Metro Exodus Ray Tracing Benchmarked

Information technology's time for us to talk about ray tracing one time over again, this time in Metro Exodus, the latest game to integrate back up for Nvidia's RTX technology. Terminal fourth dimension we checked out ray tracing in Battlefield 5 we were a bit disappointed with the implementation, the apply of ray-traced reflections didn't add together a whole lot visually, in that location were issues with racket, and the performance hit was pretty severe. Considering the game is a reasonably fast paced competitive shooter, ray tracing in that game merely isn't worth the penalty.

But things are pretty different when it comes to Metro Exodus. This isn't a competitive online shooter, instead it's a slower paced, open-earth single-player survival shooter. Ray tracing is implemented every bit global illumination, not reflections. And the game is launching with optimized ray tracing and DLSS from solar day 1.

In this article we'll be looking at both the quality differences between RTX on and off for this championship, besides as the performance hit across all four Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics cards at a range of resolutions. We'll spend a brief bit of time talking about how DLSS can be added to the mix, so you'll go our usual comprehensive coverage of RTX in this game today.

And then what is global illumination? To reply that, Nosotros'll commencement by talking near how lighting works without global illumination, as is the case in many games. Without GI, you lot're left with direct illumination, so if in that location'south a light source, annihilation that falls in the path of that source'southward lighting volition be illuminated and will cast shadows. But this kind of lighting is limited, information technology lacks realism and depth, information technology does not include indirect illumination.

BF5 reflections shown below

In existent life, light doesn't just emit from surfaces, hitting something and so disappear. Instead, light reflects off surfaces onto other surfaces. This is what global illumination provides. With this lighting organization enabled, lite bounces off surfaces creating greater depth, and if calorie-free interacts with colored surfaces forth the mode, this can lead to colored reflections. Caustic effects are also possible, and then overall the lighting system becomes better and more than realistic.

Global illumination is also not new to ray tracing, information technology's something that has been possible previously with rasterization techniques. However, ray tracing allows the issue to exist more accurate, more than realistic and more than comprehensive across a given scene.

In Metro Exodus, ray traced global illumination is available in ii modes: Loftier and Ultra. In that location's no low fashion here, it's directly to High for the base of operations implementation and and then Ultra we believe adds further reflection steps to the computed GI path. Y'all need DirectX 12 to exist enabled to gain access to ray tracing, but this isn't a big deal because our initial testing indicates in that location's no performance difference between DX11 and DX12 in this championship. You tin can besides enable and disable ray tracing at any time without restarting the game.

In terms of the visual difference, ray traced global illumination tin can be subtle or it tin can exist very obvious. It all depends on the scene and what you're looking for. However, in full general the improvements ray tracing makes to Metro Exodus are far greater than the improvements DXR reflections bring to Battleground 5.

Screenshots and image comparisons beneath are all 4K. You can click to see total-sized versions.

In this scene you tin immediately run into the differences between RTX on and RTX off. The scene has more depth and realism to the lighting system. It may not be obvious at kickoff, but with global illumination disabled, some areas of the scene are illuminated where they shouldn't be.

For instance, with RTX off the boxes under the desk are illuminated by a non-real light source. With RTX on, these areas are correctly presented in shadow. It's a similar situation with the dorsum of the lamp on the desk and the ceiling calorie-free, realistically very petty low-cal should exist striking these areas and with global illumination enabled, that's what you're getting.

It'south a like situation in this scene. With RTX off, it looks a flake weird having the bright wall and the nighttime pipes with the lighting present hither. You might not accept always noticed an issue until you turned on RTX, where the lighting is better interacting with these two elements. It's darker, yes, but it'due south more than realistic and adds to the atmosphere.

The effect is more than subtle in this scene, but once again areas that shouldn't be illuminated, aren't illuminated. How visible the changes are all depends on the lighting, the objects in it, the angle you're viewing and so on. This is ane of the scenes where you won't run into as drastic of a modify.

But when you stride into the above ground areas of the game, especially during the day, RTX has some of the biggest changes I've spotted. Hither information technology almost has the reverse result of the darker underground sections. Rather than removing light from surfaces that shouldn't have it, global illumination outdoors tends to add together light to where it should be. This scene has lots of points of reflection, including the snow and several walls behind the camera. So again information technology makes sense that it'due south brighter, with less adumbral areas and better surface interactions.

The video version of this feature showcases scene'south RTX on/off differences in greater detail, play below:

Another interesting note to make near this scene is the tone. The RTX off environs has a slight yellow tone due to the color of the sun. But with RTX off, it's whiter, cheers to the lite reflecting off white walls and snow. That's one of the other advantages to global illumination.

This is another scene where there is a significant difference between RTX on and off. RTX off feels like it has a general ambient light from a non-existent source. Whereas the RTX on footage sees its light come solely from the windows and overhead lights, which creates a darker though more natural presentation.

Look at the soldiers on the right in item, with RTX on they are more illuminated than the two central characters, equally they're standing directly under a calorie-free whereas the center characters are non. When you turn RTX off, the scene is lit more than evenly – the cardinal characters are roughly as bright equally the soldiers on the right – which doesn't make sense given the position of the light sources.

Most of the other scenes we captured just continue to prove off the aspects we've already mentioned. Throughout near of the game, these are fairly meaning and visually obvious changes to the lighting organization. From what nosotros've seen the lighting appears more than realistic based on where light sources are placed, adding greater depth and a more 'natural' look to the game.

Only it's also not a definitive case of RTX on being better. With reflections, aside from the noise issues, it was clear that ray traced reflections were superior to screen infinite reflections from a visual standpoint. With ray traced global illumination, while we experience the lighting is more than realistic and has more depth, it'southward more than of an artistic change. Some people may similar the RTX off presentation more, if they prefer brighter scenes in darker areas, and more than shadowing in bright outdoor lighting.

There are a few more points we want to make on the visuals before diving into performance.

Nosotros found information technology very difficult to spot whatever changes between the High and Ultra modes. Sometimes nosotros thought in that location was a small difference, merely to observe the differences were down to the game's dynamic, slightly changing lighting system, rather than the bound from High to Ultra RTX. So without looking at performance it's pretty safe to say that Loftier is the way to become.

There is no racket present anywhere with ray traced global illumination. This was a large issue with reflections, simply it'due south not visible in Metro Exodus. That's conspicuously a fantastic thing, because in some scenes the noise in Battleground V'due south ray traced reflections was very noticeable and could look worse than with ray tracing disabled. In Metro, information technology'southward a non-outcome.

It'southward as well important to note that the game doesn't feel like something is missing from the lighting organisation when RTX is disabled. Information technology's non a situation where the developers accept removed an effect from the non-RTX version of the game, just to bring it back through ray tracing. The game still looks phenomenal with RTX off, it just – at least in our opinion – looks even better and more accurate with RTX on.

Then at that place's the question, could the developers of Metro Exodus, have accomplished the same global illumination result without ray tracing? There's no switch to just enable a not-ray traced global illumination to make a nice comparison, so this is catchy to answer. We haven't looked extensively into its implementation in other games, but our feel is that Metro Exodus' RTX-based GI is more accurate and more comprehensive. Information technology definitely looks pretty adept here, probably the most accurate lighting we've seen.

Also, global illumination through other techniques already tends to be a adequately computationally intensive issue to add in to games. Turning ray tracing on does come with a sizable operation hit as we'll meet in a moment, however this has tended to be the case with other games that utilise GI as well. The RTX penalty is most likely larger, however information technology's also a better implementation, and then we're not as concerned with this beingness a pointless re-engineering of global illumination equally we were with reflections. If you recall, nosotros saw reflections done really well without ray tracing at a much lower performance cost in Hitman 2. Examples of global illumination washed too as Metro Exodus with a much lower performance cost, that's a lot rarer. And there's a run a risk that using ray tracing is easier for developers than other techniques, which means better visuals from fewer resources.

Functioning

Moving into functioning, we've tested all the RTX GPUs using an Intel Core i9-9900K, although the exact CPU doesn't matter much here because the game is very GPU demanding. Latest drivers were used, then that'south Nvidia's 418.91, the twenty-four hour period one drivers for Metro Exodus. I besides tested with both the pre-release and day-1 version of the game and institute no difference in performance.

The performance data was gathered using Metro Exodus' congenital in benchmark tool. This helped to simplify the testing process and make information technology highly repeatable, but I desire to put a big warning sign somewhere here because there'southward very of import things to notation about Metro's benchmark tool.

We've played a few hours of the game likewise, and so far the benchmark tool represents functioning in the most intensive areas of the game. In fact, if anything, the criterion is more intensive than the game itself. Throughout well-nigh of the game, you can await overall performance to be meliorate than the benchmark tool shows, withal in those actually intense areas, the criterion is a reasonable reflection of in-game performance.

We feel the criterion does a better job of showing functioning with RTX on, while underrepresenting RTX off performance somewhat. We'll elaborate on this after the charts but the margins between RTX on and off in the benchmark are commonly slightly smaller than the margins you'll see in the game itself.

All other settings were ready to Ultra in the benchmark, the merely setting we inverse was ray tracing. In that location is also an Extreme preset above Ultra, but we felt Ultra was a better balance. Several settings are not encompassed in the preset and these are all enabled, with movement blur set to normal, Tessellation on Full, and both PhysX and Hairworks enabled. DLSS was disabled.

Starting with 1080p, immediately from the RTX off numbers you can run into the game is very intensive in its worst instance scenarios. We'll go into more detail on this when we follow-up with our full Metro Exodus GPU benchmark in the coming days, but y'all volition get a preview of the results hither.

An RTX 2070 is required for a sixty FPS average in the criterion at simply 1080p, while the most intensive parts of the tool see that performance dip to near thirty FPS. Ouch. But once more, throughout near of the game nosotros've played you'll see performance higher than this. A good case is the RTX 2080 Ti, which averages 90 FPS here, but for many sections of the game this is up more effectually 120 FPS, bated from some intense scenes.

The proficient news is enabled ray traced global illumination doesn't tank functioning to anywhere almost the degree of ray traced reflections in Battleground V. Looking at the RTX Loftier results, we only saw a 17% increase in performance from disabling RTX at 1080p for the RTX 2080 Ti. This grows slightly to 21% for both the RTX 2080 and RTX 2070, and 24% for the RTX 2060. And the margins are smaller once again when looking at ane% lows, so it'southward clear that in the very nigh intensive areas of Metro Exodus, information technology'due south non ray tracing that is causing that extra performance drib.

The Ultra setting is more intensive again. In that location's around a ten percent gap between the ii modes, then for the RTX 2080 Ti, turning ray tracing downward from Ultra to Off sees a 26% functioning improvement, rather than 17% for High. Because at that place's nigh no visual change betwixt High and Ultra nosotros don't come across why you lot'd use Ultra here.

With Battlefield V, the performance you gained from turning DXR reflections from just the Depression way to Off hovered between l and 60 percent for near GPUs at 1080p. With Metro Exodus, going from High to Off is closer to 20%.

However with the RTX 2060 hovering around 41 FPS on boilerplate with Ultra settings at 1080p and using the High RTX manner, nosotros feel that ray tracing still isn't well suited to Nvidia's lowest-level bill of fare capable of ray tracing. Again, it's a worst case scenario, but that level of performance is quite low specially with i% lows beneath thirty FPS.

At 1440p, the margins do grow a chip compared to 1080p. Here, the RTX 2080 Ti sees a 25% uplift switching from High to Off. That margin is up around 28% for the 2070 and 2080, while the 2060 sees a 36% performance gain. The RTX 2060 does not perform well at 1440p with ray tracing, so it'due south not something I'd recommend. Even the RTX 2070 is deadline in the criterion. Meanwhile the RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti are at acceptable levels of performance.

Moving to 4K, and this is a resolution that but wasn't worth using with ray tracing in Battleground V. With Metro Exodus it's borderline. The RTX 2080 Ti sees a 38% uplift in performance at this resolution with RTX disabled, so much college than 1440p and 1080p. This shows one time again that ray tracing doesn't scale nicely with resolution; the performance affect is college with each resolution jump, particularly when going all the way to 4K. The 2080 and 2070 get hit harder again, just both cards aren't bang-up for 4K gaming in this title to begin with, especially the 2070.

The RTX 2080 Ti is the merely GPU nosotros'd consider using for High ray tracing in this game at 4K, and fifty-fifty and so I feel the performance impact is probably too large for most gamers. Going from a 47 FPS average, which isn't astonishing but playable for this sort of game, to a mid 30s frame rate is non groovy. With that said, you'll get better framerates with RTX on at 1440p, than you will with RTX off at 4K, and so once more unlike with Battlefield V at that place's not the aforementioned level of trade-off between resolution and ray tracing.

As we mentioned earlier, the criterion is a bit of a worst instance scenario for functioning in general, but it's also typically a best case scenario for the margin between RTX on and RTX off.

It's a fleck weird in that regard. We've played the opening few sequences of the game twice, with both RTX on and RTX off, and the margins between the two playthroughs at 4K were sort of 35% on the low end, simply as loftier every bit lx% or more in some areas. It can vary a bit between scenes and levels, and then it'south hard to nail down an exact figure that's representative of the game. However the criterion delivered a 38% margin, which typically was on the 'improve' end for the operation bear upon.

With that said, typical in-game margins looked more reasonable at 1440p and 1080p, where the benchmark showed a 17 to 25 pct gain from disabling ray tracing, whereas in the game itself, up to a 30% gap is what you lot can expect. In the worst cases for ray tracing, aside from playing at 4K yous won't see l% margins which was a primal issue with Battlefield V's reflections.

Will DLSS better upon these performance numbers? Yes and no.

Yeah in the sense that enabling DLSS with RTX on takes performance dorsum up to around the level of RTX off. In fact, RTX on the Loftier manner plus DLSS was around 8% faster at 4K than RTX off, although performance was 12% lower than only running the game at 1440p with RTX on. DLSS at 1440p with RTX on was a petty slower than RTX off.

Just it'due south also not an comeback because the visual quality is not equivalent. The 4K DLSS presentation is noticeably softer and blurrier than native 4K. If I'1000 playing at 4K I want the native, sharp paradigm which is peculiarly nice in Metro Exodus.

The large question is, should y'all turn on RTX? And the reply is… it depends. It'south not a universal recommendation, but it is an improvement from where things were at with RTX in Battleground V. With DXR reflections nosotros could not recommend anyone utilise the feature, and it didn't practise a good task of selling the benefits of ray tracing. But with Metro Exodus in that location are some cases where information technology makes sense to turn RTX on.

Ane of the fundamental differences is the game itself. Metro is a slower, single player game. Yep, you still want good operation, merely office of this game's experience is in the breathtaking visuals. At that place'south non as much to proceeds from playing Metro Exodus at above 100 FPS, compared to a competitive multiplayer shooter like Battlefield.

Then there are two additional factors that make this implementation better than Battlefield V. First, the visual change is larger -- it may not be subjectively meliorate for every person, your stance on how it looks may vary even depending on the scene -- but nosotros establish the differences to be more noticeable throughout the game on the whole. With reflections, it was but some areas where yous can spot the effects of ray tracing, and in some instances it was horribly noisy. But with ray traced global illumination, almost every environment in the game is lit differently, and in our opinion more accurately. To usa, RTX on looked better most of the time, sometimes essentially so.

Then there's the performance hit. Information technology'due south not equally bad as DXR reflections either. The hitting is there, especially at 4K, just it doesn't feel like we're in crazy territory anymore. A 20 to 30% improvement from disabling the effect remains one of the larger hits for whatsoever individual graphics effect, but it's not 50 to threescore%. It's also in line with some of the larger performance hits we've seen from non-RTX effects in games over the last few years.

When you combine all of these factors, RTX global illumination in Metro Exodus is looking a lot more favorable. It'south a game that benefits from stunning visuals, RTX on looks better a lot of the fourth dimension, and the functioning hit is manageable. This is how RTX should accept launched to the public; if this is what gamers got the get-go time they saw ray tracing, we recall people'south impressions would have been a lot more positive.

But once again, it does depend on your state of affairs as to whether RTX is a feature worth enabling in the game. At 4K, the college than usual performance hitting makes RTX non worth it (or reasonable given the performance hit), fifty-fifty with an RTX 2080 Ti. You're just going to get a 60 FPS feel with RTX off at 4K with Nvidia's flagship GPU, cutting into that functioning significantly is not a selection nosotros'd make.

We would also tend to err on the side of not using RTX for any configuration where y'all're not already hitting 60 FPS or thereabouts, especially if you don't have an adaptive sync monitor. And then this would include the RTX 2060 at 1080p, or the RTX 2070 at 1440p. Nosotros feel the experience with RTX off at 60 FPS, is better than RTX on at maybe 45 to fifty FPS or then, in both instances.

Just when you have headroom to spare, and y'all're a gamer that loves improved visuals, and so yeah, there is something to be gained from playing with RTX enabled. 1 example would exist the RTX 2080 at 1440p. From what we've experienced, that GPU runs Metro comfortably above 60 FPS at that resolution aside from the very most intensive situations. You turn on ray tracing and the game is however a 60 FPS feel, with improved visuals. If you love graphics, nosotros don't come across how that's a bad thing when you're yet achieving potent performance in this title.

The day volition come that using RTX tin be recommended in all situations. The tech looks more promising today than we originally thought, only from a first generation GPU and but the 2nd game to include the feature, it still shouldn't be used every bit a gene in ownership a new graphics carte. In that location are withal very few games that have announced will support DXR. Those of you lot that become a good deal on an RTX GPU tin enjoy this as a little bonus.