Review: Metro Exodus: PC graphics performance analysis

In many games you can adjust settings to get better performance at minimal IQ loss. Metro will be no different. Those who willy nilly choose ultra for all settings just dont know how to make the most out of their GPUs/games.

 

Unfortunately, graphics cards now cost £1000+ for the highest level, and having to rely on manufacturer warranties isn't as easy as it sounds.

 

Come on, lets face it, we knew RT in its early stages is essentially crap. Just avoid it and enjoy your games without it for time being.

 

I think it is a matter of hand crafted and placed lighting vs machine automated.
Artistic capability will always trump automation as far as preference goes (at least that is my assumption). This is why movies place lights in places they shouldn't be to artificially illuminate scenes, especially around faces and such. Sometimes "correct" or "natural" just isn't the best for the scene.

 

Thanks mr Hilbert for this bench and you show us performance with real tracing.

Ofc,original image is better and not darker,as Rtx on.Its like a opac filter for people with shining eyes.

 

They actually look less realistic than shadowless rendering. It is due to extreme contrast and too dark shadows, half way would be the best.

 

You can always play with dark/light ratios to come up with a desired atmosphere/mood.
But no matter how much I fiddle with say x-ray Sun/atmosphere variables I can come up with an image setting that is convincing in all possible conditions (day/night/rain/cloudy/indoor/outdoor)

OTOH RT produces physically accurate lighting.
And that bright spot beneath a chair in otherwise dark room is there because the Sun found a hole in the wooden structure, or it got there in some other physically realistic way. It's not there because a programmer decided out-of-the-blue to put a light source in what's supposed to be a dark room.

 

Those screenshot comparisons with the indoor lighting just reminds me of Half Life 2 fullbright vs soft shadows.

I can't help but feel that this is more of a technical demo showcasing lighting/reflections done in hardware automatically without needing to have additional development time with inhouse engine software coding to implement the same effects because without RTX, it looks like there is little lighting and shadow effects used at all.

Without RTX it's a noticeable regression in quality compared to games that have been released using traditional shadow and specular maps, physically based lighting and screen space effects we've come to expect anyway.

 

No idea how one could reasonably expect 4k60 out of this one.
Previous dev game history says you can not.
Game looks good to me. My most anticipated GOTY. Shame I won't buy it.
And yes, that is 100% my choice. That particular one can't be taken away from me. =)

 

I actually prefer this implementation over BF5. but sometimes it seems like the scene is way too dark because they never took ray tracing into account so early in the development

 

True, but such games pushed the technology envelope and encouraged the development of more powerful hardware. I remember when I got my GTX 780 - I tested out multiple games on the highest setting and it ran like butter until it came to Crysis 3, which ran like molasses. I was a little dismayed to see my brand new, high-end, water-cooled GPU being spanked by this game but it provided an impetus for more powerful hardware - when I got a GTX 1080 the first thing I did was run Crysis 3.

Nowadays, there is no overriding urge or need to get the latest and greatest - it's mostly for e-peen purposes now. Even for those who play at 4K it's about getting a perfect 60 FPS, whereas before we were looking for baseline playable framerates (> 30 FPS).

As for Metro Exodus, I'll probably have to play it on my 2.5K monitor (and I have a Pascal so no need to consider RT or DLSS). I might briefly try on my 4K monitor but I generally prefer higher frames for first-person shooter (my 2.5K monitor is 165hz). Not sure if it'll be a day one purchase - might wait a bit for game-breaking bugs or patches. I have to say though, I have a strong urge to get a 2080 since I love eye candy and this game's RT actually seems to make a difference (at least in indoor scenes).

 

TBH, i am somewhat behind regarding nvidia's new tech. From the little research i did and demos i saw, at least for water effects, the differences on how the water looks in Half Life 2 and some newer RTX demos arent that big to justify all the fuss about it, lol.
ok, its a new tech, maybe it needs to mature a bit and next gen cards will bring some more benefits for us.

 

If you meant that 1st image in train coupe with guitar man, then I have bad news:
- Every single object receives self shadowing only.
- And only source of that self shadowing is yellowish lantern on the "table"
- And lantern is there because it is night (yellow light from lantern is only source of light on curtain... light from outside would be white/light blue due to all snow and sky diffusion)
- That means light from lantern is passing right through all objects
- And reason why it decays so fast into practically blackness within 160cm sphere is because it is spherical light source.

It is not bad example of self-shadowing but that's all that can be said about shadows as objects cast none to other objects.
= = = =

2nd image with train cabin and multiple railroad tracks has so high contrast between lit objects under different angles that it is almost Moon simulator (no sufficient light scattering/ambient light as if there was almost no atmosphere)
- doing histogram here would result in shockingly large volume of black pixels
= = = =

3rd image with lake is looking almost OK, except:
- barn on the left is magically reconstructed with RT - High (probably because player would expect light to get in through missing planks)
- RT again adds only self shadowing
- here are some object to object shadows, but they are present even without RT (they are just much lighter in tone => purposely?)
= = = =

I do not know if Game does not have HD/HBAO or OC3D did not enable it for non-RT images, but it looks like no-RT rendering is intentionally crippled to make RT look bit better. And I am not impressed at all. I expected more since I have seen very similar shadowing. In 2 out of 3 images I have actually seen much better w/o need for RT and performance cost.
And on that 3rd (lake), there is not enough to properly judge if it is actually any good.

 

Performance was expected when they announced that crazy system req. its an Metro game.

I love how RX580/590 are faster than Fury X this days and really creeping up to 980ti.

 

It's just a paradigm shift for rendering. Rasterization techniques are already approaching photorealism but they require a lot of hackery/tricks to get there - where as Raytracing brings us slightly closer without the need for as much hackery.

Yeah but how much of this is artistic choice vs realism.

Like the first example - I guarantee you they made the light ignore the table on purpose because when they turned it on the bottom of the scene was pitch black and they said "wow that looks bad but how else are we going to get light down there without placing a bunch of random lights in the scene?"Games today have all kinds of hidden lights and crap everywhere for basically what @dirthurts was talking about earlier. Sometimes natural isn't the best look for a scene and with more and more games going for the "movie simulation" look it's becoming increasingly common that natural lighting is thrown away for staged lighting.

 

Except that it passes through all objects, that's why there are no shadows from mug, gun, lantern itself or anything else. You would achieve exactly same result with Spherical light projection in UE4. And you could enable proper shadowing there on top of it. Just add one ambient light source to balance darkest places.

You can take lantern and place it on your kitchen table which is much larger and provides better shadowing under it. And light reflected from walls of room will be sufficient to see floor under table very well. (I actually did it just now with mere candle. Everything except black mats on chairs and black backpack had visible details. And candle provides much less light than lantern.)

 

I actually think AMD is making a good showing on this game. I am not sure if the title is sponsored and by whom.

 

Hats off to u sir @hh
U gave the most comprehensive performance review till now.
One thing. It is a wish, not an opinion , not even i think u should do it. Just a wish. Only if i could see what a 980ti @1450mhz with decent memory oc can do in that chart. Again not my opinion ,sir. A wish . Just a wish..

 

Are shadows raytraced in Metro?

Speaking of UE4, 4.22 preview is shipping now with DXR. Going to be interesting to see what comes out of that.

There is a ton of Nvidia effects in it - pretty sure they sponsor it.

 

This is precisely the type of game Nvidia would sponsor. Not necessarily for the RT effects but for the killer GPU requirements to run it satisfactorily. This is what pushes people towards GPU upgrades.