Metro 2033 Performance review

[tviceman]

I am a strong follower of IGN reviews. When they say 7.5/10 on graphics, it's really 7.5 in my book.

I like IGN/s layout, but man their reviewers really do suck. IGN reviews xbox games and then copies/pastes it's reviews for the pc version.

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/50206/IGNs-Batman-Arkham-Asylum-PC-Review

And says Battlefield Bad Company 2 is an inferior game in every single way to Modern Warfare 2.

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/53419/Battlefield-Bad-Company-2-Review-Video-Review-Trailer

On the Alien Vs. Predator review in which the reviewer says

"Despite the improvements enabled by the hardware in my PC, there weren't many effects that were specific to the platform and designed to take advantage of some of the more impressive graphical possibilities"

and isn't even running a DX11 card which ADDS EXTRA GRAPHICAL FEATURES.

They are seriously half-assed and/or sold on hype when it comes to many of their reviews.

 

[PUN]

I like IGN/s layout, but man their reviewers really do suck. IGN reviews xbox games and then copies/pastes it's reviews for the pc version.

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/50206/IGNs-Batman-Arkham-Asylum-PC-Review

And says Battlefield Bad Company 2 is an inferior game in every single way to Modern Warfare 2.

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/53419/Battlefield-Bad-Company-2-Review-Video-Review-Trailer

On the Alien Vs. Predator review in which the reviewer says and isn't even running a DX11 card which ADDS EXTRA GRAPHICAL FEATURES.

They are seriously half-assed and/or sold on hype when it comes to many of their reviews.

Yes they always do 360 review and leave the PC format out.

In general, I thought BC2 was a better game than MW2 given a powerful rig. Running BC2 under 2560x1600 under everything maxed was an eye candy. On the other hand, everyone had the previledge to run MW2 under high settings with AA on.

I was not even able to run AvP under DX11. So my assumption is that they presumed the game was DX10 to begin with.

 

[MrK6]

Whoops, double post

 

[MrK6]

Sounds like there's an issue with either DoF or Tess with crossfire cards since you only get 1-3fps with it on whereas I get around 20 with a single 5850.

I've been running it with tesselation on, I think it was a glitch that was crashing my FPS earlier. I'm still getting 40-70FPS no sweat with it on, so it's no problem.

I'm saying other people said Crysis didn't have great graphics. I agree that they were just saying that because they could not max it out. A lot of people are saying the same about this game for the same reason. Am I saying this game looks better than Crysis? No. Am I saying this game looks way better than ME2, MW2, BC2 and every other game other than Crysis? Definitely.

I agree. Crysis is still the overall best looking game ever made, and was years ahead of its time. I still compare other games to it today, even playing Metro 2033 today I sometimes thought "wow, that looks almost as good as Crysis." But I think Metro 2033 is going to take a comfy second ahead of STALKER: CoP.

ME2, MW2, BC2 looks much better than Crysis/warhead/farcry2 which dates back 3 years+.

lol. You pretty much just invalidated anything else you say in this thread. Just wow.

Ok, so I've played through a large chunk of the game and it's a very cool game. Not sure if it's worth the $50 given the limited replayability, but eh, definitely worth the first 33% off sale on Steam, especially if you have the rig for it. There's a lot of great elements in this game beyond the graphics, from the atmosphere to the mechanics to some very innovative uses of graphics technology (I don't want to ruin it for anyone to say how though ). As I stated, I assumed too early and the game is perfectly playable with tesselation on my 5850's. I'm currently running with DX11, everything cranked and enabled except Advanced DOF. Turning off "Advanced PhysX" didn't change FPS noticeably, and I think it might be working well in the game. I've seen a few scenes where crumbling rocks were very detailed. Also, shooting off individual icicles is pretty cool as well . The game also seems to run on all four quad cores (see screen shot). The biggest performance hit seems to come from some types of volumentric lights. It reminds me of the "sun shafts" in STALKER: Clear Sky, which were just redundant and unoptimized to the point that they killed performance. Anyway, my next post will have a slew of screenshots .

 

[MrK6]

Whoops, forgot to throw in the CPU usage screenshot in the other post:

That's just walking around a train station, nothing intense, nothing else running on my comp. Looks like pretty good scaling, and based on the PhysX performance, I'd believe it.

Anywho, here's a slew of screenshots. They're 2560x1600, DX11, everything maxed. However, there's no Advanced DoF and no Tesselation (I didn't turn it on until recently, although it doesn't make much of a difference). In short, the screenshots don't do the game justice. You really have to see it in motion to get the full effect. There were a lot of shots I captured when I saw in game and though "wow, sweet" but they just didn't look anything special while still. There's also some insanely cool shading effects that are important to the game, but I didn't post them because I don't want to spoil anything (if any screenshots are spoiling anything, please let me know). Overall, the game is a lot like STALKER meets HL2, with elements of FEAR and Fallout 3 thrown in (I had a laugh when I saw the "radiation mushrooms.")

 

[MrK6]

More shots, still no tesselation:

 

[MrK6]

And the last of them:

Of note, the last three photos show the same room. The first is me just looking straight on, with some pretty intense shading there, but still getting ~60FPS. If I move ahead just a bit and look up at the light coming through the fan, the FPS plummets to 30. As I stated earlier, there's something wrong with some of the volumetric light performance, and it shows when you look at the source of the light. Very odd. Anyway, enjoy, more shots with tesselation will come later.

 

[PUN]

I've been running it with tesselation on, I think it was a glitch that was crashing my FPS earlier. I'm still getting 40-70FPS no sweat with it on, so it's no problem.
I agree. Crysis is still the overall best looking game ever made, and was years ahead of its time. I still compare other games to it today, even playing Metro 2033 today I sometimes thought "wow, that looks almost as good as Crysis." But I think Metro 2033 is going to take a comfy second ahead of STALKER: CoP.
lol. You pretty much just invalidated anything else you say in this thread. Just wow.

Ok, so I've played through a large chunk of the game and it's a very cool game. Not sure if it's worth the $50 given the limited replayability, but eh, definitely worth the first 33% off sale on Steam, especially if you have the rig for it. There's a lot of great elements in this game beyond the graphics, from the atmosphere to the mechanics to some very innovative uses of graphics technology (I don't want to ruin it for anyone to say how though ). As I stated, I assumed too early and the game is perfectly playable with tesselation on my 5850's. I'm currently running with DX11, everything cranked and enabled except Advanced DOF. Turning off "Advanced PhysX" didn't change FPS noticeably, and I think it might be working well in the game. I've seen a few scenes where crumbling rocks were very detailed. Also, shooting off individual icicles is pretty cool as well . The game also seems to run on all four quad cores (see screen shot). The biggest performance hit seems to come from some types of volumentric lights. It reminds me of the "sun shafts" in STALKER: Clear Sky, which were just redundant and unoptimized to the point that they killed performance. Anyway, my next post will have a slew of screenshots .

Nice to hear from crysis fanboy. Crysis/farcry2 was the best looking game for awhile, but it's no doubt in the same tier as ME2, BC2, Dirt2, etc.
Stalker COP? LOL LOL LOL You gotta be kidding me!

And it's a flat out lie if you are telling me you are averaging 30fps with 5850 with AA & AF maxed.

 

[toyota]

with tessellation on and dof off a 5850 is only getting 25fps at just 1680. yeah I know you have 5870 but how are you getting WAY better performance at 2560 then pcgh was getting at 1680? http://vr-zone.com/forums/582617/metro-2033-benchmarked-pcgh-.html

 

[PUN]

with tessellation on and dof off a 5850 is only getting 25fps at just 1680. yeah I know you have 5870 but how are you getting WAY better performance at 2560 then pcgh was getting at 1680? http://vr-zone.com/forums/582617/metro-2033-benchmarked-pcgh-.html

25fps is possible with Tes ON, DoF OFF, AA OFF with 5870
He claims he is averaging 30fps with AA, AF under max setting with 5850. I call BS

 

[Attic]

This is one of the few games where i've found I need ~60fps to have comfortable gameplay. If I crank settings and have frames around 30fps then the game feels unplayable and floaty. Crysis at 30fps feels way faster than Metro2033 IMO.

Graphics are amazing, parts of the game are best i've ever seen. Some textures are poor, but overall I'm absolutely amazed by how this game looks.

 

[Silverforce11]

People are arguing over such a subjective element as "looks good"?? Seriously, its all a matter of taste. Metro looks great for the style of game it is. AvP looks excellent. In fact, i think BC2 looks better than Crysis. I mean, how can a game scene look better than a Hind-24 chopper being sniped killing the pilot and it crashes into a house full of enemies collapsing in a huge explosion killing everyone inside?!

 

[MrK6]

Nice to hear from crysis fanboy. Crysis/farcry2 was the best looking game for awhile, but it's no doubt in the same tier as ME2, BC2, Dirt2, etc.
Stalker COP? LOL LOL LOL You gotta be kidding me!

And it's a flat out lie if you are telling me you are averaging 30fps with 5850 with AA & AF maxed.

There's a new one, Crysis fanboy. Far Cry 2 wasn't all that spectacular (graphically or otherwise), I don't know where you got that one from. And ME2 and BC2 are a joke graphically; to compare them to original Crysis is laughable. I'm guessing you never played Crysis maxed. Finally, I'm averaging about 50FPS, no extra AA (DX11 Very High in the game forces a mild form of AA by default, check the screenshots), and it's 5850 Crossfire.

with tessellation on and dof off a 5850 is only getting 25fps at just 1680. yeah I know you have 5870 but how are you getting WAY better performance at 2560 then pcgh was getting at 1680? http://vr-zone.com/forums/582617/metro-2033-benchmarked-pcgh-.html

There's some communication error here. I didn't say "5850's" for kicks; I have two, in Crossfire. Anywho, here's some more pics:

Again, settings are 2560x1600, DX11, Very High, Tesselation on, Advanced PhysX on, Advanced DoF off, AA set to "AAA."

 

[MrK6]

More pics:

 

[MrK6]

Even more pics:

 

[MrK6]

And that should do it:

 

[toyota]

There's some communication error here. I didn't say "5850's" for kicks; I have two, in Crossfire. Anywho, here's some more pics:

well I guess I am crazy because I thought you had a single 5870 in your sig when I looked earlier.

 

[MrK6]

well I guess I am crazy because I thought you had a single 5870 in your sig when I looked earlier.

No, you're not. I just realized people must be looking at my (previously outdated) sig and not my posts. I just updated it to reflect my current rig.

 

[tviceman]

Whenever I upgrade to a dx11 card this will be the first game I buy. I'm tempted to get it now but I'd rather just wait until I can take advantage of the extra graphical features the game has.

 

[Headfoot]

I believe I read an article once from Tim Sweeney of Epic Games (of Unreal fame) where he said graphics are 50% coding (lighting, shading etc) and 50% art style (the look and feel of the game).

I'd say he's got a little credibility on this issue.

 

[Daedalus685]

I believe I read an article once from Tim Sweeney of Epic Games (of Unreal fame) where he said graphics are 50% coding (lighting, shading etc) and 50% art style (the look and feel of the game).

I'd say he's got a little credibility on this issue.

He is entirely correct.. Hell, there are times when playing WoW I'll sit there and think "Hey, this really looks amazing," of course that is always followed by noticing any number of the low res textures or trees that look like Lego and wire..... but an amazing art team can make you jsut adore the graphics regardless of the tech behind it.

Just another reason why subjective things like that are really not worth arguing over. One of these days a team as talented as the folks at blizzard (or any number of other teams) will get their hands on some tessellation and we can wonder how we ever got along without it.

 

[MrK6]

Thought I'd throw this out there. I've been fooling around with the FOV and it really adds even more immersion to this great game. The default is 45 (!), I tried 80 and it was too much. I'm currently backing it down (at 75 now). The problem is the FOV looks great, but the player model is still too distorted.

 

[vj8usa]

nvm

 

[SHAQ]

Thought I'd throw this out there. I've been fooling around with the FOV and it really adds even more immersion to this great game. The default is 45 (!), I tried 80 and it was too much. I'm currently backing it down (at 75 now). The problem is the FOV looks great, but the player model is still too distorted.

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

 

[MarcVenice]

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

How do you change it? config file somewhere?