4A Games update Metro Exodus, new engine, Ray Tracing GPU now required

[Grim5]

Metro Exodus is getting updated

it's a huge update - a new game engine that supports 15 new graphics effects including new and improved ray tracing as well as support for DLSS v2

Interestingly enough, this update makes the game require a RTX2000 or AMD RX6000 GPU as the minimum spec - that's right, you must have a hardware accelerated ray tracing GPU that supports DirectX 12 Ultimate

to my knowledge this is the first game that says you need hardware ray tracing acceleration to run it - there is no ray tracing off/rasterization fall back option. For those who don't meet the minimum spec, you won't be able to run the update

Full list of new features included in the update

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/lkffzs/the_metro_exodus_pc_enhanced_edition_announced/

 

[Grim5]

And free for existing owners from what I can tell.

That’s actually something to look forward to.

yes, it's free for all PC owners I'm surprised, they could have easily charged $10 for this and it would be worth it. There is a rumour they are also working on adding free multiplayer mode into the game

 

[Grim5]

Surely only a sucker would pay for the same game again just for a few graphical tweaks.

I'm sorry, I didn't know that upgrading the game to a newer engine with DX12 Ultimate support, adding 4k textures and a long list of new rayvtracing features costs $0 for the developer, I'm sure they already did all this work before the game launched and just kept it hidden away.

I'm not saying they should charge for it, I'm just saying they could have - many other developers have charged for enhanced editions of their game and this game's enhanced version is well above the new features that most enhanced games get

 

[Grim5]

This was a choice they took, no one forced them to invest the time to do this. They’re probably doing it as a stepping stone to test out a new engine for their next game.

probably, the engine is very compute heavy - in a Q&A session they got asked if they considered adding Mesh Shaders into the game since the new engine uses DX12 Ultimate to which they replied they have tested it and it added very little performance improvement because 90% of the frame is compute heavy

 

[Grim5]

Don’t happen to have link to this do you?

Quite a few interesting insights in the Q&A https://wccftech.com/4a-games-tech-...ue-for-rt-but-amds-approach-is-more-flexible/

Some quotes:

What I can say for sure now is PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X currently run our code at about the same performance and resolution.
As for the RTX 3000-series, they are not comparable, they are in different leagues in regards to RT performance. AMD’s hybrid raytracing approach is inherently different in capability, particularly for divergent rays. On the plus side, it is more flexible

Currently, we use DXR 1.1 inline raytracing and VRS. I like sampler-feedback - I’ve asked hardware
vendors about this for years and it will be utilized for our future projects. Not sure if we’d go for
mesh shaders in the future as we are not that dependent on traditional vertex/primitive/raster
processing anymore on recent architectures. Our current frames are only about 10% raster and
90% compute.

 

[Grim5]

 

[Grim5]

I heard PS5/Xbox won't have RT reflections. Is that true?

Console RT is not going to match PC's feature set and image quality, that's just the truth of it.

As per the Q&A comparing Nvidia's cards to the PS5 and Series X, 4A Games said "There is no comparison between them, Nvidia RTX cards are in a completely different league when it comes to Ray Tracing performance"

 

[Grim5]

This is free for owners of the original.

And you can only run it if you have rayvtracing hardware and DX12.1

 

[Grim5]

In the FAQ released today for the new Metro Exodus upgrade, the developer put up an answer to a curious question

Will Metro Exodus be upgraded to support AMD's Super Resolution Feature?

tldr answer: No, AMD's Fidelity Super Resolution technique is incompatible with our game's rendering pipeline and from what we've seen Unreal Engine's existing TAA upscaler already offers the same image quality as Super Resolution.

https://www.metrothegame.com/en-us/news/the-metro-exodus-pc-enhanced-edition-arrives-may-6th/

 

[Grim5]

A4 Games wanted this game on consoles, because there is a lot of money to be had out of console gamers, its a another and very large market section to sell more games into.

The problem is Exodus is packed with Nvidia's proprietary features which don't work on consoles, so A4 Games have spent the last year or more refactoring their engine to use AMD's approach and tech, because they have to to get it to work on consoles.

IMO this is a lesson for other devs, do you go down AMD's agnostic rout or Nvidia's proprietary rout and spend another year or two (with all the costs that entails) after PC release to get on consoles?

The former is far better for the gaming community as a whole.

makes no sense, RTX runs on AMD, therefore will run on console too

 

[Grim5]

RTX doesnt run on AMD - thats the nvidia marketing and method name - Microsoft DirectX Ray Tracing = DXR.

but humbug said the game is full of Nvidia rtx, but you're saying the game is full of Microsoft dxr, not RTX so if it's DXR then itnruns natively on AMD and console and what humbug says is not true. So which is it who is right you or humbug?

 

[Grim5]

AMD and Nvidia have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to Ray Tracing, they are not the same and one is not necessarily weaker than the other.

Go through this to see.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=radeon-linux-vulkanrt&num=2

AMD's strength is shadows and low number of bounces and rays, Nvidia is everything else

 

[Grim5]

In this case its specifically made for Unreal Engine, its a Plugin.

It is very easy to install and turn on, but that's not necessarily the end of it, even if 'in theory' it should be.

It is just click and install, done (for unreal engine). However like all good tools, it has configurable options that the developer can play with if they wish - but certainly if you are lazy or time constrained you can have DLSS in your unreal game in 5 minutes, done.

 

[Grim5]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKHmVyPiIOc

 

[Grim5]

Let's not forget that nice minimum too

not minimum, average fps for dlss off and on, read the axis and key on graphs don't make assumptions

 

[Grim5]

meh, who cares - turn if off ia ya dont like it, like any graphical effect

 

[Grim5]

Enhanced Edition on Left, Old Edition on the Right

 

[Grim5]

Sadly taking screenshots with HDR on results in a naff washed out picture regardless of the game

yep cause you need to be able to take screens in HDR which is not easy because the file format needs to support hdr and the place you upload the photo too needs to support and your web browser and screen needs to support it

 

[Grim5]

HDR is great here, nice and bright with vivid colours without any tweaks. Using a PG43UQ monitor.

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