The last test procedure for gaming laptops was presented for nearly two years – at that time notebooks with Intel Coffee Lake-H and Coffee Lake-H Refresh processors, as well as with cards NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics 2000 from the Turing family. The first laptops to also offer hardware support for ray tracing and a new image upscaling based on machine learning and artificial intelligence (DLSS). The previous procedure was pretty good considering the amount of changes I made then. We are talking, for example, about testing games in three resolutions – it was a tribute to people who preferred to connect the laptop to an external monitor with a higher resolution. However, a new generation of NVIDIA graphics cards is approaching and for me personally it’s always a very exciting event. Earlier than usual, I prepared a rebuilt methodology, which I would like to discuss in today’s article.

Author: Damian Marusiak

The new test procedure for gaming laptops will bring a lot as always major changes and improvements to further visualize everyday performance. First of all, the role of undervoltage will be reduced – now only the UV of the graphics card and the temperature and energy consumption test of the entire platform will remain. In the case of the processor, I give up similar measurements. Intel Comet Lake-H mobile units are usually trimmed to such limits that undervolting practically does not give any tangible benefits. The new Tiger Lake chips do not support this anymore, and neither do AMD processors. Instead, the changes will affect the battery related tests. Now, in addition to the battery life itself, there will also be several performance tests in games and programs. We will see how many of the new processors and cards we will take out when we cut off the laptop’s power supply. There is no lack of information on the web that a certain group of processors or cards perform worse than others, therefore the new methodology will also take into account such working conditions.

New test procedure for laptops with Intel Tiger Lake-H, AMD Cezanne-H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3000 are not only more demanding games and programs, but also stronger emphasis on battery performance testing.

W case of the list of games, as usual, there have been significant changes. I left a few games – this applies especially to the most demanding games such as Metro Exodus or Red Dead Redemption 2. The new test procedure includes, among others Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Watch_Dogs: Legion, Cyberpunk 2077 or Quake II RTX. The new methodology will include a lot of testing in games using ray tracing and DLSS 2.0. The upcoming generation of laptops will promote Ray Tracing technology even more than the previous one. Notebooks with NVIDIA graphics cards based on the Ampere architecture will certainly be even more efficient. How much exactly, it will prove in the individual performance tests. One of the biggest changes will be the introduction of 1% Low results on the charts, in addition to the average and minimum FPS measurements. In the new test procedure, I will also spend more time on application programs. They will reach, among others photo and video editing tests, support for photogrammetry and mapping objects in three dimensions. After all, gaming laptops are also increasingly used for more extensive work, so there is no reason not to spend more time on these issues.

List of games in the new test procedure for gaming laptops:

• Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (DirectX 12) – the latest part of the Ubisoft saga. This time, in the skin of Eivor, we travel through England in the 9th century. Due to the size of the game, the tests were carried out in two locations: Raven’s Landing and Lunden (London), right next to St. Paul’s Cathedral.
• Battlefield V (DirectX 12, Ray Tracing) – the newest part from DICE studio, this time takes us to the period of the Second World War . Powered by the third generation of Frostbite engine, it offers players a very high quality of graphics. The test will also include Ray Tracing in the resolution 1920 x 1080 pixels.
• Control (DirectX 12, Ray Tracing, DLSS 2.0) – one of the more demanding games that use both ray tracing and the new DLSS 2.0 version. In addition to the standard performance test in 3 resolutions, there will also be measurements with RT and DLSS 2.0 set to the Quality level (Full HD resolution).
• Cyberpunk 2077 (DirectX 12, Ray Tracing, DLSS 2.0) – the most anticipated item 2020 of the year, if not of recent years. The title was created by the Polish studio CD Projekt RED, which takes place in the fictional American city of Night City in 2077. The game caused great controversy, mainly due to underdeveloped console versions. On PC, it works much better (and looks much better), especially since the game uses both Ray Tracing and DLSS 2.0. Due to the degree of expansion of the city, measurements take place in two test locations: Japantown and City Center (Śródmieście). In addition to the standard performance test, there will also be measurements from RT and DLSS 2.0 (Quality) in Full HD resolution.
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance (DirectX 11) – one of the surprises 2018 year. Incredibly crude and with quite a high level of difficulty, but very satisfying at the same time. The game is based on the CryEngine graphics engine, which in itself is a harbinger of very high hardware requirements. Laptops with GeForce RTX cards 2000 often performed well in Full HD, but at higher resolutions they literally knelt down. How will it be with the GeForce RTX 3000 Mobile? We will see.
• Metro: Exodus (DirectX 12, Ray Tracing) – the third part of the adventures of Artyom, who this time decides to go on a journey with his family through Russia, destroyed by nuclear war. Greater openness, greater variety of places, as well as different seasons – it promises to be a real roller coaster. Already the previous parts were a real benchmark for efficient graphics cards and the same is with Exodus, so I left the game in the new test procedure. In addition to the standard performance test, the measurement from RT in Full HD will appear.
• Red Dead Redemption 2 (Vulkan) – Rockstar’s latest title is an open-world production that boasts high-quality visuals, which unfortunately result in high hardware requirements. However, if you’ve been expecting Grand Theft Auto in the Wild West, you’ll be severely disappointed as Red Dead Redemption 2 focuses on completely different gameplay elements. The performance test was carried out in the Clemens Point location, near the town of Rhodes. This is where we move with Dutch’s gang at the beginning of Chapter 3 of the game.
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DirectX 12, Ray Tracing) – as in the previous test procedure, the newest part of Lara Croft’s adventures remains. The test will take place in Kuwak Yaku, but this time it will only be a ray tracing test. I will not use DLSS because of its terrible implementation.
• Serious Sam 4 (Vulkan) – for the first time in the test procedure for gaming laptops. I am talking specifically about the latest part powered by the equally newest version of the Serious Engine. The game allows you to play in three different APIs: DirectX 11, DirectX 12 and Vulkan, but only the latter offers the best results, while DX 11 has annoying clippings and DX 12 can not start at all. The test takes place in the mission The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – apart from a ton of enemies, the screen also shows quite a lot of vegetation, making the test site very demanding.

Quake II RTX (Vulkan RT) – old , honest, cult Quake II, this time packed with a large range of effects related to Ray Tracing. At the end of 2019 update 1.2 was released , adding a lot of elements improving image quality, including: improved over 400 textures and added recursive reflections on selected surfaces, reworked rendering of glass, reflections and refractions of rays passing through glass surfaces. More realistic reflections on the water surface were also implemented, thanks to the rendering of underwater rays of bright light (god rays) and displaying reflections and refractions of them. Numerous changes have affected denoising (denoising) and advanced rendering functions that improve the quality of the generated image at all levels.

• Watch_Dogs: Legion (DirectX 12, Ray Tracing, DLSS 2.0) – the latest part of the Ubisoft hacking saga. This time we are moving to London, in the very near future. The title has a unique fictional campaign design, where we play the role of several dozen different heroes, who are to join the ranks of the DedSec organization. The game turns out to be very demanding on graphics cards again, especially with ray tracing active. In addition to the standard performance test, there will also be measurement with RT and DLSS 2.0 (Quality) in Full HD resolution.

The next step in the procedure is the application programs. Here, too, a few modifications have been made. We will find a more extensive and diverse set of tests, which include, among others editing photos and videos using the Adobe Photoshop package 2020, Lightroom 2020, Premiere Pro 2020 and UL Procyon benchmarks. There will also be extensive tests of mapping objects in three dimensions and photogrammetry – here we will use the excellent RealityCapture software and a set of benchmarks from PugetSystems. Of the more traditional tests, there will be e.g. 7-zip (compression of one large file and many small files), rendering in Blender (latest version 2. 90 with support for NVIDIA OptiX, the rendered scene is Victor), Shotcut or Handbrake (MP4 to MKV conversion). Time Spy remains from the 3DMark package, and DirectX RayTracing is enabled instead of Port Royale. The new procedure will be very interesting from the point of view of testing processors. Two years ago, when publishing the methodology for laptops with RTX 2000, there was really no alternative to Intel. However, the situation changes after two years. A year ago, AMD introduced the third generation APU Renoir, which impressed above all with energy efficiency (perf / watt ratio). More processors will be officially revealed in the next few days – the fourth generation of the Cezanne-H APU, which will be combined for the first time with top NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics cards 3000. The situation is absolutely unprecedented when it comes to the gaming notebook market, so far time was kept in check by Intel.