Question about Performance on GTX 260's

[n0x1ous]

Just bought Metro 2033 from Steam last night and am looking forward to playing it tonight as I have been wanting to play for a while after reading the reviews. I know its a demanding game for even the latest fastest cards from both vendors and as you can see in my signature, I have a decent setup still, but certainly not cutting edge anymore.

I'm assuming Q6600 @ 3.15 and Triple GTX 260's are not going to be sufficient to max settings on this game at 19x12, so my question is do you guys think its better to drop resolution to 16x10 to turn up the candy, or use max resolution and turn down the candy? And I suppose its a good question in general, not just for my setup with this game.....

Also does anyone else have a similar setup that has played this game and if so, what kind of performance are you seeing?

Hope this is ok for the VC&G, if not let me know what i need to do to move it.

 

[MrK6]

Actually, I think you'll be able to max settings just fine, just turn off 4x MSAA and run Analytical AA and you should be alright after that. The major performance hits you see in reviews come from running advanced DOF and tessellation, both of which are DX11 only features. Note that I don't think this will give you 60FPS constantly, but it should make the game more than playable. If it's still too low, I would drop the settings down to "High" before dropping the resolution.

 

[tviceman]

MRk is right on. DX10 with SLI'd gtx260's will run really smooth with the settings maxed out using AAA instead of 4x MSAA.

 

[n0x1ous]

Thanks guys! Can't wait to try this out tonight!

 

[toyota]

yeah no problem on max settings as long as SLI scales and works properly. I ran it fine with single gtx260 at 1920x1080 on DX10 high settings, AAA, and 16x AF. I even switched to very high half way through the game to see how sluggish it would be and ended up leaving there. framerate was pretty low but it was perfectly playable.

 

[n0x1ous]

So it sounds like DX11 is the reason why the reviews show that its so hard on framerates, so that's not going to be an issue for me then....cool....Anyone played it on both? Does the DOF and Tesselation make a big difference to your game experience? Does it feel much more immersive or just a meh?

 

[MrK6]

So it sounds like DX11 is the reason why the reviews show that its so hard on framerates, so that's not going to be an issue for me then....cool....Anyone played it on both? Does the DOF and Tesselation make a big difference to your game experience? Does it feel much more immersive or just a meh?

The tessellation is unnoticeable unless you take a screenshot and stare at it. The advanced DoF is largely the same, but more so due to the fact that it tanks frame rates so much, the game is really unplayable with it on at 2560x1600. I don't think you'll be missing anything.

 

[n0x1ous]

Mrk6, I see you have that Dell 30 incher....That must be a beautiful sight to behold! Always wanted one, but haven't been able to stomach the 1K or so to get one. I wish someone would make a TN 30 incher for $500 for gaming and not the pro market!

 

[BFG10K]

Very good advice given about disabling tessellation, DoF and MSAA. The first two do little for image quality, while the latter worsens it because the game’s implementation is faulty.

I run the game at medium settings with AAA and DX11 @ 2560x1600, and it runs very well on my rig below. In fact I played the game from start to finish using such settings.

 

[Grooveriding]

Tri-sli 260 is still a potent setup. Faster than a GTX 480.

The most intensive effects I noticed in Metro were the lighting effects. Metro has the most impressive lighting I've seen in any game. I would lose about 20fps when the lighting effects were being heavily used.

 

[n0x1ous]

Just thought I'd post an update after getting to try it out this week. I have it set to Very High on DX10 with Analytical AA and Advanced PhysX on. I am averaging in the low to mid 50 FPS. Its hit over a 100 at a few points and the lowest around 30 (I think when there was some PhysX particles/smoke), but for the most part its in the 50's. I am really happy with the playability as this game doesn't "feel" like it needs constant 60 for smoothness (its not a twitchy Quake type FPS).

I am in Chapter two and have been mostly in the tunnels. I ran it with the SLI scaling bar on to see how it was doing there. The one part in the very beginning where I was outside the meter was stretched all the way and it kept me in the 40 ish range for most of it, and when Im in the tunnels its still scaling well but not quite as well as during that outside scene (maybe due to draw distances and more detail outside?)

Anyway, like I said, I am really happy with how its performing for the most part, and if it gets worse later in the game I would probably turn the Advanced PhysX off first before lowering anything else. The lighting is really impressive like was mentioned.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions everyone. Really looking forward to enjoying this game more this weekend!