GeForce RTX Performance And IQ In Metro Exodus Explored Post Patch


Metro Exodus And GeForce RTX: Final Thoughts and Conclusion

4A Games and NVIDIA did a great job of addressing the early outcries about DLSS image quality with Metro Exodus. However, our final assessment is where things get complicated because quite simply, the tech is still new and maturing. Adoption of RTX and DLSS is still very slow-going as well, which means we have to take that into consideration when we recommend or make statements about the state of the technology as a whole, because how these features mature over time still remains to be seen. 

That being said, we do feel like RTX real-time ray tracing features as implemented in Metro Exodus, do indeed add another level of immersion and depth into the game. A Game like Metro Exodus is not a run and gun title, and as a result you're allowed to become more immersed in the story and also the impact of its visuals.

Metro Exodus On GeForce RTX Gaming

The RTX features, while adding some serious depth by giving more accurate light sources and illumination, does hold a pretty stiff performance penalty, however, in a game which is already tough to run at 4K with maximum game settings. You really do have to think about your configuration and what you hope to accomplish here. If you are one of the vast majority of gamers at 1080p, or even on of the more select 1440p gamers, we think the RTX features are a great addition. In some cases, DLSS technology will capture back frame rate for you that is somewhat close to what you would see without RTX tech enabled.

NVIDIA and 4A Games likely still have some more optimization to do here, but so far Metro Exodus holds true to its lineage and offers a next-level experience with immersion that cranks up a notch when driving RTX lighting. However, we hope that if you've taken the time to digest the data on the preceding pages, you will have also gleaned from our comparison images, that the RTX High setting is a far better option than Ultra. RTX High clearly provides much more realistic lighting than with RTX Off, without the extra load of the RTX Ultra setting.


In the end, with the performance and visual differences we observed, we think that Metro Exodus with RTX and DLSS is much more solid pairing currently, post patch. Performance hits aside, for a game that is heavily story-driven, we think these new rendering technologies deliver much-improved realism with lighting effects and look forward to future optimizations for better performance and visuals over time. NVIDIA RTX real-time ray tracing is here and while it still may be a cutting its teeth on these new games titles, we're hopeful this is just the beginning.


  • New levels of visual realism
  • Realistic light reflection and illumination
  • Pushes new levels of immersion
  • DLSS recaptures some performance
  • Improvements should continue
  • Stiff performance penalty for RTX
  • Still feels like there's more that can be optimized


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