Codemasters F1 2010 Performance Analysis & High Resolution Screenshots

One of the most anticipated games of 2010 is definitely the F1 game from Codemasters, which was released today. As usual, it is time to test it and see how it performs. We'll use a Q6600 at 3.6Ghz, 4GB DDR2 and a GTX295. Thankfully, Nvidia has already an SLI profile so we won't have to mess around with the SLI compatibility flags.

The game takes advantage of quadcores as we can see bellow. F1 2010 is CPU bound and it really needs a high-end CPU. Even though we had our Q6600 at 3.6Ghz, our framerate was not ideal (meaning, constant 60fps) and the CPU usage was 65-80%. To truly shine, F1 2010 needs a CPU with more cache, so be grateful if you have a Q9x50 or an i5/i7. We simulated a E6600 by disabling two of our cores and performance dropped around 10-18% (5-11fps).
As you may have guessed, the CPU usage to our simulated dualcore was great (90-95%). Due to our CPU limitations, our GPU usage was only 50-70% at 1600x1200 + 8xMSAA + Ultra Details. This means that F1 2010 doesn't tax the GPU as you may have expected and we could up the resolution even more without any significant performance hit. This also might be a driver issue with the Nvidia cards, although we experienced low GPU usage too with an AMD/ATI 5870.

It's really weird to witness this kind of performance, as Codemasters previous games were better optimized and run extremely well. Given the fact that F1 2010 seems to rely so much to the CPU, we don't expect to see patches that will offer better performance. Still, a driver update from Nvidia could make miracles and due to the amazing motion blur effects that Codies implemented, the game feels smooth even at 40fps.

Enjoy the following screenshots and if you're a fan of F1, buy the game!