Metro 2033 Performance review

[cbn]

with tessellation on and dof off a 5850 is only getting 25fps at just 1680.

A $300 video card made in 2009 is getting less FPS than a $200 console built back in 2005?

This is the kind of stuff that makes me wonder about the future of PC gaming? Maybe we will start to see ATI entering the HPC market?

 

[Dorkenstein]

How do you change it? config file somewhere?

It's in a user.cfg file under your user/appdata/local directories, pretty sure. FOV should be near the bottom.

 

[MrK6]

That is a vertical FOV value not horizontal. 60 is 90 degrees. I have mine set at 55 which looks great.

lol! That explains a lot. I had it set to 80 and noticed it still looked very fish-eyed. I'm at 55 right now too, I think it's the sweet spot. Any more and the gun models start looking funky (and you can see the end of the stock).

It's in a user.cfg file under your user/appdata/local directories, pretty sure. FOV should be near the bottom.

Yep, it's the sick_fov cvar.

A $300 video card made in 2009 is getting less FPS than a $200 console built back in 2005?
This is the kind of stuff that makes me wonder about the future of PC gaming? Maybe we will start to see ATI entering the HPC market?

And you can go enjoy your 2005 graphics on the Xbox while we enjoy our 2010 graphics on the PC. You want the eye candy, you need the hardware to run it.

 

[tviceman]

A $300 video card made in 2009 is getting less FPS than a $200 console built back in 2005?

This is the kind of stuff that makes me wonder about the future of PC gaming? Maybe we will start to see ATI entering the HPC market?

What console was being built back in 2005 for $200?

And it's been discussed on several other sites that Metro 2033 on the xbox displays a graphical quality equal to inbetween medium and low on the PC. Sooo...

 

[cbn]

l

And you can go enjoy your 2005 graphics on the Xbox while we enjoy our 2010 graphics on the PC. You want the eye candy, you need the hardware to run it.

Toyota said Depth of View and Tesselation need to be turned off on PC? Doesn't Xbox run Tessellation standard?

 

[cbn]

And it's been discussed on several other sites that Metro 2033 on the xbox displays a graphical quality equal to inbetween medium and low on the PC. Sooo...

Thanks, I missed that part. I guessing resolution is also 720p right?

 

[PUN]

Thanks, I missed that part. I guessing resolution is also 720p right?

Xbox360 is a PC with its own software. It runs these games under lower resolution and graphics.

 

[sxr7171]

Xbox360 is a PC with its own software. It runs these games under lower resolution and graphics.

That's true. It runs 720p and sometimes the games don't run AA and you can clearly see it. However Xbox 360 was said to offer "free" AA due to it's architecture. I think that is an argument to make CPUs and GPUs more closely integrated. Whatever said and done the 360 is a much more efficient architecture than our gaming PCs.

 

[mfenn]

That's true. It runs 720p and sometimes the games don't run AA and you can clearly see it. However Xbox 360 was said to offer "free" AA due to it's architecture. I think that is an argument to make CPUs and GPUs more closely integrated. Whatever said and done the 360 is a much more efficient architecture than our gaming PCs.

Wrong.

The 360 is just a normal-ass tri-core PowerPC chip with a Radeon HD 2900 GT. The difference is that every Xbox 360 that has ever been made and will ever be made has the exact same core specs (no the HDD size doesn't count). Thus, game developers know EXACTLY what they need to target and can optimize the hell out of their CODE to meet the needs of the platform. Also, have you ever compared the 360 version of a game to the PC version? The PC version always looks way better.

Oh and don't forget that even though the 360 outputs 720p, most newer games render at a lower resolution and then use the hardware scaler to upscale to 720p. Halo 3 is one good example, it actually runs at something like 960x540 @ 30fps. What PC gamer would accept such miserable performance? That's why we play on the PC.

 

[Silverforce11]

Consoles dont have to run faster than 30 fps. They often run with low/medium textures and no or poor AA, lightning and shadows are also low/medium.

A 5850 running on low/medium settings will hammer any game. But PC users dont buy fancy hardware to run games on noob settings. I've seen BC2 running on xbox360 and it looks like trash, so many jagged edges, poor textures, crap lightning/shadows... on my 5850 it gets 60+ fps and everything max with 4xAA (turn HDAO off, its a useless feature).

 

[mfenn]

Toyota said Depth of View and Tesselation need to be turned off on PC? Doesn't Xbox run Tessellation standard?

The 360 has a Radeon HD 2900, which has a fixed-function tessellator. Hardly anybody uses it though.

 

[Cookie Monster]

The 360 has a Radeon HD 2900, which has a fixed-function tessellator. Hardly anybody uses it though.

The Xbox360 has the R500 GPU with 48 unified shaders.

 

[toyota]

The 360 has a Radeon HD 2900, which has a fixed-function tessellator. Hardly anybody uses it though.

why do you keep saying it has a 2900?

 

[mfenn]

The Xbox360 has the R500 GPU with 48 unified shaders.

why do you keep saying it has a 2900?

Yeah, the closest PC analogue of the R500 is the R600 based HD 2900 GT. Even though the X1800 was based on a part called the R520, the R520 has discrete vertex and pixel shaders whereas the R500 has unified shaders. Thus, you can't really compare the R500 and the R520 even though the numbers are similar because they are vastly different architectures.

EDIT: I want to point out that the PS3 basically has a 7800GTX. GPUs are too advanced these days for even MS or Sony to get a completely custom solution. Is the chip EXACTLY the same? No, it has a custom interconnect and such to make it cheaper. Is it the same architecture as the PC card? You bet.

 

[vj8usa]

I started playing this game today, and wow does it run like shit. On the rig in sig, I'm getting framerates in the teens with everything but AA maxed (well, maxed as far as my rig is concerned, so no DX11, and resolution at 1680x1050). It isn't playable unless I drop down to "high" and 1280x800.

Is there some setting in the menu to let you change graphics settings individually? It shows you what settings change at the bottom of the screen, but all I see is the option to change the preset (dropping from very high to high, for instance, changes quite a few settings at once).

 

[toyota]

I am curious to see some cpu usage as I am wondering if this game is actually using a quad. also I saw someone mention in another forum that the game uses lots of vram and that 512mb doesnt cut it and even 1024mb can be exceeded at 1920 with the right settings.

 

[happy medium]

Yeah, the closest PC analogue of the R500 is the R600 based HD 2900 GT. Even though the X1800 was based on a part called the R520, the R520 has discrete vertex and pixel shaders whereas the R500 has unified shaders. Thus, you can't really compare the R500 and the R520 even though the numbers are similar because they are vastly different architectures.

EDIT: I want to point out that the PS3 basically has a 7800GTX. GPUs are too advanced these days for even MS or Sony to get a completely custom solution. Is the chip EXACTLY the same? No, it has a custom interconnect and such to make it cheaper. Is it the same architecture as the PC card? You bet.

I always thought it was compared to a x1950xt? 2900? na!

 

[mfenn]

I always thought it was compared to a x1950xt? 2900? na!

Nope. Changing from pixel+vertex shaders to unified shaders is a huge architectural shift.

x1950 has discrete pixel and vertex shaders
Xbox 360 has unified shaders
HD 2900 has unified shaders

In a way, everybody who's enjoyed their HD 2000-5000 series should be glad for Microsoft. MS basically subsidized ATI's move to a unified shader architecture.

 

[happy medium]

Thanks for the info.

 

[mfenn]

Thanks for the info.

No prob.

 

[toyota]

No prob.

I still dont get why you are calling it a 2900. besides the unified architecture how is that xbx360 gpu remotely like a 320sp 2900?

 

[happy medium]

I still dont get why you are calling it a 2900. besides the unified architecture how is that xbx360 gpu remotely like a 320sp 2900?

Read "How does it stack up". Scroll down some.



http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/archive/r1003/77r03/77r03.asp

 

[toyota]

Read "How does it stack up". Scroll down some.



http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/archive/r1003/77r03/77r03.asp

I dont see anything on there that says much in relation to my question. I just would like an explanation of why he keeps calling the xbox360 gpu a 2900. the gpu in the xbox360 is no where near as fast as a 2900 from what I can tell. now if he means its similar to 2000 series then okay but calling it a 2900 just doesnt make sense to me.

 

[mfenn]

I still dont get why you are calling it a 2900. besides the unified architecture how is that xbx360 gpu remotely like a 320sp 2900?

Notice that I said it was like a 2900 GT which has 48 "shader clusters" (ATI's terminology at the time) x 5 SPs per cluster = 240 SPs. The R500 has 48 "shader clusters" which can execute 4 ops = 192 SPs.

Now, I'm not saying that they are exactly the same, but they are the same architecture. The R600 is just a slightly beefed up R500, hence why I called it a HD 2900 GT (the cut down 2900).

If they were both PC parts, you would say (rightly so) that the R600 is the R500 refresh. It's just that the R500 itself was never released as a PC GPU, so the HD 2900 GT is the closest point of comparison.

 

[toyota]

okay it makes more sense now.