Change is good! As part of the Eurogamer redesign, I'm delighted to reveal something pretty special we've been working on for quite some time - a complete revamp of the way we showcase our benchmarks of PC games and hardware, giving you unprecedented access to the entirety of the data we put together for our reviews.
So what's the big deal? Well, it's really simple. The new Eurogamer benchmarking system gives you as much - or as little - performance data as you want. The new widget we've put together is aimed at readers using the desktop version of the site (by necessity, mobile users get a simpler table-based rendition of the data). For the purposes of showing the new tech in action, we've run benchmarks for the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 and AMD Radeon RX 580 (specifically the MSI Gaming X varieties) using Far Cry 5, captured at 1080p, 1440p and 4K resolutions.
The YouTube video embed shows the content we're analysing, and beneath that are two graphs, showing frame-rate on the left and frame-time on the right - this should be recognisable if you've seen our YouTube benchmarking videos. The former offers a more general overview of performance, while the latter offers a per-frame look at how the content renders - the smoother the line, the less stutter there is in the experience. You get to see how that plays out synchronised with the video, a set-up which reveals what content may be causing performance problems.
Additionally, what's new and cool here is that you can choose the data you want to compare - up to a maximum of four entries from the available selection. To the right of the video, you'll see the available benchmark data points - just tick what you want to see. GTX 1060 vs RX 580 at 1080p? No problem. Adding 1440p data for both cards on the fly? Go for it. Or maybe you just want to see how one of the cards scales across 1080p, 1440p and 4K? Just tick the appropriate entries and you're good to go. You can even skip around the YouTube video and the graphs will adjust accordingly. Everything can be chopped and changed in real-time, as the video plays.
Previously, we've used the per-frame data we have and burned it into the videos, embedding them in our CPU and GPU reviews. However, the new system is far more useful in that you get to choose what data points and comparisons you want to see. Now, adding in new data can sometimes result in the graph range not encompassing everything you've selected - this is not a problem, you can click on the reset button and the ranges change accordingly.
Lots more detail and the interactive stuff is found in the full article.
This is a great step forward IMO.
