ATI Radeon 5870 Eyefinity6 Review - Batman: Arkham Asylum

Batman: Arkham Asylum is the well received action title by Rocksteady. The game offers very detailed environments with a great visual style and high quality. There are known issues with AA using ATI cards. You cannot set the AA level from within the game, and have to force it with the Catalyst Control panel. All settings within the game were maxed out. I used 4xAA with Adaptive Multi-Sampling (the balance between Quality and Performance) from within the CCC.

The AA implementation produces a greater than expected impact on the performance. I know there are ways to tweak the game to use the AA from within the game itself. However, I believe finding the information and implementing it is beyond the average gamer. While an enthusiast (i.e., target market of both the WSGF and this card) might go through the trouble, many mainstream gamers will not. My testing actually ran all the way down through the Radeon HD 5450, and using the "native" options provided the most consistent platform for testing.

The games runs like a demon in normal widescreen on any of these cards, with 4xAA. However, performance takes the expected hits and Eyefinity, and this is what we are really here to test. At the native resolutions of 5760x1200 (3x1920x1200), the game literally crawls with 4xAA on the 1GB card. Adding the additional VRAM provides playable experience, though it doesn't crack 60fps. In the end, you will have to make some adjustments to hit 60fps, and dropping to 2xAA gives massive speed improvements.

Batman:AA (pun actually not intended) is a unique title. It is made well, and plays well, but technical issues can really hamper performance. The addition of the extra 1GB shows how an increased frame buffer helps as AA increases. However, in this one instance the better choice is obviously to turn down the settings based on the shortcomings in development.

Our "Gold Standard" for testing is to use 4xAA/16xAF. In this once instance that just doesn't seem feasible. In dropped the settings to 2xAA we hit 42fps on a single Eyefinity6. Adjusting the AA type to MSAA (from Adaptive MSAA) made no difference.

Hitting 60fps

Turning off AA allows you to hit 60fps with a single Eyefinity6. I also hit 57fps with 2xAA and lowering the settings to "High" from "Very High." The only difference this makes is to turn off Ambient Occlusion.