CPU-Dependent 3D Gaming

Street Fighter IV uses a new, built-from-scratch graphics engine that enables CAPCOM to tune the visuals and performance to fit the needs of the game, as well as run well on lower-end hardware. Although the engine is based on DX9 capabilities, it does add soft shadows, High Dynamic Range lighting, depth of field effects, and motion blur to enhance the game experience.

The game is multi-threaded, with rendering, audio, and file I/O all running in different threads. The development team has also worked to maintain a relatively constant CPU load in all parts of the game so that on-screen performance does not change dramatically in different game scenarios.

I ran the Street Fighter IV benchmark at its lowest resolution (640x480) with all graphical features turned down to the minimum possible settings. This makes the video card much less of a factor in the results, biasing towards processor performance. Intel CPUs dominate here, and the near-equality of the 2600K and Sandy Bridge Extreme scores probably means that the game benchmark simply isn't using all of the threads available on the latter.

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