirements after the release of the global graphics improvement in version 1.0 of the game have not changed at all, because in it you can choose a lower quality renderer, in which acceptable performance will be provided even on outdated systems and weak laptops. Such hardware requirements are not typical for modern games. As the minimum suitable video cards for the game, already old models of video cards GeForce 6800 GT and Radeon HD 2400 XT are indicated, which are very weak by modern standards. The game requires only 2 GB of RAM to run, but 4 GB of RAM is recommended.

In terms of system CPU, the minimum requirements are also very low, any CPU with two cores and SSE support is needed. This is also below the usual level of minimum requirements. Even the recommended more powerful Core i5 and AMD FX-6xxx processors can hardly be called typical for current games, but rather the minimum requirements for most current projects. But World of Tanks is traditionally more democratic in terms of PC power, and this is a justified decision given its mass character.

The recommended requirements for video cards are also not very impressive, the GeForce GTX 660 and Radeon HD 7850 can hardly be called particularly powerful GPUs. And these requirements are justified, for a comfortable game, even at high quality settings in Full HD resolution, users will need video cards of similar power with only 2 GB of video memory. Accordingly, almost any modern model, starting from the GeForce GTX 1060, will provide playability even in 4K resolution, albeit not at ultra-quality settings.

Test configuration and testing methodology

The game is not included in the technical and marketing support programs of AMD or Nvidia and does not use any specific algorithms that are preferred for execution on the solutions of these companies. Since we conduct our tests some time after the release of the game, we simply used the latest available driver, which includes optimization for all recent releases, including the project we are considering today. We used the driver version 391.35 WHQL from 03/27/2018, which includes optimizations for the game that appeared in version 391.01.

The game itself does not have a built-in performance test, but there is a separate demo of the Core graphics engine called World of Tanks enCore released a few weeks before the game update. It allows you to get an idea of ​​how comfortable it will be to play the World of Tanks 1.0 version of the game based on the Core engine on a particular system.

The program offers three quality profiles: "Minimum", "Average" and "Ultra". The graphical settings of World of Tanks 1.0 differ from those familiar to the previous version of the World of Tanks client and differ from each other in the quality of textures, lighting, shadows, landscape, water, particles, and other effects.

The resolution can be changed separately from the settings profiles, and in the "Medium" and "Ultra" profiles, you can additionally select the quality of anti-aliasing. Alas, in the enCore benchmark, you cannot change other graphic settings separately, although the World of Tanks game itself offers the widest choice of graphics settings, which we will discuss a little later in a separate section of our material.

Another disadvantage for testing is that World of Tanks enCore does not show the frame rate, but only evaluates PC performance in some points, allowing you to understand the sufficiency of performance and make it possible to compare results. By the way, in our opinion, the rating system is too soft, and even with a “good” FPS rating in the game, it may not be high enough. For us, however, the assessment in the form of an average and minimum frame rate per second is much more familiar, which we decided to measure during testing using the convenient MSI Afterburner utility.

The frame rate obtained in the test only roughly matches what would be observed in a typical game, but a separate benchmark is good in that it can get very high repeatability of results, and the selected scenes in any case include large open spaces with the presence of enemy tanks and the presence of many various special effects, which loads the work of both the CPU and the GPU.

We ran a test fragment with the display of statistics on the use of CPU and GPU resources using the MSI Afterburner utility. CPU load during testing at medium and maximum settings averaged about 15% -25%, and only sometimes exceeded these values. Alas, the test loads the CPU core unevenly, and performance when using powerful video cards will almost always be limited by the speed of a single CPU core, although the game itself uses the capabilities of multi-threaded CPUs somewhat better, as it seemed to us. However, the frame rate in any case remains high enough for comfort, and even fast dual-core processors should be enough for the game to work normally, and quad-core ones will definitely be enough.

Accordingly, the top-end GPU GeForce GTX 1080 Ti in the benchmark was only 75%-90% loaded at ultra-settings, which also indicates a clear focus on the capabilities of the CPU. But the frame rate was very high - 150-250 FPS, so this will not be a problem in real use. Most likely, a processor with fewer cores but a high clock speed will handle the game just as well, and will definitely be fast enough for comfort.

In our tests, we measure not only the average, but also the minimum frame rate, since both the stability of the video sequence and the overall comfort for the player depend on it. Based on the average and minimum frame rates from our test, it is quite possible to draw conclusions about the overall smoothness and comfort. Usually you can play such online games at a minimum frame rate of 30 FPS and an average of 40-45 FPS, but we warn you that this is only the bare minimum. Due to the multiplayer genre and focus on very fast and accurate shooting, maximum rendering performance is desirable in this game. Ideally, if the frame rate does not drop below 60 frames per second under any circumstances.

If we talk about the use of video memory by World of Tanks 1.0, then we can say for sure that it is not at all demanding on the amount of local GPU memory, although this depends on graphic settings and screen resolution. If you set the ultra-settings to Full HD, then 2.5-3 GB of memory will be enough for the game (that is, the GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB will not suffer at all and it will be enough), and even if you set a higher rendering resolution of 4 GB of video memory definitely enough. The RAM consumption of the entire system at high settings is less than 8 GB, but the recommended 4 GB may still not be enough.

Graphic settings in the game

Graphic settings in World of Tanks 1.0 are changed in the in-game menu, which can also be called up during the game. Changing all graphics settings (except for changing the graphics type: "Standard" or "Enhanced") takes effect immediately and does not require restarting the game, which is very convenient when setting the rendering quality and allows you to immediately evaluate all the changes made on the fly.

The game has a feature that automatically detects graphics settings, which is applied when you first launch it or when you click the "Recommended" button in the graphics settings. The feature evaluates the performance of a game on a PC using special tests and determines one of the existing profiles: "Minimum", "Low", "Medium", "High", "Maximum" or "Ultra". The function does not always work perfectly, and can both underestimate the settings and overestimate them. If you are not satisfied with the FPS or the picture, you can always manually adjust the graphic settings. The only thing we categorically do not recommend is to switch from the improved render to the standard one, because the loss in quality will be too great. It is better to try changing other graphic settings.

Why in the game menu there are a large number of graphic settings. By adjusting them, you can easily get the required picture quality with appropriate performance. It is convenient that here you can separately configure all the important parameters, there are quite a lot of graphic settings in this game and you can adjust it to your requirements, controlling the resulting image quality and rendering performance.

In the main graphics settings menu, there are general options, such as selecting the mode and display resolution and refresh rate, as well as the ability to enable vertical sync and triple buffering. There is also a setting for the viewing angle (FOV - Field of View), as well as the ability to set a rendering resolution that differs from the screen output resolution, which can be useful if there is a lack of performance. We also note the setting for dynamically changing the rendering resolution, which will allow players to get not too low performance in all cases with the highest possible graphics quality for a particular PC.

Which is very convenient for inexperienced users with a considerable number of graphic settings, World of Tanks 1.0 has several pre-installed quality profiles, so they do not have to manually select the required settings. The game has several quality profiles, starting with "Minimum" and ending with "Ultra". The difference between the profiles is very visible to the eye, although even “High” looks very good in practice, and there is no need to strive for “Ultra” - this is not a game where graphics are more important than gameplay.

Most often, we advise you to use the maximum quality if possible, but in World of Tanks this is not necessary, with a lack of speed, you can easily go down to just high settings - in dynamics, the difference will still be small. In further work, when testing, we used the profiles of medium and ultra settings built into the benchmark, which are in the benchmark, but they are similar in the game:

In the benchmark, the settings are somewhat different, but in general they are very similar to the game ones:

As always, it's best to adjust the rendering quality and final performance to your own personal requirements, based on your own feelings. The influence of some parameters on the resulting image quality in the game is not always noticeable, especially on screenshots. From the videos, it's somewhat easier to spot the different rendering quality corresponding to the different levels of graphics settings, but it's also not always easy. Switching to high settings adds geometric and textural detail to the scene, and also improves numerous effects.

Medium settings:

Ultra (Ultra) settings:

When manually setting, the main thing is to select the type of graphics: " Standard" or " improved”, the second one supports a full range of new algorithms and effects. In advanced settings, you can manually select whatever your heart desires. And it's not easy to give advice here, for a variety of reasons. First, different graphic settings affect performance differently on different systems. Secondly, for WoT players, it is often not the quality of graphics that matters more, but the convenience of aiming, etc. That is, realism may well be intentionally reduced for the sake of performance. And that's okay, as it's just a matter of approach that's unique to each player.

From a performance point of view, we can recommend reducing the quality of anti-aliasing, textures and objects, effects, lighting and post-processing in the first place. These resource-intensive settings can help improve the smoothness and comfort of the game. But such things as the draw distance directly affect the gameplay and you need to reduce them with great care.

Setting " Smoothing" helps to get rid of sharp geometric or pixel edges and uses different anti-aliasing algorithms for "Standard" and "Enhanced" graphics. When "Enhanced" graphics is selected, anti-aliasing is tied to graphics profiles and is required for the game: "High" - FXAA, "Maximum" - low quality TSSAA and "Ultra" - high quality TSSAA. Anti-aliasing algorithms use post-processing methods and do not slow down the performance of modern GPUs too much, so it is better to leave anti-aliasing enabled. TSSAA uses a time component and may seem to some to be too blurry, but this is purely a matter of taste.

« Texture quality»affects texture resolution and the quality of texture filtering used. The higher the level of texture detail, the better the picture, but the impact of settings on performance is very dependent on the amount of video memory required by the game. With its lack on weak systems, FPS will sag a lot, which will be expressed in jerks and lack of smoothness. And on modern gaming systems of sufficient power, you can freely set the setting to the maximum value, which will not affect the rendering speed in any way.

Parameter " Detailing of objects»Changes the level of detail (Level of Detail - LOD) of objects on the map. For each object, there are several options with different levels of detail, and the closer the player is to the object, the better the object will be drawn. And distant objects are drawn already in a simplified form, which saves resources. The higher the setting, the greater the distance to switch the detail of objects. The parameter is demanding on both the CPU and the GPU, and it is also important for the gameplay - it is better to see objects in good quality at the maximum possible distance.

Menu item " Render distance» changes the distance at which objects are drawn. It is important that the setting affects only those objects that are not critical during the game. But still, this is an extremely important parameter, which we do not recommend lowering under any circumstances - on some maps, with a small draw distance, you may not see some objects, which is unacceptable for a game like World of Tanks.

Parameter " Lighting quality» is very important for the overall perception of the picture and greatly affects its realism. Lighting is one of the most important parameters of the game, which affects all other graphics elements. Depending on the selected quality, the complexity of the calculations varies greatly, because this includes numerous technologies: reflections in screen space (GI) and shading (HBAO), volumetric light rays, optical flares, etc. Choose a value for one of the most important parameters for specific system on their own, it is difficult to advise here.

The meaning of the item " Shadow quality" affects the quality of the shadows in the game, but due to the optimization of the algorithms in the Core engine, it does not affect the overall rendering performance as much as it happens in other games. Try different values ​​yourself, but on powerful systems, you can safely set the value to "Ultra".

« Motion blur quality" And " post-processing» - two options for adjusting cinematic post-processing effects like motion blur, vignetting, chromatic aberration, distortion, and graininess. They are not too resource-intensive, but they seriously improve the overall impression of the picture, adding cinematic realism to it.

Influence of parameter « Water quality” on performance is highly dependent on the type of map, in areas with large expanses of sea water (“Fiords”, “Fisherman's Bay”, “Calm”) rendering will consume more resources than on land. The gameplay is still slightly affected, so modify according to your personal requests.

« landscape quality” and its tessellation settings greatly affect the rendering of improved maps in World of Tanks 1.0. The setting is quite important, try to keep it high. Well, tessellation, which works on almost all modern video cards with DirectX 11 support, remains optional for "Enhanced" graphics (with "Standard" the landscape is simplified for better performance). On modern GPUs, enable tessellation, it adds realism. With it, small details like stones, tracks from caterpillars, craters from shots will not just be textures, but will get a geometric shape with additional detail. And to increase comfort when aiming, you can separately disable tessellation in sniper mode.

« Vegetation detail» affects the complexity of calculations when the wind affects the trees, and the higher the value of the parameter « Amount of grass”, the more it will be on the map. To increase smoothness and improve visibility, it is quite possible to lower this setting, although realism will suffer, but this is not the main thing in WoT. However, the impact is more psychological, because the mechanics of disguise in the game always work the same way and regardless of the selected graphic settings.

« Extra quality effects» allows you to adjust the quality of explosions, fire, smoke and other similar effects using particle systems. A properly set parameter will be useful in the game, as the effects will help you see the tanks that have just fired, as well as the tanks that are on fire. So, if possible, it is better to leave the quality of additional effects not too low.

Another important setting in the game is " Improved destruction physics» - this option enables Havok Destruction technology and when it is activated, objects will be destroyed into parts. When the advanced physics functionality is disabled, detailed destruction will not be rendered at all. The setting works only if "Enhanced" graphics is selected, when separate CPU threads are used for physical calculations. So if your system's processor is not powerful enough (a small number of physical or virtual cores), then you can disable this technology.

Performance Testing

We tested the performance of six Zotac video cards based on Nvidia GPUs from different price ranges and generations of the company's GPUs. When testing, we used the three most common screen resolutions: 1920x1080, 2560x1440 and 3840x2160, as well as two settings profiles built into the benchmark: Medium and Ultra.

There are settings below the average level in a separate test, but we do not consider them, since in practice even the weakest comparison video card, the GeForce GTX 960, very easily copes with the average ones. Traditionally, for the materials of our site, we check the maximum quality mode, as the most popular setting option among gaming enthusiasts. But first, let's look at the most popular Full HD resolution at medium quality settings.

Resolution 1920×1080 (Full HD)

It is immediately clear that at least a separate World of Tanks benchmark on the new engine in the medium settings mode rests on the power of the CPU and is not too demanding on the video card in this case. Five of the six GPUs reviewed showed almost identical results, which indicates an emphasis on the processor. And even the younger model of the previous generation in the form of the GeForce GTX 960 at medium graphics settings and Full HD resolution showed not only an acceptable rendering speed, but much more than the ideal 60 FPS without dropping the frame rate below this mark.

The minimum FPS of even the weakest GPU tested exceeded 100 frames per second, which will ensure maximum gaming comfort even with a gaming monitor with a higher screen refresh rate. So you can safely set higher quality settings on all solutions, they should easily pull them too. But let's see what happens when you set the ultra quality profile:

Here, at maximum settings, the difference in speed between video cards of different power is already visible, although in the case of top-end video cards, the emphasis on the CPU remains - the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti should be even faster. The weakest video card in our comparison was no longer able to achieve at least 60 FPS, but still 64 FPS on average at 45 FPS minimum can be considered a very good performance level, quite acceptable for many players. For those who need a stable 60+ FPS in intense battles, we can recommend lowering some of the settings to high.

The other five graphics cards handled the conditions of ultra-high quality settings perfectly, even the minimum frame rate did not fall below 60 FPS. And the top GeForce GTX 1080 Ti even showed an average result above 120 FPS, which will give maximum comfort on monitors with a refresh rate of 100-120 Hz. And the GeForce GTX 1070 is not far behind it.

Note that the GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB is close to the level of the older model with more memory - that is, the game World of Tanks 1.0 with an improved engine is definitely enough for 3 GB and with ultra-quality graphics. Interestingly, the outdated GeForce GTX 970 keeps up with this pair of more recent models, as is sometimes the case in modern games. But will this situation continue with an increase in resolution?

Resolution 2560×1440 (WQHD)

With a higher rendering resolution of 2560x1440, the load on the GPU increased, but the emphasis on the CPU at medium settings remains quite strong - the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is almost on par with the GTX 1070, which should not be. But the use of video memory still does not limit the speed, and 3 GB of VRAM is enough for the game. The frame rate dropped because high resolutions require a high fill rate, but the FPS values ​​remained high.

The outdated model GeForce GTX 960 was again able to cope with the task of providing not the minimum comfort, but the maximum, showing 110 FPS on average and 66 FPS at least. The rest of Zotac's solutions from the last two generations of GPUs provide the best possible comfort under these conditions. And the GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 Ti are even capable of delivering perfectly smooth frame rates on 144Hz monitors.

When setting the maximum quality settings to "Ultra" in WQHD resolution, the GeForce GTX 960 could no longer cope with the task of providing minimal comfort, although it was close to it. 40 FPS on average is not enough for such a dynamic multiplayer game like World of Tanks, successfully playing at such a speed will be problematic, the lag between pressing the control keys and the actual action on the screen will be large, and it would be better to lower the rendering quality settings to just high.

This time, even a pair of GeForce GTX 1060 with different video memory sizes, together with the GTX 970 that joined them, shows a slightly lower speed than is necessary for perfect smoothness when playing. Although 65-69 FPS on average and 48-50 FPS minimum are close to providing maximum comfort, sometimes the frame rate sags below the generally accepted border of 60 FPS, so it is better to adjust one or two settings downward.

But the most powerful comparison models, the GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 Ti, performed well in such conditions. The former provides more than enough comfort for the average gamer with 98 FPS averaging at least 72 FPS drops, and Nvidia's fastest GPU averaged nearly 150 FPS in our comparison with a minimum above 100 FPS. That is, even when playing on a monitor with a resolution of 2560 × 1440 and a refresh rate of 100 Hz, frame changes will be as smooth as possible.

Resolution 3840×2160 (UHD)

The drop in speed during the transition to 4K resolution turned out to be very large, although the absolute numbers themselves are not so scary. Surprisingly, the performance of the GeForce GTX 960 in such conditions is enough to ensure minimal comfort, because the frame rate level turned out to be 52 FPS on average with a minimum of 31 FPS - the game will be slightly twitchy in places, but some players can live with it, as practice shows . The rest will have to lower many of the settings to achieve at least 60 FPS.

Two GeForce GTX 1060 6GB and one GTX 970 averaged above 80 FPS with occasional dips below 60 FPS, very close to ideal comfort levels. You may have to lower a couple of settings on the GTX 1060 with 3 GB, and one or two with 6 GB to reach the minimum 60 FPS. But so far, the difference between these solutions is due solely to differences in GPU speed, and not in terms of video memory.

The GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card at medium settings at 4K resolution provides the ideal level of performance, and the top-end Zotac solution provides even faster rendering. The power of these fast GPUs is enough to keep the frame rate at the most comfortable level. The older model of this pair showed 190 FPS on average at 116 FPS minimum, which will give perfect smoothness on gaming monitors with a refresh rate of 75-100 Hz, and the younger model is suitable for displays with 60-75 Hz. Most likely, at maximum settings, it will not work so beautifully.

Finally, the most difficult conditions are ultra-settings at 4K resolution. The frame rate here is the lowest for our entire test, and in fact, these are almost the first really difficult conditions for the top GPUs presented in the material. Well, the younger model GeForce GTX 960 shows, if not a slide show, but rather sad 13-19 FPS - it is simply impossible to play with such a frame rate.

The trinity of mid-rangers (a couple of GTX 1060 models and an old GTX 970) also cannot provide even minimal comfort in such conditions. 31-34 FPS on average with a minimum of 23-25 ​​FPS - these are not at all suitable conditions for a dynamic multiplayer game where the accuracy of movement and shots is of the utmost importance. To achieve at least 45 FPS, many of the settings will have to be greatly reduced - at least to the level of simply high ones.

The GeForce GTX 1070 at maximum settings ("Ultra") in the highest resolution provides only a minimally comfortable level of performance. 50 FPS on average with 35 minimum FPS - this is enough only for undemanding players. The rest can be advised to the top solution Zotac - the power of the fastest GTX 1080 Ti GPU was enough to maintain the frame rate at almost the most comfortable level. The older model showed 75 FPS on average with 54 FPS minimum - that is, even on the most powerful video card, the frame rate sometimes drops below 60 FPS, so for perfect smoothness in 4K resolution, you may need to lower one or two graphic settings to a lower level.

Conclusion

Version 1.0 has become one of the biggest updates for the World of Tanks project, the game finally has really modern and realistic graphics. Although at minimum settings the game still looks like a project from distant years, but on ultra-settings it’s a completely different matter - the picture looks much better than what we saw before. And for those who experience a lack of performance at ultra-settings, medium graphics quality settings are a good compromise between a high-quality picture and performance - the game looks quite decent at them and works fine on a PC of average power and even lower.

A lot depends on the quality and manufacturability of graphics in modern games. Players should get the most out of the game, for which tank battles should be as realistic as possible, and battlefields should be similar to the surrounding reality and ideas about it. At the same time, there should be a wide choice of locations, both colorful and bright, and gloomy and oppressive. And for a realistic recreation of all this, modern graphic technologies are needed.

Without realistic lighting, any, even the most detailed objects, will not look believable, but you also need to pay maximum attention to geometry with textures - materials must be physically correct, and geometric models - sufficiently detailed. It is important to make sure that everything continues to look great in motion. However, it is easier to make a battle of exclusively mechanical machines more cinematic, because facial and skeletal animation, human movements and emotions are excluded from the equation. Wargaming.net managed to implement all this very well.

From a visual point of view, World of Tanks 1.0 looks very impressive, almost like a movie. This was achieved with both completely redesigned content and a modern graphics engine. Models and textures of tanks, landscape, nature, buildings, etc. - all this is done in a very high quality in the new version. The game also has good lighting and a well-optimized shadow rendering system, and besides this, there are many different effects, including advanced post-filtering and dynamic water with realistic reflections.

With all this, we note in particular that the game is very well optimized, especially from the point of view of the GPU. If the use of multi-threaded CPUs made in WoT 1.0 is still not quite optimal (ideally, DirectX 12 should be used, but this will immediately cut off a large number of players with old hardware), in our opinion, then the optimization of GPUs is done by five. Given realistic graphics and the use of new graphics algorithms and techniques (including tessellation), the game does not require too much local video memory, and the requirements for GPU processing power are very democratic.

The new Core engine is highly scalable in terms of speed and quality, offering a wide range of graphics settings to ensure a comfortable game on video cards of different levels. And World of Tanks 1.0 does not require expensive video cards in order to get a very high-quality picture while maintaining a fairly high rendering speed. The resulting frame rate will be quite sufficient even on a mid-range model from the previous generation like the GeForce GTX 960, which showed perfect smoothness at medium settings even at 2560x1440.

If we talk about the maximum settings, then all the comparison models coped with Full HD resolution, although the same GTX 960 sometimes sank below 60 FPS. But solutions such as the GTX 1060 and GTX 970, even at higher resolutions at maximum settings, were close to ideal smoothness. Although specifically ultra-quality at the highest resolutions remains the prerogative of top solutions - without the GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 Ti, stable 60 FPS in such conditions cannot be obtained even in such democratic folk "tanks".

From the point of view of the use of resources of central processors, one can note some lack of optimization when distributing work among the CPU cores, but this is partly due to the use of the old version of the DirectX 11 graphics API, and the frame rate is still quite high anyway. In practice, rendering speed is more likely to be limited by the GPU than by the CPU if you aim for 60 FPS and set the graphics settings to match the GPU.

In general, for a comfortable game in World of Tanks 1.0, you need at least a dual-core processor, or better, a fast CPU with four cores, the game will not require more from the system. Well, we already wrote about the exactingness to the amount of RAM and VRAM - the game makes very mild requirements for both. Even for the maximum settings, 3-4 GB of video memory and 8 GB of RAM will be enough, and even this will be a lot for medium settings.

We thank the companies that provided software and hardware for testing:
and personally Robert Wislowski
and personally Ivan Mazneva