For a long time, I have wondered how would enabling full antivirus protection, affect the gaming experience. I decided that I shall not waste more time pondering and to effect the tests immediately. I do not have any suitable computer to test out the games; so I first called on Lenovo for assistance. My main requirement is for them to provide a suitable medium range notebook that I can use for gaming. This is part of the aim. I want to make casual gaming an enjoyable yet safe experience.

Lenovo Ideapad Y460

So this is the notebook that Lenovo, through Text100, loaned to me. The configuration for this notebook are as follow;

Windows 7 Home Premium

Intel Core i5-430M Processor @ 2.27GHz

Ati Mobility Radeon HD5750

4GB Memory

With this  basic configuration, I am all set to effect the tests. Just for reader’s benefit, the Lenovo Ideapad Y460 is retailing at $1,399.

Here’s a short video, detailing how I go about creating the baseline to use as the benchmark. Although I mentioned using Futuremark 3DMark & PCMark, I did not use them, prefering to depend on Cinebench R10. Also, although Avast was mentioned, I did not use that, I replaced it with Kaspersky’s latest antivirus, PURE.

Cinebench Screenshot

This is a screenshot of the Cinebench R10(latest on website is R11.5). This tool measures two main components – the CPU and the graphics processing power.

Here are the benchmarks.

Higher numbers represent best results.

From this table alone, we can generally assume that, Trend Micro Internet Security Pro and McAfee Total Protection, comes the closest to the benchmark. These antivirus products have been chosen because they offer continuous realtime scanning & protection, continuous network polling for new updates(especially for Norton 360 & Kaspersky PURE who depend on crowd-sourced database). At no time, did the notebook hang while the Cinebench tests were conducted. It should be noted that all the anti-virus have had their database updated, prior to the tests. For Kaspersky PURE, it should be noted that database updating can take as long as one hour. Tests was conducted only upon successful update of the database.

Crysis Screenshot

Testing benchmark alone is not enough. I need to feel for myself how it feels like, putting the notebook towards the rigorous testing of playing actual games. Crysis and BlackShot was chosen for this test. Crysis, in highest configuration, maxes out computing power as well as the graphic card capabilities. BlackShot is an online First Person Shooter(FPS) game which depends a lot on network reliability.

The tests was conducted over a period of 5 days, testing at various times of the day & night to ensure that I have a mean gauge on it, to discount network latency that may occur from time to time.

From my own experience, there is not much effect of the antivirus on the gameplay. This should be good for all the antivirus products mentioned as there aren’t any critical point of contention.

A point to note, that for Kaspersky PURE, it somehow affect the video playback during the cut-scenes of Crysis. Thereafter, a little bit of buffering during game play was experienced. This is not experienced when tested with other antivirus.

In summary, it is generally fine to leave the antivirus turned on when playing games, be they computing & graphic process or network bandwidth dependent. Please be reminded again that this test is conducted using a medium performance range of notebook series. I think it is a safe practise to leave the security products on, so that we can play game without worrying that we are opening up our computer to virus attacks. Besides, certain games make use of Internet browsing engine to display in-game statistics. This is an avenue for malware or spyware to intrude into the computer.