Metro Exodus in technology test – ComputerBase

– Metro Exodus fires a technical firework display including DirectX 12, ray tracing and DLSS. BitcoinMinersHashrate has various graphics cards and processors in the technology test. In addition to the benchmarks, the focus is on the visual impression of ray tracing and DLSS, which sometimes show a good and sometimes a bad side.

Metro Exodus is a graphic fireworks display

Like the predecessors Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light, the latest part of the Metro Exodus action series not only wants to convince with the game itself, but also with the technology. In order to achieve this, the developer 4A Games uses the in-house 4A engine, which, however, has been massively revised compared to its predecessors and now uses, for example, physically-based rendering for lifelike surfaces.

And it was worth it. Because Metro Exodus is graphically a feast for the eyes. The outside worlds in particular look spectacular. With an enormous foresight, the representation of different seasons and numerous particle effects and a very atmospheric lighting, the game rises to the graphic top 3. However, the game also has graphic weaknesses. The animations are – as always in Metro – no more than a usable average. The inner levels also look good, but nothing more. In places, Metro Exodus can easily compete with the Battlefield V graphics top dog. But not consistently.

Metro Exodus can use DirectX 12, GameWorks, Raytracing and DLSS

There is a DirectX 12 renderer so that the optics run smoothly. As the benchmarks will show, this is not a nice, but ultimately useless accessory as in many other games, but the API of choice. In addition, 4A Games worked closely with Nvidia, so there are various, PC-exclusive effects. The GameWorks effects HairWorks and PhysX run on all graphics cards. In addition, the game offers two Turing-exclusive features.

Metro Exodus is the second game delivered in Germany that not only supports ray tracing but also DLSS. While in Battlefield V ray tracing is responsible for the reflections, the technology in Metro Last Light is used for global illumination. DLSS is supported in all three important resolutions and therefore not only in 3,840 × 2,160, but also in 1,920 × 1,080 and 2,560 × 1,440.

Today the editorial team dealt with the general graphics options, DirectX 12, ray tracing and DLSS in Metro Exodus – the game offers a lot technically. However, a few more test series are planned. Tomorrow's update will add the usual graphics card and processor benchmarks.

The latest PC versions of large games now have an enormously extensive options menu with numerous convenience functions. Metro Exodus is not one of them. Because there are hardly any setting options, especially not comfort functions. The “Quality” option, which is available in the levels Low, Medium, High, Ultra and Extreme, is important for performance. These are quasi graphic presets, only that the individual graphic options do not exist.

At first glance, the optical effects between ultra and extreme are small. On Ultra, both the lighting and the shading change minimally, which will not be noticed in practice. In addition, the visibility is a little less. This does not matter in the inner levels, but it is definitely noticeable in the atmospheric outer levels. The visibility is still high on Ultra. That's the problem with high. Additional visibility is lost, so that things begin to pop up visibly in outside worlds. Apart from that, the lighting and the shadows are moved back one step, which is again not a problem.

From the middle setting, the general graphics also start to suffer. For the most part, Metro Exodus still looks good, but in some scenes there are visible graphical losses. The same applies even more to the lowest setting – but the main problem remains visibility. It is therefore easy to switch back to Ultra for increased performance and even high is still a good compromise. Furthermore, the quality should only be reduced in an emergency.

The Radeon RX Vega 64 and the GeForce RTX 2070 take similar steps with the presets. The Ultra level brings a plus of 31 percent on the AMD and 25 percent on the Nvidia graphics card, High then brings another 19 and 21 percent respectively. The performance can be improved by a maximum of 155 and 149 percent.

Apart from the Quality switch, there is only tessellation, texture filtering and shading rate. The latter involves downsampling and upsampling from the factor 0.4 × to 4.0 × to the set resolution. Tessellation hardly shows a graphic effect, at least in the case of random samples, and costs a comparable number of FPS on an AMD and Nvidia graphics card. Anti-aliasing cannot be configured in the game and is always on. But that's not tragic, because the anti-aliasing works. Even in Full HD, only a few objects flicker and there is only a slight blur. The latter disappears completely in higher resolutions and flicker is reduced to a minimum.

HairWorks and PhysX have little influence

The two GameWorks effects "HairWorks" and "Advanced PhysX" work on both an AMD and an Nvidia graphics card. However, the results of both techniques are sobering. According to Nvidia, PhysX is supposed to simulate a substance. However, the editorial team did not notice a single difference when playing whether PhysX was switched on or off. The option does not change anything in terms of performance either.

After all, HairWorks has an optical effect, albeit a very slight one. In the first third of the game, there was a monster guy using HairWorks. These are some coarse, white tufts of hair that are completely different to the actual hair (white, coarse instead of black, thick hair). The movement of the hair itself looks good, but the implementation does not match the monster. And there are also items of clothing that have fur, for example, which is calculated with HairWorks. But these are very rare.

If a “HairWorks monster” is in sight, the performance is easy. Both Radeon RX Vega 64 and GeForce RTX 2070 then lose five percent in performance. This means the loss is lower than in Final Fantasy XV, for example, but the benefits are also less.

On the next page: test series, test system and graphics settings