THE LORD OF THE RINGS, THE BATTLE FOR MIDDLE-EARTH PERFORMANCE
Performance in The Lord of The Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth (LOTR BFME) was determined using the game replay capability. Having picked up this title during the review left me with little time to play the game. I began searching for replay files and discovered a replay hosting discussion board at GameReplays.org.
LOTR BFME
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After playing back through various parts of 10 replays, I settled on using the replay LordOrc_vs_1._Moony.rep (84 KB). Positioning the view in the center of the map and fast-forwarding through the first two minutes of the replay reveals the following scene.
LOTR BFME
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At this point, the replay speed was changed back to normal. The frame rate, which was displayed via Fraps, was monitored from this position for a period of two minutes at which time the lowest frame rate was recorded. During the two minutes, a couple of minor skirmishes against Rohan Warriors took place. Sound was also enabled during this test.
LOTR BFME Settings
The custom resolutions that I created via the driver control panel Screen Resolutions & Refresh Rates applet appear in the in-game display options. Custom resolutions were especially beneficial with 8XS AA as acceptable performance could be realized at resolutions greater than 1280x960.
Custom Resolutions
Note that the frame rate in LOTR BFME is capped at 30 frames per second. My goal in this test was to determine the settings that could maintain a constant 30 fps throughout the entire benchmark, which is shown in the following results.
