I was under the impression Kyle only used WHQL drivers ? Thats changed or was never preference ?
We use what drivers are publicly available, whether the most recent is beta or whql, doesn't matter, as long as its out for public consumption. Typically NV releases Beta drivers, and AMD releases hot fixes or preview drivers, as long as they are on the website (and in the case of 11.8 Preview they are), we use em, cause they are the better driver to use. AMD recommends 11.8 for this game. There is no difference between 11.8 preview and whql in performance. Our full evaluation will use 11.8 WHQL since its the latest, and the latest NV driver.
That's possible, but the point I was trying to make was that the settings they were using were, IMO, creating frame rates not as smooth as most people would like the game to run at while playing. And since I believe most people would rather have average frame rates in the 50's and 60's, why aren't they testing games to achieve those settings? It's really annoying to me. There has only been two games - Crysis 1 and Warhead - that felt smooth to me at 35-40 fps, and that was only because of the excessive motion blur both games used.
Whats playable to someone, is not necessarily playable to another, we know that, but generally between 30-40FPS is playable to most people. We look at each game we test, and figure out what range of FPS feels most comfortable, sometimes you need higher FPS in a game, sometimes lower fps is acceptable, depends on the game. As we play through this full game of Dues Ex, we will figure this out, so far, its looking like framerates on the higher side of things are preferred. We always include apples-to-apples settings in all of these evaluations also, so you can compare that way, if you like.
[H] tests at "maximum playable settings". For them that's typically ~40fps. If a card can do 2560*1600 playable, then lower resolutions aren't going to be a problem. That's what makes their reviews useful, IMO. Why just repeat the same measurements as everyone else?
When they do their apples to apples comparisons they are at 1920*1080 4xAA to give a more "industry standard" measurement. If that's the only settings you want to run that's fine, but if you'd like to see what the limits of a card is, then read [H].
Yep, we like to push these cards to their max, often that means running at 2560x1600. Only this way, can we tell which one delivers the best experience and allows the highest settings. But we also test at lower resolutions, and will often mention playable settings at lower resolutions.
When we do our gameplay evals, we always test at 2560x1600, 1920x1200 and 1680x1050, so people will see across these three resolutions, what you can expect in the game, and from that, you should be able to figure out other resolutions. We of course also use more cards in our full evaluation.
We've gained a lot of info about the game today, and are diving into more info in detail, so stay tuned for our full eval, it will be informative.