This year's word-of-mouth masterpiece is none other than "Baldur's Gate 3". In the recent TGA 2023, "Baldur's Gate 3" won 8 nominations. Although the final winners have not yet been announced, Baldur's Gate 3 has been recognized by many players as TGA's Game of the Year 2023. So what kind of performance will the OMEN Shadow Elf 9 game book, which is also the popular of the year, perform in the face of Baldur's Gate 3?
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The hardware specifications and software versions of OMEN 9 participating in the test are shown in the figure below. During the test, enable Berserk mode and select Direct GPU (NVIDIA GPU only).
1. Hardware requirements analysis and test image quality settings.
As an RPG, Baldur's Gate 3 is not particularly demanding in terms of hardware. The official recommended configuration is i7-8700K+RTX 2060 Super, which is equivalent to a mid-to-high-end gaming PC 5 years ago, and it can also run smoothly. However, there are two points to note, one is the resolution, the corresponding resolution is not mentioned in the hardware requirements, and my personal guess should be 1080p;The other is the requirement for hard drives, which not only mandate SSDs, but also have a capacity of at least 150GB, which is exaggerated.
OMEN OMEN Shadow Phantom 9 uses a combination of i9-13900HX + RTX 4060 LAPTOP, which is far beyond the official recommended configuration. But OMEN OMEN 9 has a screen resolution of 25K, the actual game runtime has higher hardware requirements, which needs to be verified in the actual test. In addition, OMEN OMEN Shadow Phantom 9 comes pre-installed with 1TB PCIe40 SSD, perfect for gaming hard drives.
Considering the performance of OMEN Shadow Wizard 9 overflow, the measured image quality is directly full: the resolution is 2560x1440, turn off vertical sync, turn off the upper limit of frame rate, turn off DLSS, the overall preset selection is extremely high, that is, the highest image quality, and run the API to select Vulkan.
2. Frame rate, temperature and power consumption curve analysis.
The route chosen was to travel from the Livington waypoint to the South Wing checkpoint, and eventually engage in a conversation and battle with the guards at the South Wing checkpoint. The whole process can be divided into three parts, namely the marching part, the dialogue part and the combat part, and I believe that when you play this game, you will also cycle between these three parts.
Let's start with the frame rate curve.
As you can see from the frame rate curve, the overall frame rate is concentrated between 60 and 90 fps, most of the time between 70 and 80 fps, and the average frame rate is 78 fps, and the smoothness is no problem. The first short segment of the frame rate curve (about the first eighth) is the moving part, which is maintained at more than 70 frames, and the frame rate does not change significantlyThis is followed by the dialogue section (about one-eighth of the total), which fluctuates relatively much due to the fact that the screen switches between different characters during the dialogue and the player needs to choose the content of the dialogue, with the highest and lowest frames also appearing here, but it has little to no impact on the game experience. The last three-quarters is the combat part, and because it's turn-based, the frame rate is high, basically maintained at around 80 frames, and the stability is also very good.
It seems that even at the highest image quality of 2K, OMEN OMEN 9 runs Baldur's Gate 3 very smoothly and reliably guarantees the gaming experience.
Next, let's take a look at the temperature profile of the processor and graphics card.
As you can see from the temperature curve, the temperature of the processor is higher than that of the graphics card. The processor temperature is generally stable between 80 and 95, and most of the time it is stable at around 85;The graphics card temperature is basically stable around 80, and the change is very small. In fact, you can also see the corresponding game scenes from the temperature curve, especially the part where the temperature of the processor and graphics card fluctuates relatively largely, which is obviously the dialogue part of the game. As for the marching and combat parts that affect the gaming experience, the temperature of the processor is stable at about 85, and the temperature of the graphics card is stable at about 80, and the temperature control is ideal.
It seems that OMEN OMEN 9 can easily withstand the pressure of Baldur's Gate 3, and with the blessing of Cool Storm cooling technology, the core does not appear to be too hot. However, it can also be seen that the requirements for processors in "Baldur's Gate 3" are significantly higher than those of other triple-A masterpieces.
Finally, let's take a look at the power curves of the processor and graphics card.
The fluctuation of the power consumption curve is basically the same as the temperature curve, except for the fluctuation of the dialogue part, the power consumption of the graphics card has basically been stable at about 110W, which is also the maximum power consumption of the RTX 4060 graphics card in actual games. The processor power consumption is also maintained between 50-60W, which is actually on the high side in a triple-A game. For reference, during the operation of Cyberpunk 2077, the power consumption of the processor is basically stable at 30-40W. It can be seen from this that Baldur's Gate 3 is more dependent on the processor, and the i9-13900HX carried by OMEN OMEN 9 plays a very important role.
Especially in the conversation phase, you can see that the power consumption of the graphics card has decreased, while the power consumption of the processor has skyrocketed. At this time, the full blood performance of OMEN Shadow Phantom 9 is particularly important, and the power consumption of the processor can soar to more than 80W in an instant, which plays a role in stabilizing the frame rate. This also explains why the game's dialogue part of the processor is hotter than the others.
On the whole, OMEN Shadow Wizard 9 has a good performance in the face of 2K highest-quality "Baldur's Gate 3", both in smoothness and temperature control, and the full blood performance can also play a role in stabilizing the frame rate when the scene changes.
3. The game experience of the march, dialogue and combat sections.
Finally, let's talk about the experience during the actual game.
In the marching section, I used the highest top-down lens, so I could see the characters and road conditions more clearly. It is precisely because there are many NPCs and building scenarios in this process, and they are constantly changing, so the requirements for processors are higher. With a frame rate of more than 70 frames, it is relatively smooth for a top-down lens that is always moving, providing a very comfortable viewing experience.
In the dialogue section, the game camera will change to heads-up, and it is relatively fixed, and the player needs to choose the dialogue content to trigger different plots or missions. At this point, the player will focus on dialogue selection, so the frame rate has little impact on the game experience. OMEN offers a frame rate of over 60 frames per second and doesn't drop a lot, which is completely adequate.
In the combat part, the game camera comes to the top again, and the picture changes are relatively small, so the game frame rate is higher, basically stable at about 80 frames, and the character's attack action and skill release are relatively smooth.
Through the above analysis, it can be seen that the perspective and gameplay of the game "Baldur's Gate 3" are destined not to require too high a frame rate, but the stability of the frame rate when switching between different scenes is more important. In this regard, OMEN OMEN 9 stands out in terms of frame rate stability thanks to its excellent hardware specifications and full-blooded performance, allowing players to enjoy crisp details and smooth graphics without any burden.
Fourth, summary. From the actual experience, OMEN OMEN 9 runs Baldur's Gate 3 at 2K with the highest image quality without any pressure. Especially when it comes to frame rate stability, which the game relies heavily on, OMEN OMEN 9 shows a lot of dominance. There is no doubt that OMEN 9 easily took Baldur's Gate 3 and made the game run smoothly and stably, and the performance was excellent.