Resident Evil 7 requirements.

The specifics of PC gaming are such that before you begin, you must first familiarize yourself with its system requirements and relate it to the existing configuration.

To do this simple action, you do not need to know the exact technical characteristics of each model of processors, video cards, motherboards and other components of any personal computer. A simple comparison of the main lines of components will suffice.

For example, if a game's minimum system requirements include a processor of at least Intel Core i5, then you shouldn't expect it to run on i3. However, it is more difficult to compare processors from different manufacturers, which is why developers often indicate names from two main companies - Intel and AMD (processors), Nvidia and AMD (video cards).

Above are system requirements. It is worth noting that the division into minimum and recommended configurations is done for a reason. It is believed that meeting the minimum requirements is enough to start the game and complete it from beginning to end. However, to achieve the best performance, you usually have to lower the graphics settings.

If the developers don't change anything in the requirements, Resident Evil 7 will probably be one of the most technically unassuming big-budget games of the next year. For many modern games, 8 GB of RAM is no longer enough (for example, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Quantum Break, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Battlefield 1 and even ReCore, which is far from perfect in terms of graphics, need 16 GB), but the seventh Resident Evil may be able to work on high settings with this amount of RAM. The recommended requirements include NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 and AMD Radeon R9 280X video cards. In terms of GPU requirements, the game is less demanding than Doom and Dark Souls III.

Minimum system requirements:

• OS: 64-bit version of Windows 7, 8, 8.1 or 10;
• CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 @ 2.7 GHz or AMD FX-6300 (or better);
• RAM: 8 GB;
• video card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 or AMD Radeon R7 260x;
• DirectX: Version 11;
• additional comments: This configuration will allow you to run the game in 1080p resolution at 30 frames/s. To improve performance, players will have to either lower the quality of textures or disable texture streaming (a technology that creates versions of textures at different resolutions and loads low-quality versions first, and then, as needed, high-resolution versions).

• OS: 64-bit Windows 7, 8, 8.1 or 10;
• CPU: Intel Core i7 3770 3.4 GHz or AMD equivalent (or better);
• RAM: 8 GB;
• video card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 or AMD Radeon R9 280X (or better);
• DirectX: Version 11;
• additional comments : This configuration will allow you to run the game in 1080p resolution at 60 frames/s.

During the Tokyo Game Show 2016, held last week, Capcom showed a new trailer for Resident Evil 7 and published a dozen screenshots. At the same time, the demo version of The Beginning Hour received the Twilight update, which introduced new mansion rooms, items and secrets. In addition, the demo, which has already amassed over 3 million downloads, is now available to all PlayStation 4 users, not just PlayStation Plus subscribers. Although the final version of the game will be completely different from the demo (it will have a different main character, different locations and new gameplay features), it will receive several more such updates in the future.

Resident Evil 7 will be released on January 24, 2017 in versions for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. On the Sony console, the game will support the PlayStation VR virtual reality headset. The horror game is also included in the list of games that will be adapted for the PlayStation 4 Pro, where it can be played in HDR mode in 4K resolution.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a new entry in the Resident Evil series with a completely new approach to the genre. Now, instead of fast action, the player is faced with a slow and drawn-out survival horror, in which you need to hide from zombies, wisely use firearms and medicine to stay alive. The plot revolves around a rotten farm in the southern United States, where monstrous and chilling events take place. The player will find himself in a confined space, from where it is difficult to get out, which will further tickle his nerves, especially when meeting with enemies. The project uses the new RE Engine, so the game is highly realistic and has a frightening atmosphere.

System requirements for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard on PC

Minimum system requirements:

Screenshots of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

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Resident Evil 7: Biohazard ratings

Game world navigator

And yet Resident Evil 7 was a success. If only because since the first part it is the scariest game in the series. To a large extent, this is the merit of the first-person view: when a creepy grandmother with a frenzied scream strangles a small figurine of some hero in the center of the screen - this is one thing, when she does the same thing, literally splashing saliva in your own face - is completely different. Also important here is the natural limitation of visibility, which sometimes allows monsters to effectively sneak up from behind or taxi around a corner literally head-on. In addition, even if the ordinary monsters were not successful, the members of the “family” turned out to be absolutely infernal personalities, ideally corresponding to the name of the game.

Resident Evil 7 is an example of a proper reimagining of the franchise. This is a fresh breath not only for the series, but also for the genre as a whole. It is impossible to recommend the game to everyone: the game will quickly cease to amaze hardened players, and it will scare away an outsider from all this with its horrors. But even then, you shouldn't skip RE7.

The best thing to happen to Resident Evil since the brilliant fourth installment, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard manages to retain the well-known old-school features that fans love it for, but at the same time feels like a great modern game. After such a demonstrative performance of the updated “Resident Evil”, I already want to get Resident Evil 8 quickly.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard isn't perfect. There is a lot to criticize the game for: the story feels cut up in places, and the last hours still rely more on shootings than on exploration and survival. But Capcom still released the best survival horror in years and, more importantly, breathed new life into Resident Evil. Now we have become even more interested in how the series will develop further.

Resident Evil 7 is very different from the latest games in the series. Now this is not at all a hurricane action movie that tries to impress with its scale and tight outfits of sexy heroes. Now this is a horror game, the scene of which is limited to a large mansion and surrounding areas, where there are many mysteries and secrets, and the small number of opponents is compensated by their amazing vitality. Here, even an ordinary monster needs to put a few bullets in his head to calm him down.

Resident Evil 7 turned out to be very strange. With a huge budget, in some places it feels like an experimental indie game that is unlikely to attract the same number of fans as the fourth or fifth part of the series. Surely its different segments will resonate with certain players - but it’s hard to imagine a person who will like the whole game. But this is still not a conceptual horror in the spirit of P.T. – unfortunately, they only had a demo version. The full game has a lot more in common with the main series than you might expect. This similarity probably should have been abandoned completely, or, on the contrary, strengthened to please old fans. I’m most glad that the Resident Evil series has once again changed, given me a new experience, and made me look at familiar elements from a new perspective. Even if this attempt of his did not impress me much, I hope that the next part will find the right direction for itself and give it its all, and will not try to put pressure on different horror fetishes one by one. And then everything will be fine for her.

Resident Evil 7 was a great addition to the series, but it's not the typical sequel that has characterized the gaming industry in recent years. Instead, it's a bold and unusual game that combines several cool concepts. Capcom have once again proven that they can not only produce endless re-releases and remakes, but are also completely open to new ideas. They understood that the series was in dire need of fresh blood, and neither the skepticism nor the conservatism of the fans stopped them from experimenting, the result of which was Resident Evil 7. This game is a magnificent fusion of old and new, and, perhaps, the first serious reason to join the virtual reality.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a truly revolutionary game if you decide to play it on PSVR, but even if you don't have a helmet, you will get a lot of positive emotions. This is not the classic Resident Evil, and certainly not the sixth part, but something new and difficult to describe at the level of internal emotions - a representative of a completely different gaming direction. This is a game that gives you a new level of immersion and sets a bar in the world of virtual entertainment that is still unattainable for competitors.

I can't help but like the direction the series is heading in. The transition to a new perspective has only benefited Resident Evil 7, where the dark atmosphere, stunning sound and visual design, coupled with classic gameplay, make it one of the best games in the series and almost an ideal representative of the genre.

Hurray, hurray, the series seems to be starting to emerge from the pit of sewage. The seventh part is not without its rough edges, but it captivates and allows you to look into the future with cautious optimism. It all depends on what Capcom plans to do next.

IGN Russia

Resident Evil 7, contrary to the darkest predictions, managed to find a balance between old mechanics and modern gameplay. Perhaps the talent of the development team contributed to this. Perhaps a stupid search of options (I remind you with pain that one of the branches of the series even became a team shooter) sooner or later should have led to a positive result. Perhaps both options are correct. It is important that everything worked out: the game can satisfy both fans of the series and newcomers who are not familiar with the roots (fun fact#2: those born in the year the first part was released are already 21 years old). First of all, this is an excellent atmospheric game with fun gameplay. It’s not ideal - let’s say, there is a great puzzle “Happy f***ing birthday”, but it’s the only one and the others don’t even come close to its level - which is a pity. In a good scenario, if you look closely, it's not hard to spot gaping holes. The ending could have been tightened up and various other little things could have been corrected. But the fact of the matter is that these are small things. In general, if there’s something worth buying at launch in January, without waiting for discounts and without spoiling your impressions with random spoilers, then it’s Resident Evil 7.

Overall, the game turned out great, the updated gameplay breathed new life into Resident Evil, this is, without a doubt, the best thing that has happened to the series since the fourth part, and one of the most impressive horror games of recent times. As for the complaints that have arisen regarding the plot, this is rather a subjective point; personally, the Umbrella viruses have already set my teeth on edge, and I would prefer that the game be limited to the Baker mansion. I am sure that loyal fans of Evil Corporation will be pleased with the denouement, as well as the appearance of certain characters on the screen.

Before purchasing Resident Evil 7 biohazard on PC, be sure to check the system requirements provided by the developer with your system configuration. Remember that the minimum requirements often mean that with this configuration the game will launch and run reliably at minimum quality settings. If your PC meets the recommended requirements, you can expect stable gameplay at high graphics settings. If you want to play at quality set to “ultra”, the hardware in your PC must be even better than the developers indicate in the recommended requirements.

Below are the system requirements for Resident Evil 7 biohazard, officially provided by the project developers. If you think there is an error in them, please let us know by clicking the exclamation mark on the right side of the screen and briefly describing the error.

Minimum configuration:

• Processor: Intel Core i5-4460 2.70 GHz/AMD FX-6300
• Memory: 8 GB
• Video: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760/AMD Radeon R7 260x
• DirectX: 11

• OS: Windows 7/8/8.1/10 (64-bit)
• Processor: Intel Core i7 3770 3.4 GHz/AMD equivalent
• Memory: 8 GB
• Video: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960/AMD Radeon R9 280X
• DirectX: 11

In addition to checking the system requirements of Resident Evil 7 biohazard with your PC configuration, do not forget to update your video card drivers. It is important to remember that you should only download the final versions of video cards - try not to use beta versions, as they may have a large number of unfound and unfixed errors.

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• Release date: January 24, 2017
• Genre: survival horror/first-person action-adventure
• Publisher: Capcom
• Developer: Capcom

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a computer game from the Resident Evil series in the survival horror genre, produced and published by Capcom. This is the first part of the series, the action of which is shown entirely in the first person. Resident Evil 7 takes place in 2017 in the fictional town of Dalvi, the new hero of the series, Ethan, finds himself in the abandoned mansion of the Baker family, searching for his missing wife Mia, and will be forced to survive by solving various puzzles and fighting monsters.

The game was first hinted at in the form of a Kitchen virtual reality demo at E3 in 2015, and on June 14, 2016, Capcom officially announced the new title by releasing a playable demo of Beginning Hour on the PlayStation Store to reveal the atmosphere of the new title. The game itself was released on January 24, 2017 in versions for PCs running Microsoft Windows and modern consoles: Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Xbox One, and the version of the game for PlayStation 4 supports virtual reality mode using the PlayStation VR VR helmet. The gameplay of the “regular” and “virtual” versions is identical, and the game can be played entirely in VR mode.

The game begins with Ethan traveling to Louisiana after receiving a letter from Mia asking him to find her there, despite her disappearance three years prior. Upon arrival, Ethan finds an abandoned house with Mia imprisoned in the basement, who warns our hero about the danger posed by a certain “Daddy.” While searching for a way out, Mia goes berserk and attacks Ethan, forcing him to kill her, and then Ethan is stunned by the head of the Baker family, and that's when the game really begins...

Unlike the main games in the series that came out earlier, Resident Evil 7 is a first-person game. The developers claim that they used this game mode to create maximum immersion. Unlike the fifth and sixth parts, which are action films with a lot of action and shooting, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a return to the roots of survival horror, taking place in very frightening conditions. Ethan is not a superhero, but an ordinary person, and even with a small number of weapons (relatively, there are pistols, shotguns, flamethrowers, grenades and even a chainsaw) and ammunition. Therefore, the player will have to choose a line of behavior - you can either fight or run away and hide. The game also contains classic elements of the series in the form of puzzles of varying degrees of difficulty and the use of medicinal herbs.

Returning to the series' hallmarks, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard received mostly positive reviews from both players and Western and Russian gaming publications, scoring between 80 and 90%. The success also affected sales: with Capcom's pre-release estimate of four million copies, as of January 27, more than 2.5 million copies had been shipped worldwide, and demo versions had been downloaded more than 7 million times. Unfortunately, Denuvo's PC version of the game was broken rather quickly, and it may not reach the expected circulation on our favorite platform.

Unlike previous games in the series that used the MT Framework engine, the game in question today is based on a new game engine called the RE Engine, developed by Capcom Development Division 1, the in-house studio responsible for developing the Resident Evil series. The RE Engine is a proprietary game engine designed exclusively for internal use at Capcom, designed to power "all next generation Capcom games" on the latest hardware platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and includes tools for developing next generation games in virtual reality. reality. The first game on this engine was Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, and Resident Evil 2 Remake is also planned.

One of the key technologies for working with the new engine and game was photogrammetry - three-dimensional scanning technology for creating character models and textures, helping to create realistic game objects. Capcom assembled a special studio in which they placed a hundred cameras, the images from which are processed and produce a finished 3D model. Using photogrammetry, the designers were able to create more than half of the entire game's 3D models using makeup and then scanning them. Of course, the objects were subsequently completed by artists manually, but the technology allowed the company to significantly reduce the time spent on creating characters and interiors.

Otherwise, the RE Engine, although it cannot be called the most advanced and modern, but it supports a large number of technologies and algorithms common in recent games, including independent selection of rendering resolution and a new interlaced rendering method, rendering high-quality dynamic shadows, volumetric lighting, simulation global occlusion, including the HBAO+ algorithm from Nvidia GameWorks, subsurface scattering and numerous post-effects: motion blur, simulated depth of field, flares, halos, etc. For a multi-platform engine, the capabilities of RE Engine are sufficient by modern standards.

System requirements

Minimum system requirements (for Full HD resolution at 30 FPS):

• CPU Intel Core i5-4460 or AMD FX-6300;
• RAM capacity 8 GB;
• video card Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 or AMD Radeon R7 260X;
• video memory capacity 2 GB;
• 24 GB;
• Microsoft Windows 7/8.1/10.

• CPU Intel Core i7-3770 or similar from AMD;
• RAM capacity 8 GB;
• video card Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060;
• video memory capacity from 3 GB;
• free storage space 24 GB;
• 64-bit operating system Microsoft Windows 7/8.1/10.

The requirement to use the 64-bit Windows operating system has long become commonplace; it allows you to get away from the outdated limitation of 2 GB of RAM per process, which is clearly not enough for modern games, which easily fill many times more space. Since the game in question uses exclusively the capabilities of DirectX 11 and is released in the Steam version, there is no requirement to use Windows 10 in this case - Resident Evil 7: Biohazard can be run on all 64-bit Microsoft operating systems, starting with Windows 7 Although there is a version of the game distributed in the Windows 10 store, and it supports the ability to use the same game saves on PC and Xbox One.

The stated minimum hardware requirements, which provide for playing in Full HD resolution at a frame rate of 30 FPS, are not too high - the game requires a typical amount of RAM and not the most powerful processors and video cards. The list of minimally suitable video cards includes old and not particularly powerful video cards of the GeForce GTX 760 and Radeon R7 260X models, which are more or less close to each other in performance. But we must not forget that this is the minimum required for the game at not the highest graphic settings and only at 30 FPS, which in this game is not so difficult to achieve, as practice has shown.

To run the game you will need a system with a mid-range processor, also not even the last generation. The recommendations for using not the most powerful CPUs in this game are justified; the game does not load our powerful test processor very much with work, and there are some issues with optimizing multi-threading, although this depends on the choice of graphics settings and graphics processor - the most powerful GPUs can still run into CPU capabilities, although the frame rate will be more than sufficient. And for those who want to play at a higher rendering speed, it is recommended to equip the gaming system with a more powerful processor.

To get high-quality images with frame rates of 60 FPS and higher, the developers recommend running the game on a system with a GeForce GTX 1060 or similar video card from AMD, although they did not specify a specific Radeon model for some reason. In general, it can be noted that Resident Evil 7: Biohazard does not have the most stringent system requirements for gaming systems for 30 FPS, but for twice the speed the game needs a higher level CPU and GPU. An additional note in the system requirements indicates that on video cards with less than 4 GB of video memory, a reduction in the quality of textures (and shadows, we would add) may be required.

Test configuration and testing methodology

• Computer based on Intel Core i7 processor:
  • CPU Intel Core i7-4790(3.6 GHz);
  • cooling system Corsair Hydro H110i;
  • motherboard ASRock Z97 Extreme6 on Intel Z97 chipset;
  • RAM 16 GB DDR3-2400 Corsair Vengeance Pro Series;
  • storage device SSD Corsair Force LE 480 GB;
  • power unit Corsair RM850i(850 W);
• operating system Windows 10 Pro 64-bit;
• monitor Asus ROG Swift PG278Q(27″, 2560×1440);
• Nvidia drivers versions 378.49 WHQL (from January 24);
• utility MSI Afterburner 4.3.0
• utility Fraps 3.5.99

• List of tested video cards:
  • GeForce GTX 960 4 GB
  • GeForce GTX 970 4 GB
  • GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB
  • GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB

The game Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is part of Nvidia's marketing and technical program, and with the cooperation of the two companies, this project now supports GameWorks technologies: HBAO+ and TXAA, which we have already written about more than once. By the way, both of these techniques work great on AMD Radeon. For the release of the game in question, Nvidia released a specially optimized version of drivers - 378.49 WHQL dated January 24, 2017, intended for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, early access of Conan Exiles and closed beta of For Honor. We used this driver in our research.

As has become common in modern games, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard does not have built-in performance testing or the ability to record and play back gameplay, so we have to make do with less precise methods of changing the rendering speed. As a test segment to measure performance, we chose the very first scene, when the player arrives at the destination, gets out of the car and walks towards the house. It was in this scene that we noted a good load on the GPU; it has a sufficient amount of detail and some effects, such as reflections and complex lighting.

The chosen scene is one of the most demanding at the beginning of the game, although not the most difficult at all. We measured the average and minimum frame rates in a small chunk of gameplay using the Fraps utility and trying to make the test as stable as possible, with low variation in the resulting frame rates between runs. As a result, based on the numbers obtained in the test, one can more or less judge the level of performance in the game as a whole.

In general, in Resident Evil 7 it is not easy to sanely test the performance of video cards, since the frame rate can easily double in almost the same place, and it is not always clear what causes this behavior. Drops in frame rate can be quite significant, and to minimize such phenomena, we had to limit ourselves to a short run through the initial location without other characters appearing in the frame.

Games in this genre require fast and precise actions, so a stable 60 FPS is highly desirable, or at least about 40 FPS without frame rate drops below 30 FPS - this is exactly the performance we consider the minimum playable for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. Lower frame rates in our performance test will result in a lack of fluidity in the game, where the response to player input becomes too sluggish. Well, for the most demanding players you will need to provide 60 FPS or more.

Optimization for multi-core central processors in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is far from ideal, although the game runs well on such processors, but the load on the processor cores is clearly uneven. However, if you have a multi-core CPU of at least an average level by modern standards, this does not cause any special problems; the game still uses multithreading, although it does not do it in the best way. In our study, the test CPU was loaded with work from 20 to 30%, and this is a very low load for modern games. The speed was not limited to any one core, and they were all loaded with work differently:

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard's video memory requirements are typical of modern games, which often fill more memory than is required to render frames and use texture streaming. VRAM usage in the game reaches approximately 2.5-3 GB at medium settings in Full HD resolution, exceeding 4 GB at high settings at the same resolution, and reaching 6 GB at maximum in WQHD resolution. By the way, the amount of video memory occupied does not depend too much on the choice of rendering resolution. So at medium settings it is quite possible to play on video cards with 3 GB of video memory, and at high settings - with 4 GB.

However, there are certain subtleties here that we noted during testing. At maximum settings, on video cards with 3-4 GB of memory, strong brakes are observed, the game turns into a slide show, which can only be gotten rid of by lowering the settings - you need to either lower the quality of shadows from Very High to just High and/or disable caching of static shadows Shadow Cache . We will write a little more about this behavior of settings later. The minimum amount of video memory in the game is 2 GB, but 4 GB is sufficient for most cases.

Impact of settings on performance and quality

Graphic settings in the game Resident Evil 7: Biohazard are changed from the game's start menu and the in-game menu, which is called up during gameplay - they are visually different, but offer exactly the same settings, only with some reservations. Changing most of the game's graphical settings takes effect immediately and does not require restarting the application, but the most important settings (texture quality, geometry quality, and effects quality) require exiting to the main menu, so adjusting the rendering quality in the game is not very convenient.

The graphical menu in the game has about 20 parameters, allowing fine tuning for a specific system. Unfortunately, there are no preset quality profiles in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, so we had to come up with quality profiles ourselves. For our tests, we used our own virtual settings profiles: Medium, High and Maximum, the latter of which includes the highest possible graphics quality for this game (excluding the internal rendering resolution, which we did not touch).

Medium settings

High settings

Maximum settings

Some of the quality options can be set to one of the levels: Very Low, Low, Medium, High and Very High, but the selection for others differs from this list, there are several effects that can only be turned on or off. Given the choice of different profiles, the differences in graphics are not always noticeable; the game often looks almost the same. But there are still differences: in lighting, detailing of textures and special effects, as well as post-filtering. Values ​​below average are not recommended for use in this game, as they seriously reduce the quality of graphics, and fairly high rendering speeds can be obtained on low-power GPUs.

The smartest thing to do is to adjust the rendering quality and final performance to your requirements, based on your own feelings and FPS indicators. Moreover, the influence of some parameters on the resulting rendering quality with different settings in games is not always easily noticeable to the naked eye. It should be somewhat easier to see the different rendering quality corresponding to different levels of graphics settings from the videos:

Medium settings

Maximum settings

The difference between quality settings is best seen in dynamics, when differences in the quality of rendering of landscapes and objects, lighting and shading are still visible. In general, the settings in the game are well balanced, the lowest ones give the opportunity to play for owners of weak systems, and the maximum ones with high rendering resolution are suitable for the most powerful video cards. However, even more demanding settings could be made - for ultra-enthusiasts.

In total, the Resident Evil 7: Biohazard game settings menu has about a couple of dozen graphical parameters, which allows you to flexibly configure the game for any system that meets the minimum requirements. In the menu you can select the screen mode (windowed or full screen), adjust the screen resolution and refresh rate, enable vertical synchronization and frame limiter (30, 60 FPS or without limitation) and also adjust the field of view angle (Field of Vision) from 70 to 90 degrees . In a separate menu, you can enable HDR mode, but only if you connect an appropriate image output device, which we don’t have yet.

By the way, widescreen monitors with an aspect ratio of 21:9 are supported by the game, but in the most primitive way, leaving black bars on the left and right and eating up useful space. That is, instead of 2560x1080 you will get 1920x1080 with stripes around the edges. Such support cannot be called ideal; it would be very nice to get normal work in widescreen formats, at least with patches.

Let's take a closer look at the quality options available in the menu. Settings Rendering Method Allows you to select the rendering method: Interlaced or Normal. This is a very unusual option for modern games, and we suspect that it appeared largely due to the game's high fill rate requirements and low frame rates in 4K resolution. The essence of the interlaced method is a twofold reduction in resolution, when only half of the horizontal lines of the image are drawn in one frame, and the remaining half are rendered in the next frame.

As a result, with a slight decrease in image quality and blurring, a noticeably higher frame rate is achieved, which is very useful for not the most powerful GPUs. We don't recommend using this setting if you have a fairly powerful graphics card, but on older or low-power solutions it can be a lifesaver, especially if you have a high-resolution monitor. Our research on a fairly powerful video card found an almost 40% difference in rendering speed!

Another setting related to rendering resolution is Resolution Scaling(Resolution scaling). This setting ranges from 0.5 to 2.0 (default 1.0 is 100% of the monitor resolution) and allows you to change the internal render resolution to either improve performance by lowering the render resolution (values ​​between 0.5-1. 0) or improve its quality by enabling additional full-screen anti-aliasing using the supersampling method (1.0-2.0). Has a huge impact on frame rate, if we take 1.0 as 100%, then 0.5 doubles the speed, and 2.0 triples the performance! Accordingly, you should only change this setting from 1.0 in emergency cases, with a clear understanding of what this will lead to.

Parameter Texture Quality(Texture Quality) allows you to change the texture resolution, setting it as a value from Very Low to Very High. There is no need to further explain anything here: the higher the value, the sharper the textures and the more video memory they occupy, and vice versa. Our testing on a video card with 8 GB of memory showed a difference of 2-4% between the extreme settings - that is, it is practically non-existent, provided there is sufficient VRAM. But be careful, if you lack it, the game starts to lag terribly.

Setting up texture filtering Texture Filtering also allows you to set one of five possible values: from Very Low to Very High. This parameter is responsible for enabling trilinear and anisotropic filtering of textures used by the game, up to the 16x level. The effect on rendering quality is normal; the higher the value, the sharper will be the surfaces located at a large angle to the screen plane. The difference in performance on modern GPUs is almost absent, not exceeding a couple of percent. Feel free to set the value to maximum in all cases.

Mesh Quality(Geometry Quality) - a setting responsible for the quality of geometric detailing. It has four possible values, from Low to Very High and controls the Level of Detail (LOD), when a lower level of geometric detail is selected for distant objects in the frame than for near ones. We did not notice any impact on the frame rate; even when choosing the lowest possible setting, rendering speed did not increase at all. Set the maximum value to Very High.

In the anti-aliasing setting Anti-aliasing You can choose from SMAA, FXAA, TAA methods, as well as a combination of the last two methods - FXAA + TAA. We looked at all of these methods earlier, they are all post-processing filters, the difference between FXAA and SMAA is a much clearer image obtained when using SMAA, and the additional inclusion of TAA adds a time component and causes a little more blur in motion, but at the same time better anti-aliasing quality. The anti-aliasing algorithm should be chosen to your liking, since the difference in performance between them is not very significant - about 5-7%, and SMAA turned out to be the slowest.

Motion blur can only be turned on or off by setting Motion Blur, and it does exactly what it says - blurs moving objects a little. Interestingly, by disabling the Motion Blur option you can save 2-4% of performance, so if there is a severe lack of smoothness, you can try disabling this effect, which not everyone likes.

Like the neighbor Depth of Field, in fact, which can also only be turned on or off. This parameter is responsible for a post-processing effect that simulates the depth of field of optical elements, such as film and photographic lenses. When the effect is enabled, in some scenes in the engine the foreground and background will be blurred, and only objects in virtual focus will remain clear. The impact on performance is also low (a few percent), but this is on average, and in specific scenes using DoF the difference will be higher. Enabling or disabling the effect is a matter of individual taste.

Parameter Effects Rendering is responsible for adjusting the quality of various visual effects, and is set as one of three possible values: Low, Medium or High. Higher values ​​will render visuals at higher resolution and with greater density. If they are absent from the frame, the speed does not depend on the set value, and it is impossible to test with effects turned on, so you will have to investigate this point yourself. We can only say with confidence that on a GPU of average power, the High value does not cause any slowdowns.

The quality of shadows in the game is determined by the setting Shadow Quality, which can also be set to one of five values ​​from Very Low to Very High. The setting affects the resolution of shadow maps and the quality of their filtering, and has a very strong impact on performance in the event of insufficient video memory for shadow maps. On video cards with 4 GB of local memory or less, we would advise setting it to High and no more - the visual difference is still small. The difference in the average frame rate between Very Low and Very High is 20%, but the picture looks simply terrible at minimum quality! We recommend setting the value to the maximum possible specifically for your video card (at least Medium, or better yet, High).

The second parameter related to shadows is Dynamic Shadows, disabling or enabling dynamic shadows, actually. Apparently, we are talking about dynamic objects (characters, etc.), since disabling this parameter practically does not lead to an increase in performance on our system. But the third parameter, related to shadows, is much more important - Shadow Cache allows you to enable or disable caching of shadow maps for static objects. It allows you to increase performance in the presence of “extra” video memory by storing (caching) shadows, but causes jerks and unsmoothness when there is not enough of it. And therefore, enabling the shadow caching option is perfect only for video cards with 6-8 GB and higher (and gives a performance increase of 3-5%), and on models with 2-4 GB it is better to disable it completely, otherwise you will lose much more.

Another important parameter is global shading simulation Ambient Occlusion. The corresponding parameter can take one of several values: Off, SSAO (Variable), SSAO or HBAO+. All these parameters are familiar to us, with the exception of SSAO (Variable), which is a simplified version of the SSAO algorithm. The Nvidia HBAO+ global shading simulation technique, known from a large number of games, is available not only on Nvidia video cards, it also works on AMD solutions.

The Ambient Occlusion setting is one of the most significant because it has a significant impact on the final rendering performance and its quality. Without this effect, the scene becomes too flat, and turning on one of the techniques adds shadows to the picture where they are not drawn using shadow maps, and gives the image volume and realism. But turning on AO also affects performance. Enabling SSAO causes a drop in speed of up to 5%, and enabling HBAO+ will reduce the frame rate by as much as 10-15% even with a powerful GPU. So we recommend enabling HBAO+ only on sufficiently powerful systems, and on all others SSAO will be sufficient. We do not recommend disabling AO at all; this affects realism.

The following two options are post-processing filters that you can either turn on or off: Bloom(Glow) and Lens Flare(Highlights) - they are responsible for the corresponding effects, and do not cause a noticeable change in rendering performance (except by a couple of percent, which is even lower than the measurement error), so you can safely choose what you like or don’t like best. We do not recommend turning off post-effects, since the right atmosphere for games of this genre is very important.

The same applies to the quality of volumetric lighting, which can be adjusted using the parameter Volumetric Lighting Quality. You can either turn it off completely or choose from two options: Low or High. The setting does not permanently affect rendering speed; it is only important for scenes where there is volumetric lighting, such as visible rays of light coming through ventilation cracks or windows. We didn't find any major impact on frame rates, and we don't recommend turning off volumetric lighting. As a last resort, if you do not have enough FPS, select Low quality.

Settings Reflections is responsible for enabling and selecting the rendering quality of real-time reflections (screen-space), which have become fashionable in modern games. Almost every game now has puddles and metal objects that realistically and dynamically reflect the world around us. You can not just turn off reflections altogether, but also select the intermediate Variable option, which leaves reflections only on some surfaces. Enabling reflections reduces the frame rate by 15-17%, and selecting Variable allows you to reduce the drop in FPS by half, so if there is a lack of smoothness, you can safely reduce the quality of realistic reflections, which do not particularly affect the gameplay.

Parameter Subsurface Scattering Allows you to turn on or off the simulated subsurface scattering, which is used when rendering human skin and adds realism to it. Disabling this parameter can give about a 5% increase in rendering speed, so owners of weak graphics processors can disable the effect - fortunately, it is not too noticeable in the heat of battle and the horror surrounding the player.

You can also turn on or off one more effect - Chromatic Aberration. This is a post-filter simulating another optical artifact called chromatic aberration. It doesn't have any impact on rendering speed, so feel free to turn it on or off to suit your taste, as many players don't like this slight fuzziness with color blurring on the edges.

Interestingly, the game gives you a choice of color space using the settings Color Space, where you can select sRGB or BT.709. Although in theory they cover the same color space, the visual difference between them is quite large, and this concerns contrast - BT.709 provides darker shadows, which is good for the genre of game, but the choice is up to the user - for nothing else It doesn't affect the pictures.

Overall, the game doesn't place too many demands on GPU performance, especially at Full HD resolution, and modern GPUs can handle Resident Evil 7 with ease. The most demanding settings are the resolution (display and rendering) and rendering method settings, but These include settings for shadow quality, global shading simulation and reflections. Selecting a very high shadow quality results in a slight drop in performance even on an 8GB graphics card, not to mention less powerful options, and enabling HBAO+ and reflections causes a noticeable drop in frame rates. It is these rendering quality parameters that you should pay special attention to when setting up the game.

Performance testing

We tested the performance of four video cards based on Nvidia GPUs, belonging to different price ranges and two generations of GPUs. During testing, we used the two most common screen resolutions today (1920x1080 and 2560x1440), as well as three specially selected settings profiles - Medium, High and Maximum.

We do not consider settings below the average level, since even the weakest video card in our comparison, the GeForce GTX 960, should cope with this graphics quality at least in Full HD resolution. Traditionally, for our site, we also checked the maximum rendering quality mode, as the most popular settings option among gaming enthusiasts. Let's first consider the most popular Full HD resolution at medium quality settings, gradually complicating the task.

Resolution 1920x1080 (Full HD)

It is clearly seen that even at a very high frame rate, the rendering speed is not limited by the performance of the central processor, and all video cards were able to reveal their capabilities. Resident Evil 7 is one of the few games in which the junior model of our comparison GeForce GTX 960, provided average graphics settings in the most common resolution, was not only able to ensure smooth frame changes at an average level of 40 FPS, but exceeded the bar for maximum comfort in 60 FPS, showing 77 FPS on average. So even a low-end Nvidia video card allows you to play with perfect comfort at medium settings, and they can be increased to get a better image.

The rest of the GeForce video cards in our comparison have even more powerful graphics processors, and in such simple conditions they were able to provide maximum comfort and smooth frame rates noticeably above 100 FPS. Even the outdated GeForce GTX 970 video card showed speeds much higher than those required for minimal comfort - 118-128 FPS, slightly falling short of the weakest of the latest solutions from the Pascal family. The older GTX 1070, with medium settings, provided an average frame rate noticeably even higher than 180 FPS, which is several times higher than the ideal comfortable level - we clearly need to increase the settings, which is what we will do.

At high quality settings, the frame rate dropped slightly, but remained very high for all video cards. The weakest video card in our comparison still provided more than 60 FPS on average, and this provides more than acceptable comfort for all players. The GeForce GTX 970 and GTX 1060 were able to easily cope with the maximum task, showing more than 100 FPS on average with drops not much below this value. That is, with these two video cards and at high settings, maximum smoothness is achieved, which will be especially pleasant on monitors with a maximum refresh rate of 100 Hz.

What can we say about the most powerful graphics processor, GeForce GTX 1070, which, although it slowed down, was only up to 150 FPS on average - such a decrease in frame rate is almost imperceptible from the point of view of real comfort. This once again confirms our assumption that the overall performance of the game depends on the power of the GPU at different graphics settings. This powerful graphics card will provide maximum smoothness not only on a typical monitor with a refresh rate of 60 Hz, but also on more advanced models with their 75, 100 and even 144 Hz. Let's see what happens when setting the maximum quality profile.

Rendering speed in the case of selecting the highest possible graphics settings in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard decreased even more, but the drop on some video cards was quite peculiar. While a pair of video cards with 6 and 8 GB of local memory did not slow down too much, both solutions with 4 GB VRAM immediately failed very badly. With such settings, today's game uses more than 4 GB of data in video memory, and GPUs with this volume (and the GeForce GTX 970, in fact, even less) begin to “crawl” for data in RAM too often, which causes significant reduction in FPS.

The GeForce GTX 960 and GTX 970 clearly lack video memory; they both immediately dropped to a frame rate of 27-32 FPS, which is clearly below the playable level in such a dynamic game. So we strongly recommend disabling shadow caching and lowering the shadow quality setting to High, then the FPS will increase significantly and the game will be quite comfortable even on a GTX 960. But the solutions we have based on the Pascal graphics architecture have a larger amount of VRAM and provide even In such conditions, more than the maximum comfortable 60 FPS on average. The younger GTX 1060 showed a speed of 84 FPS, and the older GTX 1070 completely exceeded the 100 Hz mark - the game is clearly not too demanding on GPU power even at maximum settings.

Resolution 2560x1440 (WQHD)

When setting the rendering resolution to a higher resolution, the performance of Nvidia video cards in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard decreased quite significantly, which confirms the assumption that performance is focused on fill rate and pixel shader execution performance. As a result, the junior model of the previous generation GeForce GTX 960 in WQHD resolution conditions at medium settings was not able to cope with the task of providing maximum comfort of 60 FPS, but it is quite capable of providing comfort with an average of 48 FPS that is quite acceptable for most users. Only the most demanding players will need to lower the settings.

The GeForce GTX 970 is in a noticeably better position; it again shows speeds at the level of the GTX 1060. The average frame rate for both solutions exceeded 80 FPS on average, and this can be considered not just a playable level, but the most comfortable one. Well, the speed of the older Nvidia solution from the current generation of video cards we have in the form of the GeForce GTX 1070 under such conditions is enough to provide an even higher level of performance required for maximum smoothness by players with monitors with a refresh rate of 100 Hz.

When playing with High quality settings at a higher resolution, the weakest video card in our comparison is already slightly lacking in performance even for the minimum acceptable level. The GeForce GTX 960 provided only 38 FPS on average, and this level of performance already slightly does not correspond to the acceptable indicators in our experience; at such a rendering speed, the image does not quickly enough keep up with the player’s actions, and sometimes it is uncomfortable to play, especially considering that it is not yet the most difficult test scene for the game. Owners of such video cards will have to lower the settings a little.

Well, the GeForce GTX 970 at high settings, together with the newer GTX 1060 with 6 GB of video memory, remains at a high level, showing noticeably higher results - 65-66 FPS on average with a minimum 60 FPS, which corresponds to the required performance for Resident Evil 7 even for the most demanding players. And the power of the older Pascal family graphics processor, even in a reduced form, on which the GeForce GTX 1070 video card is based, is enough to ensure even greater smoothness. Nvidia's most powerful graphics card showed an average frame rate of 94 FPS with drops of at least 89 FPS, which is close to the maximum level of smoothness for 100 Hz monitors.

And here again we see that when setting the maximum quality settings in WQHD resolution, the two junior GeForce video cards could not cope with providing acceptable comfort and smoothness even at the minimum level. They are greatly let down by the relatively small amount of video memory, especially if we are talking about the GTX 970, which is theoretically capable of acceptable speeds even in such conditions. Instead, at maximum settings you can see only a jerky slideshow. Both 4 GB video cards failed to please us, showing only 23 and 30 FPS on average with less than 20 minimum frames per second. At maximum settings, even undemanding users will not be able to play on these video cards, and the first step is to disable shadow caching and reduce their quality.

But what about the newer GeForce models, which are also more powerful? Both video cards of the Pascal family were able to provide acceptable comfort and smoothness of the game, but if the younger GeForce GTX 1060 mastered only the minimum comfortable level, showing 50-56 FPS, which is slightly below the bar of 60 stable FPS, then the older GeForce GTX 1070 solution provided a minimum of 71 FPS at an average of 77 frames per second. And it will be very pleasant to play on the older video card from our comparison, getting maximum quality along with excellent smoothness.

While we initially found Resident Evil 7: Biohazard too light for the GPU, as we increased the resolution and settings we saw clear changes - at maximum settings, this game requires both a fairly powerful GPU and a decent amount of VRAM. So the recommended system requirements for the GPU can be considered quite justified, the GeForce GTX 1060 is an excellent choice for the game, and the recommended amount of video memory is even underestimated - 3 GB is clearly not enough for the game at maximum settings.

Conclusion

The graphics in the game, although not bad, are not the most modern from a technological point of view. The new Resident Evil clearly does not set new standards for image quality in games. The engine rather focuses on high performance on all platforms and even more demanding virtual reality (on the PlayStation 4 gaming console). The quality of lighting and shadows in the game is average in terms of technology, but this picture as a whole looks good and is quite suitable for the “horror” atmosphere. The same can be said about the textures - some of them are clearly low-resolution, and the image has artifacts associated with the reduced resolution of rendering additional effects and algorithms, such as real-time reflections and simulated global occlusion. Reflections, fashionable in modern games, look interesting, but clearly require rendering in a higher resolution, which could have been done for the PC version. But there are some of the modern algorithms and techniques, like HBAO+ and TXAA.

But the performance in the game is simply excellent compared to other modern games! The RE Engine is well optimized, and with all the jumps in frame rate with Full HD resolution, even such not very powerful solutions of previous generations as the GeForce GTX 960 and Radeon R9 380, providing more than 60 FPS at high settings and quite acceptable speed at almost maximum settings (if you disable shadow caching and/or reduce their quality). But since game performance scales linearly depending on the resolution (the number of pixels processed), then in 4K resolution everything will not be so great. Even at 2560x1440, achieving a stable 60 FPS requires GPUs of the GeForce GTX 1060 and Radeon RX 480 level and above, so those with weaker GPUs and 4K monitors will have to lower the rendering resolution or use interlaced rendering mode.

As for central processors, in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard it is advisable to use mid-level processors, preferably quad-core ones. But top models are not required; during our research, our fairly powerful test processor was loaded with work at an average level of only 20-30%, and this is noticeably below the average level for modern games. In addition, the rendering speed in the tests was not limited by the capabilities of one of the CPU cores and was always limited by graphics processors. So the game just needs an average processor, although a too weak one is also unlikely to work.

The game's RAM requirements are small by modern standards - the system when running the game Resident Evil 7: Biohazard consumes somewhere from 4 to 5 GB of system memory, and the stated 8 GB is more than enough even taking into account the reserves and requirements of the operating system. But the game’s video memory requirements are more complicated. Traditionally for modern games, Resident Evil 7 consumes much more video memory than it needs during operation. At medium settings, the game can take up to 3-4 GB of memory, at high settings it can be 4-6 GB, and at maximum settings, VRAM consumption can reach 8 GB. But the key word here is “occupy”, and it is quite possible to play even on video cards with 2-3 GB at medium-high settings in Full HD resolution, when resources can take up to 4-6 GB in memory on video cards with a large capacity VRAM.

The behavior of the RE Engine is typical for modern projects; it loads as much data as possible into local memory, allowing you to quickly retrieve it whenever possible, although the game remains quite comfortable even with a smaller amount of video memory. But still, on video cards with 4 GB or less, it is not recommended to set everything to maximum, since problems with smoothness immediately begin and short-term decreases in FPS are observed - disabling shadow caching does not help at all. This is especially noticeable in the results of the GeForce GTX 970, which has 3.5+0.5 GB of video memory, which at high settings was close to the GeForce GTX 1060, and at maximum it was only slightly ahead of the much slower overall GeForce GTX 960.

In general, with Full HD resolution and medium settings, the minimum required is 2 GB, and at high settings, video cards with 4 GB can cope with the task; you just need to disable shadow caching or reduce their quality one step from the maximum possible value. 6-8 GB options will allow you to use shadow caching to improve performance, easily setting maximum settings at 2560x1440 pixels when 4 GB is clearly not enough. For 4K gaming, the minimum allowed size is 4 GB, but for maximum smoothness we would recommend using graphics cards with 6 GB of memory.