Call of Duty: Modern Warfare in the technology test

– Call of Duty: Modern Warfare of the 2019 vintage has arrived and has become surprisingly good. This also applies to the PC version, which comes with a completely renewed engine, DirectX 12 and ray tracing. The game not only looks good, but the performance is right too.

Sometimes there is not enough time, but the topic is still interesting: For this reason, the technical test for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare appears this time initially without the classic graphics card benchmarks, as these require a lot of working time. However, the editors no longer want to withhold the readers' consideration of ray tracing, the PC version itself and the summary of the game reviews. The GPU benchmarks will follow over Tuesday.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has been released. Once again one would like to say there. And even if you can hardly believe it, the game with the old name is the first Call of Duty in years, whose PC version including technology can really convince – that is also shown in the benchmark article.

COD: Modern Warfare has really good graphics

For the first time since Call of Duty 2, there is a new engine for the popular action series: Activision has had a completely renewed IW engine programmed and this is now celebrating its premiere with the latest series from the development team Infinity Ward. The development time was worth it, because Modern Warfare looks good. No other game has yet managed to create such a realistic “cinema feeling” in the campaign. The game owes this mainly to the lighting system, which works properly in daylight, but then reaches its peak in night scenarios. Since the campaign takes place largely in the dark, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare offers a lot for the eye. However, this also automatically means that the multiplayer cards are significantly less impressive. Because these primarily offer daylight.

But not only the lighting in the latest call-of-duty branch is very well done, the other elements are also harmonious. For example, the facial representation is impressive, in which the game can set new standards. The particle effects in the still numerous explosions are again impressive and, since there are no real weaknesses, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare not only raises the "cinematic level" in games, but simply looks really good.

DirectX 12 and ray tracing are included

The new engine completely dispenses with DirectX 11, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare only supports DirectX 12 as an API. There is no way to switch back to the old API in the game. Not only the low-level API has found its way into the game, this also applies to ray tracing, which is integrated via Microsoft's DXR interface and is therefore currently exclusively available on Nvidia's Turing graphics cards. The game uses ray tracing only for nicer shadows. As tests later in the article show, only some shadows are calculated with ray tracing – the performance is pretty good for that.

Modern Warfare in collaboration with Nvidia

Not only ray tracing was integrated into the game in collaboration with Nvidia. Nvidia's highlights function has also found its way into the game menu and can be switched on and off, which means that a video can be recorded immediately without a button using GeForce Experience – and the last seconds can then be saved at the push of a button. However, graphics effects such as the well-known HBAO + cover or the AI ​​upsampling DLSS are not found in the game.

The PC version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has an extensive graphics menu. There are numerous options to adapt the graphics to your own computer. To make it easier for the player, the individual options have a hint text and also show helpful screenshots for comparison.

In addition, Modern Warfare offers downsampling and upsampling. The set resolution can be doubled internally or reduced to 33 percent. The desired internal resolution can be set in steps of 1. In addition, there is also an FPS limiter that can also be configured continuously from 30 FPS to a maximum of 300 FPS. Another limiter applies only to the menu, another can take effect if the game is no longer in the screen focus.

Modern Warfare also offers its own overlay, which in addition to the frame rate can also display the ping, the GPU temperature and the load on the processor and graphics card.

No graphic presets, but good anti-aliasing

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has an extensive graphics menu, but inexplicably, as in the predecessors, there are no graphic presets. This makes it difficult to adapt the quality to your own computer. But every graphic change is immediately adopted without a restart and without delay, so that at least the individual options can be tried out quickly.

When it comes to anti-aliasing, Infinity Ward restricted the selection somewhat, but it still remains extensive with the "SMAA 1X", "SMAA T2X" and "Cinematic SMAA T2X" options. Filmic SMAA T2X is the anti-aliasing of choice because this mode achieves the best results with a calm image. A disadvantage is an emerging blurring, which can be seen particularly well in low resolutions such as Full HD. A sharper image can be created with the “Film Thickness” option, in which case some elements start to flicker. Here everyone has to find their personal compromise between sharpness and flickering. The editorial team at WQHD liked a film thickness of 0.50 in the campaign, even if the picture was no longer flicker-free.

Good textures without highlights and moderate memory consumption

The new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare looks really good. The textures are not a highlight and do not stand out – but they are not bad either. But the need for storage is also low. Because a graphics card with 8 GB in Ultra HD is sufficient for the maximum texture details, even with 6 GB there are hardly any problems. You shouldn't rely on the displayed memory usage in tools like the Afterburner. Because the new engine also addresses significantly more memory than is currently required.

The memory requirement is more demanding when ray tracing is activated. Then 8 GB from 2,560 × 1,440 is mandatory, otherwise there is a jerky orgy. With 8 GB, however, there are no longer any problems even in 3,840 × 2,160.

On the next page: ray tracing with screenshots and benchmarks