Exclusive: Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition Analysis – The First Triple-A Game Built Around Ray Tracing
The first triple-A PC game that will only run on ray tracing equipped PCs (and next-gen consoles to come), Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition is a phenomenal improvement over the 2019 original release. In this extended video, Alex Battaglia reveals the new RT effects, shows off the benefits for developers, checks out DLSS, VRS and TAA upscaling and analyses performance on both AMD and Nvidia hardware.
00:00:00 Introduction
00:02:13 New Feature Analysis: Global Illumination from All Lights
00:11:02 New Feature Analysis: Ray Traced Emissive Lights
00:16:50 New Feature Analysis: Unlimited Light Bounces
00:20:30 New Feature Analysis: Ray Traced Reflections
00:22:56 Exclusive Behind the Scenes: Developer Tools and Process
00:27:40 Ray Tracing Trade-Offs
00:29:40 PC Performance: New Ray Tracing Options (Ryzen 5 3600/RTX 2060)
00:31:45 PC Performance: Metro Exodus 2019 vs Enhanced Edition 2021 (Ryzen 5 3600/RTX 2060)
00:33:10 New Feature Analysis: Variable Rate Shading, DLSS 2.1, Temporal Upsampling
00:36:25 Alex’s Optimised Settings
00:37:26 AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT vs Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080
00:39:03 Conclusion
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Imagine watching this in 1999
This shows the true value of ray tracing if developers build the whole game specifically having ray tracing in mind.
this is incredible…
Normal version of the game has far better textures, what gives?.
Congratulations for the video! 👏
This version was released only for PCs? The ps5 version wasn’t enhanced too?
Anyone who wants to play a darker game just get that gamma at a lower setting. That helps a lot.
The game looks so much more better with ray tracing and its easier to see enemies, loot and the map in general.
I finished this game on ultra book with OCed 35w 3050 with 1080p high settings and high RS. I was changing dlss level when fps where to low. Anything above 35 fps was smooth enough for me. It looked to good to drop setting for higher fps. My poor laptop hates me after this Exodus for sure.. GPU utilization is crazy good, even 100% at times.
People need to remember that even with these systems artists still have as much ability as before to do their thing, it’s just that the realism of the lighting effects no longer depends entirely upon the competency and workload of the 3D artists.
But even with ray tracing that still have full ability to take artistic license with various aspects of the scenes. Even if the game is realistically simulating light rays, they still have control over the behavior of objects in response to rays interacting with them, it doesn’t have to be entirely realistic. Additionally, things like baking aspects of lighting onto a texture or effect is still possible if they want to control a particular scene’s appearance.
Ray traced lighting engines in no way means that every game using these systems has to go for a photorealistic, true-to-life style. But it enables for lighting to be incredibly nuanced and infinitely more dynamic than an artist could pull off using older techniques.
playing this in 2022 now for the first time! Any other games with similar or better graphics?
And I thought that low settings with 40-50 fps looked perfect
I will say that I prefer some of the vanilla sections due to the more encompassing darkness
They've give us Ray tracing and old textures… thanks.
Are the optimiced settings of 3080/90 for 4K res??
Fantastic job with the analysis Alex! It is just jaw-dropping seeing the raytracing tech here! The devs went above and beyond with this update, which showcases why raytracing is so important. Many people don't appreciate, nor care much about raytracing, because there simply aren't many games pushing RTX to this level. Until now. I hope more game studios take a good look at Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, and utilize 100% raytracing in all future titles. It's less time-consuming making levels, looks absolutely gorgeous, and why it's worth upgrading to a new GPU. That is of course, if you can find one unfortunetly…
I just started playing this and it REALLY pushes cards. My 3080 Ti is constantly pinned while running 4k and I can barely keep it over 70fps. I'm impressed
Shits dope af. I never got in PC gaming and I wish i had many moons ago. When folks talk about their rigs I’m so fucking lost 😞
I think, better optimised settings is on all RTX gpu, even in 1080p on RTX 2060 Ultra/High RTGI/Reflections on and DLSS on on Quality in 1080p, balanced on 1440p with RTX 2070/Super and performance on 4k on 2080Super/Ti, 3060Ti. If DLSS offer almost same quality like native or on 1080p in quality mode even better quality than 1080p native, why on RTX cards we need turn settings down? In some scenario, like textures is Ultra settings lot better way to go and with DLSS you no need turn down settings, just use DLSS….. This Alex optimised settings is more like for AMD RTX capable cards.
This is a bit off topic but does anyone know how to make Metro exodus full screen properly. When ever I load it, it full screen and only takes up half of the screen where it is full screened but yet not taking up the full screen itself.
Very nice tech. The only issue I have with this is all the lights and scattered soft light. The real world is a mix of hard and soft, but mostly hard. Soft lighting is rear in real life, unless there’s and overcast or it’s cloudy day. It’s only the beginning but had to point that out.
Hey, really appreciate the top quality video but how did you get past this ghosting that is caused with DLSS? I don't have Motion Blur, VRS or PhysX enabled. Running at High Settings with Raytraced and Quality DLSS on a RTX 3070/ AMD 5800x with a 1080p display.
In the future ray tracing will just be a general setting. Most GPUs will be able to run it, and most games might not even have a setting for it. The amount of work it saves and the accuracy is worth pushing towards it being a normal base setting for every game.
shame it's such a horrid looking game…
The Best Graphic Game, The Best Atmospheric Game Just got BETTER!!
Finally playing through the Enhanced Edition on GOG, it's somehow under beta channels. But oh boy, this game is awesome! The attention to detail is crazy, you really feel emersed in the world.
So there is no reason for me to download the enhanced edition with a 1080ti?
Little game and too many blah blah and endless videos !!!!
What about hairworks and advanced physx for the optimised settings?
Bounce!
15$ pre order. Best money ever spent.
what the hell is rt gi
US$7.49 at PSN at the moment. Noice.
So if i dont have a rtx card then should i get the pc enhanced editiona
This is impressive! Thanks for the detailed look and for looking at AMD's 6800XT performance.
This looks better than fall out 4 & outer worlds. Both of those games disappointed me, hopefully this game is worth my microsoft rewards. Lol
DLSS 2.0 works really great, I wish I could turn off ray tracing and use only DLSS for better FPS, it should be implemented in all today games.
I could see that noise on the wall the moment you turned on the light I'm so glad I wasn't seeing bullshit and that was actually discussed in the video
This game plays insanely well on my 3070 with everything cranked and DLSS at quality at 1080p.
I showed parts of this video to a friend and his exact words were ''looks the same''…. We're no longer friends. 🙂
This is the kinda DLC I think is nuts. I got this game for free since I bought the original and it looks sick. I can't even play it haha. And it's a genuine gameplay improvement on a huge level
What's the song at 11:00 called?
So that's why the animations look stiff, the game's budget all went into the graphics
Such a shame it still looks really bad.
Now, if only the HDR of this game would actually work with my HDR display, (instead of making the entire game look washed-out) and Gsync didn't shit itself and die every time I booted the game up, maybe I could actually enjoy these stunning graphics…
12 dollars on steam right now!
if the game had good AI it would be a much better game.