Defining and Measuring Performance Characteristics of Current Video Games

In this paper, we provide a study of current PC video games’ performance across several different metrics conducted at the Intel Labs. As a hardware manufacturer, Intel needs to look at the performance characteristics of these applications on its current hardware. The information is used to help predict future processor needs and performance characteristics. Additionally, the information can help Independent Software Vendors (ISV) understand opportunities to improve their applications in the future. Furthermore, as an educational institution we have the suggestion of a measurement set-up that we can use for practical lectures in Computer Architecture education. The main findings are that the CPU and memory are no bottleneck for current games and that e.g. SIMD-instructions are more widely used than assumed. An important result is also that the Scalable Link Interface (SLI) does not necessarily improve performance.