GeForce RTX Performance And IQ In Metro Exodus Explored Post Patch
Metro Exodus - 1440p Performance With RTX And DLSS
Now we'll turn down the resolution a bit to see where performance lands for the GeForce RTX series cards in Metro Exodus at 1440p.
Metro Exodus 1440p with its highest maxed-out settings now shows us near 60 FPS average for the RTX 2080 Ti with RTX off and DLSS On. The lows are in mid 30's and much to our surprise, the RTX 2080 Ti comes to life with RTX High enabled in combination with DLSS, nearly matching our average while dropping a bit in 1% lows. This time the RTX 2080 Ti, or any card tested here for that matter, cannot run RTX off with DLSS on, which we assume is because, as we mentioned before, sometimes it takes so long for a frame to process that DLSS doesn't make sense, because it won't improve performance. While that may seem odd, we think perhaps if they could make it work, we could see upwards of 80-90 FPS at 1440p max settings, which would be a great sweet spot to be in.
Moving to the more friendly and admittedly similar quality but less stressful Ultra quality level, once again gives us some performance bumps across the board. We now see the FPS average of the 2080 Ti with RTX and DLSS off reaching into the mid 70's while 1% lows settle into the mid 40's. Here to extend on this further, we see that the 2080 Ti even with RTX enabled has full playable framerates at 1440p. The RTX 2080 even joins the crowd with playable frames without RTX. Enabling RTX, we still get close enough on the RTX 2080 to call it a pass, as it averages 56.59 with 1% lows in the 28.75 range, which in my experience does not break the immersion in any way. Had this been a competitive shooter however, the story might be very different. The RTX 2070 also shows up here with an average of 48.53 and 1% low of 28.81, which admittedly is still quite playable, though some who are used to high FPS performance might notice it on a higher refresh display.
Now we finish 1440p testing at High settings, which once again gives us a shift in performance. The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti seems to wake up here and pulls a near 90 FPS average and almost 50 FPS at 1% lows. This seems to be the sweet spot in available settings for the RTX 2080 Ti, for those seeking high refresh rate gaming. As expected, the GeForce RTX 2070 now steps into viability as well, with performance reaching into 60 FPS territory with 1% lows getting a bump to almost 33 FPS. What surprised us more than anything though, is the large gap between 2080 Ti without RTX to the RTX High with DLSS result. This tells you that if you want the high FPS gameplay as it stands now, you will likely want to disable RTX features, as the current ray tracing impact is still quite heavy, even if DLSS does help it a bit. If you do not necessarily need nearly 90 FPS and can be live in the mid 70's then we would suggest running with RTX enabled, as we feel the natural lighting does deliver a more immersive experience.
Now it's time to look at the most popular resolution by a huge margin. Lets kick it at 1080p...
