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Tomb Raider In Technical Checks

The new Tomb Raider Lara Croft, the hair of the young are particularly spectacular with simulated AMD TressFX technology. But how high are the system requirements?


The protagonist of Tomb Raider needs no introduction - Lara Croft is an icon of gaming history and even non-gamblers known. The archaeologist with the (so far) characteristic shorts, top and ponytail gymnastics and it is now 17 years since the world's history. For years, took care of this developer Core Design for the sequels. However, after the desolate Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness Crystal Dynamics took over the helm.


in the new adventures we go along with Lara on a time Rip and experience the transformation of the student towards the hard hitting power-woman. Content that is rotating at Tomb Raider is all about the beginnings, but technically the title is top-to-date and shows us the prettiest so far Lara. What hardware do you need to really enjoy the spectacular graphics of Tomb Raider, we can examine the technical checks. To put the young Lara in the right light, uses its own developer Crystal Dynamics Crystal engine. The already came in Tomb Raider Legend to use and also formed the basis for Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The graphics framework supports DirectX 11 and tessellation controls and ambient occlusion (SSAO). The technologies and effects contribute their part to the fact that Tomb Raider is also graphically a real highlight of the series. In addition, actor awarded the characters facial expressions and gestures and motion capture offered by the model for Lara's buttery smooth animations.


Tomb Raider is also one of the first games that support AMD's TressFX technology. The hair simulation was developed in collaboration with developer Crystal Dynamic and makes for a more realistic image of Lara's brown mane. Using DirectCompute for DirectX 11 not calculated TressFX the head of hair as a static object, but simulates thousands of strands of hair at the same time. Here, a chain with dozens of joints is the basis for every strand, leaving the hair thus particularly lifelike blow in the wind. Even gravity and moisture affect the behavior and appearance of hair. The calculation of the hair is impressive, but also very expensive. Especially Nvidia Geforce cards have their hands full with TressFX and cut in the test usually worse than their AMD counterparts. But on Radeon graphics cards will cost a lot of hair simulator performance.

Anyone who would like an overview of the capabilities of its hardware itself, which is the main menu of Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider own benchmark at hand. This shows Lara standing on a cliff and looking at the vast sea. The camera orbiting the archeologist it several times. Since the focus here is particularly on Lara and their hair, the round trip indeed provides a rough guide, technology as the basis for a check but it is not suitable. In the game itself, we Lara see most of the time with some distance over the shoulder, where the representation of the hair plays a minor role and as long as we zoom in not very close to the young heroine, the impact falls on the frame rate also significantly lower than in play their own benchmark.



With its great lighting, detailed textures and DirectX 11 effects, Tomb Raider delivers a great visual impression. Nevertheless, the game already satisfied with a mid-range PC, the capability of smooth gaming experience then you should, however, refrain from TressFX and demanding SSAA antialiasing. As is so often the graphics card is critical, it should be here at least a GTX 460 or Radeon HD 5770 to be. It plays really smoothly on high detail from a GeForce GTX 560 Ti or Radeon HD 6870 . Put a Geforce GTX 680 or Radeon HD 7970 in the computer, the frame rate drops only rarely with TressFX and SSAA at 30 frames per second. Otherwise should be 2.0 GB of RAM and a processor from a Core 2 Duo E6600 shock or AMD Athlon X2 6000 + stuck in the computer. More memory, higher-clocked CPUs or more than two cores Tomb Raider benefited little.
Update: Meanwhile, Nvidia has released an update on Steam in order to fix the problems with Geforce cards. The graphical errors and crashes are a thing of the past; also support the SSAA antialiasing is improved. In the test, it comes at least with Nvidia cards but still too sporadic crashes and problems with the Tress FX hair.
Original message : Warning: Irrespective of the difficulties with AMD technology TressFX messages piling up of players with Nvidia Geforce cards about crashes, drops the frame rate and massive graphical glitches in the new Tomb Raider. At least the latter we were able to discover in the test. According to a statement from Nvidia is already working on a solution, but do not expect it before the end of the month. Until then, you should disable antialiasing SSAA and tessellation to avoid display errors and crashes. In the test worked, a guaranteed solution but it is not.

Tomb Raider System Requirements

System requirements for 1920x1080, Ultra, 2x SSAA TressFX

Graphics card: Nvidia Geforce GTX 670 or AMD Radeon HD 7950 Processor: Intel Core i5 2400 or AMD Phenom II X4 920 RAM: 4.0 GB

System requirements for 1920x1080, Ultra, FXAA, no TressFX 

Graphics card: Nvidia Geforce GTX 560 Ti or Radeon HD 6870 Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 or AMD Athlon X2 6000 + RAM: 2.0 GB

System requirements for 1920x1080, high, no antialiasing 

Graphics card: Nvidia Geforce GTS 450 or ATI Radeon HD 5750 Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 or AMD Athlon X2 4400 + Memory 2.0 GB

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