Left 4 Dead: Ruthlessly efficient

We’ve all been frothing at the mouth about braaaaains Left 4 Dead on From the Labs and our last podcast, and with good reason, because we’re all zombies it’s a terrfic game. As well as being lots of fun to play though, it’s also ruthlessly efficient when it comes to hardware.

I’ve been benchmarking the game for the last few days in preparation for a forthcoming feature where we’re going to look at how to get the best performance in a massive selection of games, and Left 4 Dead is just incredible in terms of how low its demands are for graphics hardware. So low in fact, that even a card 18 months old such as the GeForce 8800 GT can run it at 1,900 x 1,200 at full detail. I decided just how low down the graphics hardware food chain I could go, and so borrowed a Radeon 4350 from PC Pro. You can buy a 4350 for just over £30 on Scan, which is only a bit more than the game itself costs. Amazingly, the 4350, despite having only 80 stream processors - 10 times less than the HD4850 - can actually play the game at medium detail settings at 1,440 x 900 or 1,280 x 1,024. At times, it’s a couple of FPS below a smooth 25fps minimum, but I was testing it in the final chapter of the No Mercy campaign, when you’re on a large, open area rooftop and being attacked by hundreds of zombies. There’s a lot going on and yet the game felt perfectly playable and looked decent too.

So, there you have it - one more reason why absolutley anyone with a PC and a pulse should play Left 4 Dead. Even the most basic PC hardware will give you a good experience in the game.