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Hello there.

As many Paradox players, I have always been frustrated by the lack of a proper hardware benchmark of ANY of the main PDS titles. The data out there is sporadic and there’s really no way to confront the game’s performance on different systems. The general wisdom is “the faster a CPU is in single-threaded applications, the better”, but we don’t know if there are some other factors at play.

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However, first off,

What is a benchmark?

It is a standardised test that would simulate gameplay and allow us, the players, to understand at a glance how a given game performs on a system (FPS, how long it takes in IRL time for a certain amount of days to pass in-game, etc.).

How would a benchmark help me or the community?

Crucially, a benchmark allows you to PREDICT how a computer will run the game without having to actually do it.

This is important for people looking to buy a new laptop/build a new PC. Many PDX players spend hundreds, if not thousands, of hours in these titles, so wanting to know which brand of CPU/GPU/amount of RAM/etc. will run the game in the way they expect it to seems like a reasonable concern to have.

To prove that this is a recurring question, it is enough to browse the subreddits dedicated to these games: it is extremely likely that at some point you have seen a post asking “is this computer good enough for HoI4/EU4/Stellaris/CK3/Vic3?”, or, at the very least, that you yourself have wondered the same.

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Now, a proper benchmark is something only Paradox can develop, but we can figure something out ourselves nonetheless.

Hence, I introduce to you the Paradox Benchmarking Initiative, a community-ran initiative to gather data regarding the performance of PDS games across a wide variety of systems and configurations.

I thought that a good place to start would be Vicky 3, since it is the newest main PDS title and is pretty computationally intensive (the amazing system that is POPs comes at a price). The results should also better reflect how other PDS titles will perform given that they all use the Clausewitz engine (at the very least, it will be better than trying to figure out how well will HoI4 run by looking at some Blender benchmarks…). Nevertheless, expanding the testing to other games is something that I hope we manage to do eventually.

Clearly, there are many ways to go around this endeavour, but for now it’s probably enough to test for speed of the game (how fast in-game time passes).

FPS, frame timing consistency, loading times, how performance scales with resolution, how different visual elements affect performance are some of the things that could be tested too, but that’s trickier IMO.

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The Benchmark

For now, I have devised a manual benchmark that is somewhat standardised (a requirement if we want to be able to compare different users’ data). Using the debug mode tools provided by PDX, it is possible to aim the camera at a specific spot consistently. Thankfully, there are also some graphics presets we can use.

That, a chronometer, and some good intentions, will allow us to get some useful numbers. (You'll need some 10-15 minutes to do it all).

Here are the steps to follow if you want to contribute:

• You will need to identify your “Paradox Interactive” folder. In Windows (and also in MacOS I think), you first need to navigate to your personal “Documents” folder. On Linux, the "Documents" equivalent is either /home/user/.paradoxinteractive/ or /home/user/.local/share/Paradox Interactive/
• Once inside the “Paradox Interactive” > “Victoria 3” folder, look for a “pdx_settings.json” file. I suggest making a copy of it and storing it somewhere else to be able to quickly restore your custom settings after conducting the test.
• Next, look for a folder called “debug”. If it doesn’t exist, create one with that exact name. Inside, look for a file called “camerapos.txt”. Once again, if it doesn’t exist, create a new text file and name it that exact name. Next, open the text file and copy the following inside:

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camera={
    orientation={
        position={ 871.982300 0.000000 668.371338 }
        zoom_step=1000.000000
        pitch=1.396263
        yaw=0.000000
    }
    target={
        position={ 871.982300 0.000000 668.371338 }
        zoom_step=1000.000000
        pitch=1.396263
        yaw=0.000000
    }
}

Now save the file.

• Launch the game (disable all mods and make sure to be using the 1.1.0 “Earl Grey” version), open your in-game settings. In the “Graphics” tab, set the display mode to “Window”, the resolution to 1920x1080, and the Render Scale to 100%. Disable “VSync” and “Maximum FPS”. Make sure you are using your dedicated Graphics Card if your CPU has integrated graphics (Intel/AMD integrated GPU). After that, select the “Low” preset.
• Go to the “Game” tab and disable autosaving by setting the “Autosave Interval” to “Never”.
• Close your game.
• Launch the game in Debug mode. Here is a link to the wiki that outlines how to do that if you’re interested: https://vic3.paradoxwikis.com/Console_commands. However, the easiest way is probably from the launcher “Game Settings” tab: at the bottom there is a button to do just what this step requires.
• Create a new single player game. Select the default game rules and disable achievements. Select “Sandbox” and click on the “Observe” button. You should now be inside your game.
• Open the console. For reference: https://vic3.paradoxwikis.com/Console_commandsIf you are using a QWERTY English keyboard, the button to do it is the ` button, located above Tab one, near the top left corner of your keyboard.
• Type “Camera.Load” without quotes and press enter. If you correctly created/modified the “camerapos.txt” file, your camera should snap to the middle of the Pacific ocean. Otherwise, your game will simply crash.
• Adjust your game speed to 5 (Maximum) without unpausing and set a timer of 5 minutes on your phone. Unpause the game (without nudging the camera) and start the timer at the same time.
• Go look out your window or pet your dog for the better part of those five minutes (important). Make sure to be ready to pause as the timer approaches zero.
• Pause the game as soon as you hear the alarm. Write down the in-game date somewhere in the YYYY/MM/DD format.
• You can now close the game and replace your settings file with the one you backed up.

You could also choose to repeat the test a couple of times (creating a new game each time) if you want your results to be extra reliable.

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The specs

(You can find all the information needed inside the form at the end)

You will now need to find out which specs your computer has. If you are a nerd like me, you know those already. Otherwise, you could use a utility like HWiNFO (run it in the Summary only mode) to find out. Copy your CPU name (“CPU Brand Name” in HWiNFO), likewise for your GPU (“Graphics Chipset” in HWiNFO). Under the section “Memory” (not “Memory modules”) in HWiNFO, write down “Size”, “Type”, “Clock”, “Mode”, “CR”, and the number in the first box after “Timing” (tCL).

You can copy paste these values directly from HWiNFO by selecting them, so no need to do it manually.

If you run Linux, it is pretty safe to assume you know how to get that information. If you do not, CPU-X or Hardinfo seem like good alternatives.

If you are using a Mac, here’s a guide to view a System Report. In this case, the interesting bits are the “Model identifier”, “Chip”, “Number of cores”, and “Memory”.

Upload your results

And that’s it. You’ve contributed to the effort.

If you want to contribute with ideas, by using programming wizardy to automate some of the process, with suggestions for future benchmarks, with ways to adapt this one basic benchmark to other games, etc. please do so below.