Call of Duty: Black Ops III’s release is less than 24 hours away and players have begun to pre-load the game. As with any last minute pre-order, it’s important to adopt a skeptical attitude and research the performance from first hand accounts. Unfortunately, due to embargoes, key information is usually kept secretive and it’s difficult to make a decision as an informed consumer. In an ideal world, people shouldn’t pre-order video games but this isn’t a realistic notion given the huge array of pre-order incentives and heavy marketing policy.
In the case of COD: Black Ops III, the developer has been surprisingly transparent regarding the game’s features and answered a number of key concerns. Firstly, the game will support SLI and ultra high resolutions:
@ClubbyDubby Yes. Looks sweet in 4K!
— pcdev (@pcdev) November 4, 2015
Additionally, the engine is more GPU bound which means the CPU overhead should be reduced. Although, this doesn’t mean there won’t be a CPU bottleneck on older chips. In most cases, the performance drop on should be minimal if you’re running a relatively modern CPU from the last 5 years.
@fresh_muffins GPU power is more important in this engine.
— pcdev (@pcdev) November 5, 2015
Sadly, it seems AMD users will have to wait for a driver update to properly utilize crossfire configurations:
@Horschl You'll have to wait untill AMD releases their new driver.
— pcdev (@pcdev) November 4, 2015
Other notable features include mod support, user-created maps, dedicated servers and reduced mouse lag. When combined, this seems like a fantastic PC release which is surprising given Call of Duty’s history. However, only time will tell if this works properly throughout the game’s user-base.
Now I’m getting interested!