For all the pre-launch chatter and years of build-up, we can rest easy! Starfield is downright incredible. Starfield is the best thing Bethesda has ever done – even besting my favorite entry in the series, New Vegas. I loved Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas, and especially Oblivion so I am a huge Bethesda RPG fan. This will be a mostly spoiler-free review, but we can say with confidence this is a stellar new franchise for Bethesda and a labor of love for the studio. The RPG elements are strong, the secrets are the most I have ever seen in a Bethesda game, and there is much to uncover even in the endgame. There is so much to do and fall deeply in love with.

Starfield will be released tomorrow September 1, 2023, in Starfield Early Access for players who have purchased the Starfield Premium Edition, Premium Edition Upgrade, or the Constellation Edition of Starfield.

For players who purchase the Starfield Standard Edition or subscribe to PC Game Pass, Starfield will be released on September 6, 2023.

That’s not to say that the game is without its flaws – combat can feel awkward, planet traversal is sorely lacking vehicles, and the occasional pop-in for conversations or weird interactions will be seen throughout your journey. The “Bethesda games are always buggy on release” mantra leading up to launch is flat-out wrong, however. I encountered bugs mostly with the conversations because I launched them quickly and my companion could not keep up. There were no game crashes or major bugs after more than 100 hours of playtime.

There are, however, some performance issues. Starfield is extremely CPU-heavy, and even with our RTX 4080, Ryzen 7800x3D build we saw some performance dips. Most egregious – there is no DLSS and this is another title that will exclusively feature AMD’s FSR and FSR2 technology. We will never agree with locking out alternative features, especially since I would have loved to have utilized DLSS 3 on my RTX 4080.

I can see why the game is locked at 30FPS for consoles. Even with 10 months of extra polish time on consoles, there are still some drops in performance. I had a few really hard FPS drops walking into some major cities on the Series S that felt bad, even if they were rare. Hopefully these can be fixed. With some patches, we are sure this will be better. I cannot wait for mods, my mind is racing with the possibilities!

Portable PCs, like the ALLY and Steam Deck
Bethesda explicitly noted not to use Asus’ ROG Ally or Steam Deck in our review as they are below recommended PC spec. I could not even get the ROG ALLY to launch the game due to some weirdness with the Xbox app on our Ally but Xbox/PC streaming worked flawlessly. I had to repair the download, and spam the launch button for it to work after about an hour of messing with updates and settings.

Once loaded, the ROG Ally did run the game decently on low to medium settings with FSR2 enabled while in 15W or 30W mode and it is 100% playable for those who have these portable PCs.

How much will Starfield cost?
Gaming only ever wants to get more expensive. The trend continues here, and if you want early access, you will need to pay $100 or the upgraded difference if you are a Game Pass subscriber. Microsoft has been raising the standard game price to $70 USD, Starfield included. Luckily, Starfield has been confirmed as a day-one addition to Game Pass, so most can experience it without any extra upfront cost.

Starfield is epic in scale – Some may not like this

Let me be clear: Starfield is a near-perfect Bethesda RPG with one of the best campaigns they have ever created. I was genuinely in awe in the latter half of the game, and with respect to Bethesda and your journey, we cannot discuss much that occurs in this portion. There is so much to explore but I did find myself mostly traveling within the major cities.

– 1,000 planets, with many that are mostly resource-gathering areas, but most have their main areas to explore and have fun in with hand crafted secret areas and wildlife to discover.
– Multiple faction quests.
– A plethora of side quests that keep spilling into your lap, begging you to explore and talk to as many NPCs as possible.
– A 40 to 50 hour main story quest.
– Excellent end-game activities to keep you busy including many things we cannot spoil. New Game + is also a warm welcome and a nice twist.

I often found myself drowning in activities (do not ignore these!) that became full-fledged amazing side quests, which I had ignored at first. My advice would be to slow down, and this is where Starfield may be an issue for some who have no patience. The game really and truly does not fully show off everything it has until way after 80-plus hours. I have to really emphasize that the scale is massive, and you will get to see so much more if you take your time and enjoy each individual planet first for all it has to offer.

But that’s the beauty of this game – your journey is going to be massively different from mine. For some, however, who want to unlock all the features or systems at once, they may not like having to invest 100 hours or more to get the game “going.”

Here are a few highlights in my journey while trying to be as spoiler-free as possible:
– I stole over 10 ships and immediately went to jail when I went into orbit near a patrolled planet, not realizing those spacers had contraband onboard
– Got a DJ’s new music back from an overzealous fan.
– Saved a planet from trees’ massive vibrations.
– Spared a man’s life after I learned he only stole a certain thing because he was recently fired and had no other choice.
– Found the source of an anomaly and uncovered the mystery of an artifact.
– Stole a tea recipe so a barista could compete with a megacorp (my companion did not like that).

Missions, side quests, and exploration

There is so much to explore on those far-off planets, so much beckoning that you to hurry to them, that inner child screaming with joy to rush to the end to “power up and unlock it all.” Slow down! Starfield has many, many wild layers to uncover and explore, but I often found myself spending hours on a planet, taking it all in, hours on side quests, and talking to those in a town I just discovered. Then you lift off, steal a ship, fight some space pirates, gather resources, build your outpost, and find a new planet with another hour-long side quest. It’s epic and breathtaking.

I will try to avoid spoilers, so skip to the next paragraph if you wish to avoid a very light spoiler. A perfect example of a favorite moment of mine was running into a derelict ship in orbit – which no one can seem to hail as soon as you pull into the orbit of Paradiso (a paradise Resort planet). The wild quest that unfolds for the secrets inside once you finally board the ship were great. Another was finding a miners simple quest that became a 10+ step mission that was extremely engrossing in Cydonia.

You can easily jump from planet to planet- more on that in a bit. Each feels like its own mini Bethesda game. Want to experience the desert? Head to Akila. Want a cyberpunk planet? Head to Neon. Want to experience something akin to Mass Effects massive cities? Head to New Atlantis. Missions here and the people you run into are varied and fully scripted. It’s so hard to write this review without screaming for you to go explore (spoiler) and fight the legendary (spoiler).

Planet jumping is where I found the most dissapointment. Launching away from a planet or onto once is mostly a menu system. The landing and orbit cutscenes are great but the game loses some of its charm and it would have been amazing to be able to manually take off from a planet if I wanted to.

I am over 100 hours in and have barely scratched the surface of shipbuilding, crafting, modding, and building outposts. Companions are varied and wonderful, and there are many paths for romance or companions to bring along that each have their own conversational style to match your preferred journey. I am not bored, ever. I keep wanting to play because there’s always a different loop I can take. Do I want to finish some side quests, gather resources, or explore new planets? I can easily choose any with the best fast-travel system I have seen. Everything is easily fast-traveled to – with slight limitations during quests – but you can hop from place to place in the blink of an eye. The Series S did have some longer loading screens for me so keep that in mind.

I am very saddened at the fact that there are no land vehicles or ways to easily traverse the planet. I am exploring a planet for a quest that needs to me to survey 100% of the planet in order to complete it. I have been stuck at 98% for over 3 hours with no end in sight moving from location to location to find the missing fauna and it did become frustrating – until I realized I could simply open the world and fast travel across the globe to different physical locations…d’oh!
However, I am still stuck at 98% simply because I got sidetracked with so much to do and the lack of interest in returning to find that missing 2%.

Shipbuilding and space flying are a highlight

Shipbuilding in Starfield is a delightful adventure! It takes a little time to dive into, but once you’re there, it becomes an exhilarating activity as you refine designs, add rooms, balance engines, weight, cargo, and ship systems. I have a fondness for massive spacecraft, not for their power, but because I enjoy wandering around all the rooms and exploring the technology that makes them tick. Although I haven’t delved much into outpost building, it is efficiently designed, allowing you to create attractive bases with relative ease. There are still the same power issues from Fallout 4 but some great options to build and even transport from planet to planet. It’s just not my cup of tea, and the game doesn’t hinge on it except for mass resource collection which I have yet to need.

In the endgame, there is a much greater need to worry about this, so I would say when you first start the game, don’t worry so much about your outposts until maybe 50 hours in, when you begin to start getting overwhelmed with companions.

Space battles are simply one of the best systems Bethesda has ever built. I became quickly addicted even though I knew my ship was severely outclassed. There is nothing I have experienced quite like taking on five spacers at once and barely winning because I was able to knock out all their engines. I kept losing this battle coming into orbit on a planet that I gave up and decided to explore elsewhere – only to see a giant ship land in the distance. I quickly ran over, defeated the owners, made it my new home ship, and instantly got an upgraded ship that was more than the spacers could handle. What a rush!

Starfield is ‘near’ perfect, but there are some minor issues

Bethesda has made some curious decisions and even their refined gunplay from the preview trailer still feels a little off. Some of the game feels like the systems and tech in the Fallout series forced change in Starfield. The need to differentiate between the two “futuristic” franchises is obvious. In Starfield, you get a “watch” that severely lacks the character of the classic Pip-Boy, and some of that classic Bethesda RPG danger feels really off unless you are fighting enemies that over leveled from you. I found myself missing V.A.T.S especially since a version of it exists on your spaceship and things like the menus and radio stations in Fallout. The AI feels set on a path and not as dynamic as I would have hoped but gun fights did feel quite responsive.

No one really tries to flank you or outsmart you and they often get stuck being target practice at their default locations while your are exploring. Most quests and other activities felt better, and there is a “fight to the death” area you can find that is particularly challenging even at high levels. It’s a strange feeling of easily dispatched mobs or “difficult to even pop your head up” fights.

As mentioned earlier, often you will fast travel to a mission marker, which launches a Grav Drive into a planet’s orbit. But the planet is suddenly surrounded by 6 pirate ships that severely outclass you, so you end up in a death loop unless you load a previous autosave. Be prepared anywhere you decide to fly off to. There may be missions or ships that hail you for trades. You never know what you might be traveling to.

Still, the gun diversity, some secrets, boost packs, and looting are extremely well done here. The guns feel incredible at times, but some feel unbalanced – dealing massive damage with a shotgun for example made me quite over powered for a long period of time. I tried switching to the P90 “Grendel” model in the game and it barely scratched the enemies I would shoot. Most of this can be fixed with balance passes.

Basic skills like stealth or pickpocketing require unlocking the core ability, meaning you can’t perform these activities at all until you invest a point in the skill tree. You don’t NEED the skills to perform the actions or get sneak attacks but without the core skill unlocked it feels bad to have something like pickpocketing locked off.

I specifically unlocked the ‘stealth’ trait because, without it, stealth felt very bad, and I did not like the lack of visual feedback. While leveling up to progress is understandable, the complete denial of access to core systems like this is strange and the cost to unlock could have maybe been a part of the quest instead. Leveling takes some time as well and there are so many worthy skill trees begging to be unlocked for you to progress that it feels bad when you have to spend that precious point in what was a default unlock for Bethesda RPGs.

Additionally, with crafting, you can only track entire recipes, not individual ingredients, making encumbrance a constant issue. There are so many heavy items in this game – especially ship parts – to weigh you down and keep track of. Thankfully, your companion can hold things for you, and you can sell or craft using the inventory that is on your ship’s cargo, so no need to hold it all at once or jettison the precious cargo.

Despite these minor hiccups, everything functions smoothly and feels stable. Although there are occasional frame rate stutters and minor glitches, nothing catastrophic has occurred for me. I hovered around 60 to 70 FPS stable on 3440×1440 with an RTX 4080. Thank you, Bethesda, for providing wide-screen support at launch.- a easily added feature so many ignore!

Starfield is visually stunning, with intricately detailed cities and diverse landscapes. One memorable moment involved exploring a moon-like planet or first landing in Neon. Your jaw will be on the floor even on the Series S where the graphics are toned down. I suggest immediately opening your menu and turning off the over-tuned film grain, however.

Starfield is one of the best games of this generation

For me, Starfield is Bethesda’s masterpiece, the hit Xbox needed, and possibly the game of the generation for the Series consoles. This is a system seller that is also available on PC via Steam or the Xbox app and included in Game Pass. I suggest you try it, you will be happy you did. Tears of the Kingdom brought me joy and wonder this year, but there was nothing for me quite like exploring all the wild amount of dialogue and fun to be had in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, or walking into New Vegas for the first time. That feeling is hard to capture and explain – you just have to see for yourself what Bethesda can create.

The worlds Bethesda builds feature dense, lively worlds where every direction offers something new. Walking into an Oblivion gate for the first time or traveling to a new planet – this is what makes gaming great.

I remember first beating Oblivion‘s main quest at over 120 hours and immediately starting another run. Starfield is on a whole other level, with much left to see even after completing the main story. It’s simply a joy to play, and I cannot recommend it more to every gamer.

The feeling of uncovering new things and the natural development in Starfield as you journey through it is unmatched, highlighting Bethesda’s quarter-century of experience and their authentic mastery as one of the best to ever do it. You will literally be overflowing with things to do – or not do- in a universe is teeming with new planets to explore. A definitive masterpiece.

Familiar elements and combat awkwardness exist, but Starfield is completely new, and there are months ahead for me to explore and enjoy. I cannot wait to see the mods and community reaction. Have a blast, and don’t rush!
Starfield gets a 10/10 from BTR. Thank you to Bethesda for providing a review copy.

Vampires are a horror genre staple so it’s quite shocking we haven’t really had an amazing game release featuring them as the central villain in quite some time. So when Arkane, the makers of amazing games like Prey and Dishonored, announced Redfall in June of 2021, it captured my bloodlust. Xbox’s current weak place in the market is begging for a great release which puts a ton of extra pressure for Redfall to exceed expectations.

The excitement for Redfall’s hero-based looter-shooter gameplay centering around vampires has such a high ceiling because of this atmosphere. Microsoft needs a win. It’s Arkane, so we know they have a history of hitting it out of the park with combat, stealth, and a great story. But after delays, the announcement that consoles would be locked to 30fps at launch, and after a quiet launch week, some concern set in.

The press embargo was set right before tomorrow’s release at 8:01 PM ET today. A red flag went up instantly. This is a review-in-progress as we were provided a key close to release and have not had time to complete the entire story but have completed the majority of its major missions. In fact, a 69.4GB patch dropped this morning adding DLC.

After playing, I understand the fear of reviewers about gameplay spoiling major elements of the latter half of the game. For FPS fans, Redfall provides some great gameplay elements to sink your teeth and time into, but it also lacks direction and its vision is muddied with formulaic systems and some glaring issues. Let’s take a deeper look at Redfall in our review of the PC version for Steam. Thank you to Nvidia and to Arkane for providing a review copy for our coverage!

Characters

Redfall has you choose one of four main characters which is one of the biggest draws for me upon release. Going in with friends to experience a 4-player massacre of vampires and their minions could be a real blast. Central to Redfall is its first person and hero shooter design. The four playable characters at launch are cryptozoologist inventor, Devinder Crousley; telekinetic student, Layla Ellison; combat engineer, Remi de la Rosa; and special forces sniper, veteran Jacob Boyer. Redfall has more character releases planned later.

Each character has a trio of upgradable special powers, two are useable for limited times, and an “ultimate” that recharges more slowly over time. Each power has its own unique spin on combat and abilities to play with. Vampires invade the area known as Redfall, and after some opening events, there is no physical way to escape from the area. You and the town’s citizens are fish trapped in a bucket being saved for feeding time.

The opening sequence is pretty great and sets the tone well. The massive cascade of frozen water serves as an ominous foreshadowing of the immense power our enemies hold. Our characters had previous run-ins with the main antagonists that provided them with their abilities.

I really disliked that Bungie made us go to their website to read “grimoire” cards to understand the lore. The same thing is done here with Redfall – most of the backstory ends up by being briefly told in side conversations, and if you want more, you need to read one of the many, many notes strewn across the world or by gathering 100 items that provide more exposition from a central character. It is hard to describe how grandiose the game can be and yet so small at the same time before you actually jump in to play.

Disappointingly, Redfall at times can feel paper thin, and I believe it could have been truly great with more time in the coffin until it was ready to withstand the heat of the sun and its place in the current landscape. Gamers will notice.

We want the deep world-building and narrative that Arkane is known for, and if more time was needed for a sophisticated presentation, I would have begged for it. Without going into later story spoilers, Redfall’s premise is that a biotech corporation known as Aevum was working with a scientist seeking immortality, an experiment went wrong and the vampire hoard was unleashed. Almost immediately, many of the town’s residents became cultists who wanted this same immortality and began to worship and defend the vampires with the promise that once they die they would be reincarnated as all-powerful beings.

A once idyllic island town is now the center for survivors, and you are someone luckily granted special powers that you have right off the bat. Conceptually, its a great setting for this game and it was very interesting to explore. With vampire nests to destroy, bosses to defeat, safehouses to set free, and so much loot to gather for upgrades – the base systems are there for a great time.

But while Redfall’s premise does an amazing job of setting up some great missions, the presentation feels extremely dated. So much so I am not sure that most players will stay long enough to experience the latter half of the game which begins to feel incredible at times.

Let’s take a deeper look at the gameplay.

Gameplay

After the opening sequence, your first mission is to approach a surrounded firehouse with survivors inside. Cultists are standing outside, literally, not banging on the walls or trying to break in – they are standing there in groups just waiting to pick survivors off. This is the same immersion-breaking feeling most of the encounters have in the game. Something feels like it was missed or changed in development.

Most gamers won’t care about small details as they may just care about the overall story and the gunplay. Well, after first picking off the cultists, you meet your first set of survivors for your new home base. There is little to no backstory for the characters without reading interactable letters, and they sort of just fall into place as expert base builders with a doctor, a gun expert, a clergywoman, and more. Redfall is shockingly light on explanations and barebones in so many other similar places that lowered our expectations for the rest of the game.

This base is never attacked and is literally just a place you come back to get supplies, make occasional small talk, and interact with a missions table to get photo cutscenes between your custom character and the survivors. I believe the reason for this is because of only having four characters and it may have been easier to just replace their skin for the cutscenes. I understand that the visuals needed to be presented, but with such barebones characters it would have made me care more about them if they actually talked to you.

Between missions, they will talk to each other and then later you get in-game conversations with dynamic character movements and interactions that I really enjoyed especially near the end of the first half of the game. If this was more fleshed out, I would have cared much more about these characters and saving them.

However, none of it matters as once a major defeat occurs, in order to progress the story you have to leave the main island and can never return. I’d prefer to go back and experience those levels again when I want to and have fun in the sandbox that was created, but its completely shut off.

The second area feels more like the real main game in almost every way. Characters are more vocal, the area feels more dense and packed with hidden items and more enemies to fight. The story is finally fleshed out and its vast world is begging to be explored. Only in the second half is where Redfall shines and becomes extremely fun.

Gunplay

We suggest not playing the healer characters during single-player as they won’t offer much utility. Some of the abilities become extremely powerful with later unlocks like Jacob’s raven damaging anyone in its path. However, the AI needs some serious work and I often found myself ignoring gun perks and upgrades as a necessity to improve my experience.

None of it is truly fundamental to the experience and most hero’s abilities would help multiplayer sessions. However, story progression is not shared due to the nature of the game’s design but the loot and levels you gain are.

Flawed AI is one of the biggest issues we ran into. It’s bad. I mean really bad especially for the poor cultists who get the short straw. They funnel in the same path, get stuck on rocks, have clunky animations, and have no real cognition or ability to flank and outsmart you while at the same time having god-aim. It’s a bad combo especially when being sniped at from a distance.

I am not sure any patches can address this, but with Jacob at launch, AI is broken and basically stuck in easy mode. Even on higher difficulties and with later invisibility unlocks, I could cycle between walking directly into a large group of enemies, grabbing the quest item, and then going invisible again, and they would just go on their way. The same could be said about shooting from a specific area – the AI just funnels directly to you and poses no real challenge ala Deathloop.

Other characters have similar “cheese” but I would recommend increasing the difficulty of the game for a better challenge. The shooting experience is still fantastic – from sniper rifles to UV lasers that petrify the enemy vampires – it is a blast to play.

In some well-designed areas like the vampire nests, it reminded us of entering the Elder Scroll’s Oblivion Gates. These moments however are few and far between if you love to fully explore the world. Some missions are surprisingly good but getting there is such a slog that some may never progress to experience them. The moment-to-moment gameplay constantly clashes badly with each other. It is tiring especially when combined with performance issues.

Speaking of vampire nests, these are some of the best gameplay areas in Redfall. They pack strong vampires in large numbers that can overwhelm you quickly even with Jacob’s invisibility and it requires careful planning. Conversely, there is little punishment for dying as progress does not reset and there are typically no timers, so if you can go in gun blazing.

Vampire nests reached another level that let me see the vision for Redfall which makes it hurt to see it ignored for the rest of the gameplay. The tone, the atmosphere, and with your back against the wall fighting off vampire hoards is such an amazing concept!

In one mission, you go to investigate a boat and as soon as the quest item is picked up it triggers an angry mob that immediately surrounds your only exits with deadly red mist, a mini-boss, and a mob of bloodthirsty vampires. You can see this all unfold beneath you from the boat’s windows. Your only option is to bite back and fight your way out. The game is filled with these bursts of incredible and stunning moments with fantastic and engaging gunplay that is then mixed with poor performance, bad lip-syncing, and horrible AI.

I am really reminded of Destiny 1’s live service launch which was obviously a victim of a large form of rewrite and rebuild. Perhaps Redfall had a similar fate but we will never know. Arkane has promised gamers that this will be their most supported game yet and we really hope so. The core gameplay is incredible but it reminds us of Cyberpunk 2077’s promise of a better future when all we need now is the vampire killing fun we have been salivating for.

The loot, the loot, the loot, the loot, the loot

Let’s talk loot. Vampire bosses keep repeating “the blood, the blood, the blood, the blood” but all I care about is if they will give me fun weapons to kill them with. Loot and gameplay can keep a game alive for a long time especially if there are fun quests or some great special weapons or “exotics” to chase. A community can grow quickly when secrets are found or the best load-outs to defeat bosses are found.

Redfall’s weapons scale with your level and just pump out higher numbers of damage. Pistols, shotguns, automatic rifles, UV lasers, stake launchers, snipers, and flare guns round out a fun and worthwhile experience. Unfortunately, as the game fleshes out you see how exploration is broken by other reward types. So build-crafting with the right perks and skill point selections doesn’t make much of a difference now.

Pistols are often one-shot minions, flare guns burn and stun lock vampires, and stake launchers massively chunk any boss or special vampire. It’s all amazing fun and the combo load-outs you run can really allow for great gameplay loops. Although the cultists are really bad enemies, they serve little to no threat until much later when their level just means their incredible accuracy can health-chunk you within a second or two if you get careless. I died a lot early being overrun in confined space by the fast vampire attacks as they surrounded me. Some enemy abilities can also one-shot you. This would not be much of an issue in multiplayer but it felt bad in single-player mode.

That said, you don’t have to worry about dying in a mission because no progress is lost and you have so much junk loot currency that you will likely never spend. You do not lose any progress from dying, any damage or defeated enemies stay dead, and your mission status is retained. Most of the world’s junk loot like bleach, toilet paper, water bottles, etc. that you pick up gets converted into a currency for purchases back at the home base.

Things like med kits, better guns, and lock picks can be purchased with converted drop currency. However, most of the rewire/hack kits just lead to more junk loot or heals, which enemies drop, and are strewn literally everywhere. Most of the lock picks do the same.

There was no master sword moment or a huge loot drop that I was super excited for. This is because they aren’t necessary because vampire nests and a later world event granted me the best loot in the game. Most of your old loot is junked as you move on to the next mission anyway.

The combos are fun though as you need to either stake, petrify, or burn vampires. You can mix using a UV gun to petrify groups of vampires and then shotgun them one by one to dispatch a large group easily. If you take too long as Jacob, you can just go invisible with no real danger. I did this for the first big boss and didn’t even lose 50% health because a large power weapon pumps out such large chunks of damage the boss gets health gated and frozen before they can even react. I broke the game rather easily. Balancing needs to occur and much more AI work is needed. There was a huge patch today that hopefully addresses some of these woes.

PC Performance

I am beginning to call DLSS 3 a godsend but it should not be necessary just to enjoy a major release. The industry has lately given PC gamers the short end of the stick, but that is a topic for another day. We started our playthrough with our Ryzen 7800x3D build with an RTX 4070 Ti and 32 GB of DDR5-6000mhz RAM on our TeamGroup 2TB NVMe drive. Ours is far beyond a typical system, but from the onset we had massive crashes, stuttering, bugs, and large frame dips. Microstutters and texture problems also occurred.

The latest Nvidia driver helped and DLSS 3 almost doubled our performance. This still did not address some areas of town where we would dip into the low teens. Entering the menu could often cause the game to crash. Glitches like this ruined some major moments of our playthrough but with patches this may be resolved soon.

DLSS looks incredible and is a must-have feature. It nearly doubled performance on the RTX 4090 which was already performing great except for the 1% lows. The same could be said for our RTX 4080 and 4070 Ti. The newly released RTX 4070 also performs well but the game really needs some serious performance improvements.

There was a large 69.4GB patch today so we redid our benchmarks. Here are our numbers using maxed/Epic settings:

Testbed 1:

Intel 13900KF/RTX 4090 FE/2x16GB DDR5 6400/Win 11 – 3840 x 2160

TAA high/No DLSS – 124.3 av /  42.1 1% low

Quality DLSS 3 – 178.0 av / 72.7 1% low

DLSS 3 in particular allows for stunning gameplay and steady framerates with comparable image quality to native. Unfortunately, Redfall is sadly locked at 30FPS for the console launch with 60 FPS mode coming soon but now we can understand why: It just needs more time in development.

Testbed 2:
Post-Day 1 Patch with AMD Ryzen 7800x3D, 2x16GB DDR6 6000, TeamGroup 2TB NVMe, Win 11.
3840×2160, Epic Preset DLSS comparison:

Conclusion – try if you have Game Pass

We can not recommend Redfall at launch. I was very excited for Arcane Austin’s Redfall, despite the console war chatter, the state of Xbox, and red flags coming out from the game development cycle. I still loved my time with it, and in many moments I was having a good deal of fun, but most of the time the world proved to be empty or uninteresting.

I would not have continued as far as I progressed if I did not enjoy some of the big set pieces so much. I believe anyone with Game Pass should play it, even at 30fps on console. However, it’s a messy mix of RPG, looter shooter, and a multiplayer game that lacks a cohesive and consistent presentation. Couple this with terrible AI and a plethora of bugs and there are very high highs and very, very low lows. 

Redfall can technically be played solo, but we recommend the experience with friends as it is much better. It is also not going to be the major release to start the Xbox renaissance that we so desperately need. This review score is going to be low, but I am still rooting for it. There is something there at the core that is clawing at the surface to come out and be enjoyed. It is your choice if you want to power through the mud to get to the meat of it.

If you can withstand some glitches, read the story in text form with barebones character development, and have friends to play with then you will have a decent time. That said, the world is already so empty that traversing its many roads with no vehicles or large enemy population it can feel lonely walking large swaths of areas as a solo player. At times, I grew so frustrated with the experience I found myself begging for a story, begging for those cool moments, and I often felt unrewarded and angry.

Redfall releases later today on Xbox Series consoles, PC, Game Pass, and is Steam Deck verified.

After spending 18 hours over two sessions completing the Ghostwire: Tokyo main story, and being unable to tear ourselves away from the screen until it was completed, we will recommend it as a great game with a few flaws. It’s an epic universal story about family, regret, loss, and letting go told from a Japanese viewpoint that is absolutely worth playing. Its story, intense immersion, and authenic cultural representation could only have come from a Japanese studio. However, this review will focus on DLSS scaling performance because it cannot be played at 4K using maxed-out ray traced settings with excellent image quality (IQ) on any video card without it.

Although the game consists of typical open world fetch quests, a player is not treated like a tourist. The quests take on cultural significance, delving into mythology and religion that are a part of Japanese society and superstitions. Tokyo comes alive at night although the player is the only living human. Ghostwire: Tokyo even features Japanese audio as default by using English subtitles which add to the immersion much as watching a great Japanese film is best experienced. We did not bother with the English dub since the Japanese voice acting and emotion is top-notch.

The Ghostwire: Tokyo premise is that the city is under the control of a dangerous occultist allied with “visitors” who have caused the entire population of the Shibuya district to vanish. Playing as Akito, the player is still alive only because he has allied with a spirit detective (KK) inside him that provides supernatural abilities against dangerous ghostly and spirit foes. Akito uses a combination of upgradeable elemental powers and can even grapple onto Tengu demons to glide through the sky. The gameplay is unlike a usual FPS, since when an enemy loses most of their health, their core is exposed and the player uses takedown moves to permanently destroy them.

Gameplay & Mechanics

Although it is open world, Ghostwire: Tokyo uses a mist and fog mechanic to keep the player from venturing into locked areas of the map. Akito unlocks sections by completing side objectives and must purify shrines using Kuji-kiri inspired hand gestures to cast spells to disperse the fog opening up more areas of the map, while gaining access to new side quests and objectives. Various elemental powers including wind, fire, and water blades magic and upgrades are unlocked using XP, currency, and other resources. Akito may also save the souls of the vanished residents before they are permanently lost.

The side quests in the game often have some light narrative or humor attached to them that uncover the unfinished business of various spirits that are unable to move on to the afterlife. One of Akito’s side quests is to find toilet paper for one spirit locked in a bathroom stall that refuses to move on otherwise.

Ghostwire: Tokyo offers multiple difficulty settings, from a story mode to very challenging. There are varied environments that range from the streets of Tokyo at night, to the wide outdoors, and to exploring underground. There is no built-in benchmark but the game exhibits similar performance from one area to another, and there are individual settings available from the menu to fine tune performance.

An anytime save supplements autosave and is particularly helpful to proceed as there are many tough enemies and difficult boss fights to survive. The NPC enemies generally present good variety although some of them are quite repetitious with only minor variability.

Although it is a PlayStation PS5 console port, Ghostwire: Tokyo has incredibly detailed characters with awesome visuals that place it at the apex of the very best cinematic experiences. Ray traced reflections are featured and eveything reflects accurately in the puddles on the streets adding to a player’s immersion. However, a player cannot see their own reflections, so it is not the same as Control, although other NPCs cast reflections that are accurately traced as they move.

To progress, a gamer needs to be good at fighting, and there are a lot of side quests and souls to save, as well as XP to earn for character development. Great voice acting and music enhance a player’s experience. However, this review will not focus on reviewing the game; rather it will focus narrowly on DLSS as a means to increase framerates without compromising image quality as the game is impossibly demanding using maxed-out settings.

Ghostwire: Tokyo is basically a DX12 PS5 Pro version with unlocked framerates for the PC, and it looks better than most of the next generation console games. The PC version includes ray traced reflections, shadowing, great lightning and intense colors, enhanced screen space reflections, and ambient occlusion. The PC version also offers higher framerates and perhaps higher textures than the console version.

BTR’s benchmark is not only representative of the game and generally more demanding than the boss battles, but the runs vary from each other by less than one percent. The boss battles don’t seem to depend on ray traced reflections which otherwise can severely impact framerates

DLSS, Image Quality, and Performance

BabelTechReviews pre-purchased a copy of Ghostwire: Tokyo from Green Man Gaming at a 20% discount before it launched on Friday last week with no expectations. It received mixed reviews but with very high praise for its depiction of Tokyo. We started it with a very bad toothache that didn’t allow us to concentrate on anything else yet we were completely blown away by this game and could barely tear ourself away from it. The game was so enjoyable and immersive, the pain receded into the background as we finished the main storyline in two marathon sessions.

Ghostwire: Tokyo features NVIDIA’s DLSS as well as AMD’s FSR, but there is really no comparison – the DLSS images are much better with DLSS Quality being at least as good as the native 4K visuals and slightly sharper. Although DLSS exhibits more ghosting on raindrops than native 4K, the overall effect is superb and makes them look even more real.

More than three years ago, NVIDIA introduced realtime RTX ray tracing together with Deep Learning Supersampling (DLSS). To play at high settings requires the use of AI super resolution or DLSS which provides better than a game’s postprocessing AA together with improved performance. Ghostwire: Tokyo uses ray tracing and DLSS to improve performance, and we will compare the current performance and IQ of eleven NVIDIA RTX cards using the latest 512.15 driver.

Performance Options

Although Ghostwire: Tokyo is a well-done PlayStation port, it has more limited options than most games developed primarily for the PC. The game is limited to 30 FPS on the PS5 using the highest settings and ray tracing. Playing on PC gives slightly higher graphics fidelity together with a potential for higher and thus more fluid framerates. We benchmarked using maximum settings including Motion Blur (Cinematic), but we played with it on High and we also used SSAO for Global Illumination instead of the much more demanding SSGI.

We played and benchmarked using two different displays – a 48″ LG C1 120Hz 3840×2160 display and a 32″ 60Hz BenQ 4K display. Our PC is a 12900KF Intel CPU at stock settings on an ASUS ROG Maximus Apex motherboard with T-FORCE DELTA 16GB x 2 DDR5 6400 CL40, and a 2TB 5,000 MB/s T-Force C440 NVMe SSD for C:Drive plus a 1TB T-Force A440 7,000MB/s NVMe SSD as storage for loading the game. Tokyo: Ghostwire loads very quickly from a fast SSD. We played for 18 hours using a RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition and then benchmarked and played for many more hours benching with ten more RTX cards.

We are going to compare image quality using three levels of DLSS versus using no DLSS, and we chart the performance of eleven current NVIDIA GeForce RTX cards:

• RTX 3080 Ti
• RTX 3080
• RTX 3070 Ti
• RTX 2080 Ti
• RTX 3070
• RTX 3060 Ti
• RTX 2080 SUPER
• RTX 2070 SUPER
• RTX 3060
• RTX 2060 SUPER
• RTX 2060

DLSS

NVIDIA’s DLSS creates sharper and higher resolution images with dedicated AI processors on GeForce RTX GPUs called Tensor Cores. The original DLSS 1.0 required more work on the part of the game developers and resulted in image quality approximately equal to TAA. DLSS 2.0 and later versions use an improved deep learning neural network that boosts frame rates while generating crisper game images with the performance headroom to maximize settings and increase output resolutions. Since it uses DeepLearning, it continues to evolve and improve.

NVIDIA claims that DLSS offers IQ comparable to native resolution while rendering only one quarter to one half of the pixels by employing new temporal feedback techniques. DLSS 1.0 required training the AI network for each new game whereas DLSS 2.0 trains using non-game-specific content that works across many games.

DLSS generally offers RTX gamers four IQ modes: Quality, Balanced, Performance and Ultra Performance, These settings control a game’s internal rendering resolution with Performance DLSS enabling up to 4X super resolution. In our opinion – for Ghostwire: Tokyo specifically – the Quality DLSS IQ looks somewhat better than 4K, and even Performance DLSS is very well implemented. We would prefer to drop DLSS from Quality to Performance rather than adjust other settings or drop the resolution, and Balanced DLSS is an excellent in-between choice.

Ghostwire: Tokyo’s own anti-aliasing doesn’t address temporal anti-aliasing like DLSS does. We will next focus on image quality and DLSS on versus off, followed by benchmarking and charting DLSS performance using eleven RTX cards.

DLSS On versus Off

Native 4K without DLSS is 3840×2160 for both the Render and the Output Resolution and it is especially demanding on a video card using maximum settings.

Using the magic of AI and RTX Tensor cores, Quality DLSS upscales a 2560×1440 render resolution to 4K with no loss of image quality as we shall see in the following section.

No DLSS vs. Quality DLSS

Here are mostly uncompressed JPEG 4K images images comparing No DLSS/Native (left) with Quality DLSS (right) using a slider.

[twenty20 img1=”27043″ img2=”27047″ offset=”0.5″ before=”NO DLSS” after=”QUALITY DLSS”]

We don’t recommend playing without DLSS. The DLSS image quality is equal or better/sharper than native although there are some very slight differences that can be seen with some minor DLSS specular aliasing issues visible on some surfaces.

No DLSS vs. Balanced DLSS

Balanced DLSS uses a Render Resolution of 2228×1254 to upscale to 4K and the AI must fill in more pixels than with Quality DLSS.

Here is 4K (native) with no DLSS on the left compared with a similar image on the right using Balanced DLSS.

[twenty20 img1=”27043″ img2=”27041″ offset=”0.5″ before=”NO DLSS” after=”BALANCED DLSS”]

Again the images are comparable although Balanced DLSS loses a tiny bit more detail than Quality DLSS.

No DLSS vs. Performance DLSS

Performance DLSS requires that a Render Resolution of 1920×1080 be upscaled to 3840×2160 which means the AI must use just one-quarter of the original pixels for its 4K reconstruction. This will result in a further slight loss of detail.

Here is the comparison of 4K (left) with Performance DLSS (right)

[twenty20 img1=”27043″ img2=”27045″ offset=”0.5″ before=”NO DLSS” after=”PERFORMANCE DLSS”]

There is a small loss of detail in some areas but the Performance DLSS upscaled image quality is still excellent and we doubt that anyone would notice the differences while actually playing the game, and they are even difficult to see in the above screenshot slider comparison.

Next, we check out the performance of eleven RTX cards using 3840×2160, 2560×1440, and 1920×1080 resolutions using up to three levels of DLSS with the goal of averaging close to 60 FPS while still using completely maxed-out settings.

Performance

Ghostwire: Tokyo is a visually beautiful but extremely demanding game using maximum settings, and its impossible to play at native 4K with maxed out settings on any current generation video card without slowdowns. Quality DLSS is our goal since it’s visuals are equivalent to not using DLSS. Balanced DLSS may requires a slight visual sacrifice, and Performance DLSS is still acceptable while gaming because most players are generally not exploring the gameworld with a magnifying glass looking for visual flaws.

Although there are very difficult boss battles with multiple enemies on screen at once, as long as a player can maintain average framerates above 55 FPS, the experience is sufficiently fluid as long as the minimums (1% lows) stay around 50 FPS. If a GSYNC or a GSYNC compatible display is used, it is generally not a problem for the lows to dip occasionally into the upper-40s FPS. Below that, fluidity may be compromised, and it is better to lower the graphics settings or use a lower quality DLSS setting. Ultra Performance DLSS is not recommended unless framerates cannot be increased by any other method – it is better to lower settings first as it was primarily developed for 8K gaming.

Using Ghostwire: Tokyo’s highest settings, we compare performance without DLSS versus Quality, Balanced, and Performance DLSS using eleven current RTX cards at 1920×1080, 2560×1440, and 3840×2160.

For Better Performance Consider SSAO Instead of SSGI

SSGI has the highest visual fidelity for ray tracing. However, it takes a solid hit over using SSAO and may not even be noticeable when traversing Tokyo. It is up to the player to decide if they want maxed out settings at all costs or will settle for something slightly “less perfect” visually.

Here are two screenshots comparing SSGI with SSAO using DLSS Quality at 4K:

[twenty20 img1=”27047″ img2=”27049″ offset=”0.5″ before=”SSGI” after=”SSAO”]

The ray traced lighting is more perfectly rendered using SSGI over SSAO. Is it enough to lose performance? Each gamer will have to decide about the visual tradeoff for performance.

All of the following charts show average framerates (FPS) in Bold and 1% FPS percentile minimums next to them in slightly smaller italized font.

Here is RTX 3080 Ti performance using SSGI compared with performance using SSAO.

Using SSAO instead of SSGI makes approximately a 10% improvement in performance and it scales similarly for all RTX cards tested. We played the game using SSAO and did not notice significant enough visual diffencies while playing to use SSGI. However, the following benchmarks use all settings fully maxed-out including SSGI.

4K Video cards – RTX 3080 Ti & RTX 3080

Only two RTX cards can generally play at maximum settings using DLSS at 4K.

The RTX 3080 Ti is a no-compromise video card that provides the best 4K Ghostwire: Tokyo experience. It absolutely can not handle maxed out 4K settings without using DLSS. Fortunately, DLSS scales superbly in this game.

A 4K gamer may choose to use Quality DLSS but must accept a framerate hit without some other setting compromises. We played at 4K but used SSAO instead of SSGI using an RTX 3080 Ti FE and managed very well using Balanced DLSS and G-SYNC displays with drops to about 50 FPS that did not impact our gameplay fluidity even during the most demanding boss battles.

If a RTX 3080 Ti gamer chooses 1440P, DLSS Quality is still a must.

At maxed out 4K, the RTX 3080 averages above 60 FPS with DLSS Performance but drops into the upper-40s FPS for the 1% minimum lows. 1440P is the ideal target resolution for this card using DLSS Quality.

1440P Video Cards – RTX 3070 Ti / RTX 3070 / RTX 3060 Ti / RTX 2080 Ti / RTX 2080 Super

The following five video cards perform well at 1440P.

The RTX 3070 Ti cannot play at maxed-out 4K without DLSS Performance. However, DLSS Quality allows for a high quality maxed-out 1440P experience with excellent averages and drops into the upper-50s.

The RTX 3070 performs below the RTX 3070 Ti in Ghostwire: Tokyo, and although it cannot play well at 4K/maxed, the same recommendations for 1440P apply as above.

The RTX 3060 Ti requires Balanced DLSS to play smoothly at 1440P.

The last generation flagship RTX 2080 Ti is not recommended for 4K without dropping settings, but it can manage 1440P with DLSS Quality if the player doesn’t mind framerate drops into the upper-40s. The experience is acceptable, but it may be better to use DLSS Balanced or Performance.

The RTX 2080 Super performs below the RTX 2080 Ti in Ghostwire: Tokyo and we recommend Performance or Balanced DLSS for 1440P although Quality may be acceptable.

1080P – RTX 2070 Super / RTX 3060 / RTX 2060 Super / RTX 2060

The following four cards work best with 1080P although the fastest two can just manage 1440P.

The RTX 2070 Super plays acceptably at 1440P with Performance DLSS. However, it would also be an excellent 1080P card using DLSS Quality for those who prefer higher framerates.

The same applies to the RTX 3060 as above.

The RTX 2060 Super performs below the RTX 3060 and should primarily be used for 1080P.

The RTX 2060 is the entry level RTX card and it is best suited for 1080P using Performance or Balanced DLSS as Quality performance is somewhat marginal.

DLSS makes a huge difference to the playability of Ghostwire: Tokyo at the highest visual quality settings, and DLSS Quality has no IQ disadvantages whatsoever while Balanced and Performance DLSS make little to no practical visual differences while gaming. It is highly recommended!

DLSS gains a large percentage of performance over not using it, and it looks at least as good depending on the level. It is really “free performance” without compromise. We see a RTX 3080 Ti playing Ghostwire: Tokyo fluidly with maximum settings at 4K using Performance DLSS whereas it’s a slideshow without it. DLSS isn’t perfect, occasionally adding some very minor artifacting and potentially losing a little fine detail, but overall all three DLSS settings look great with the camera in motion.

Any algorithm that doesn’t use AI such as FidelityFX Super Resolution on its highest setting simply cannot match the image quality of Quality DLSS and there is every good reason for a GeForce RTX gamer to use DLSS for Ghostwire: Tokyo.

Conclusion

Ghostwire: Tokyo is an immersive, outstanding, and really fun game that gives a great cinematic experience while telling an extraordinary story. We are especially impressed by its visuals coupled with the large free performance increase that DLSS brings for RTX gamers.

If you’re as fascinated by Japanese culture as much as this editor and wish to see it authentically, accurately, and lovingly represented, Ghostwire: Tokyo is a must-play game. And if you are looking to play the game with the best framerates and the very highest image fidelity, then choose DLSS. Ghostwire: Tokyo is the kind of deeply immersive game that makes a player forget everything – food, chores, work, and even pain. It is highly recommended!

Rodrigo is hard at work on his GeForce 512.15 driver performance analysis. We also have a performance review on deck of the first virtual reality (VR) game to feature both DLSS and ray tracing, followed by a super-fast 7,400MB/s SSD ready for review. Stay tuned to BTR!

Happy Gaming!

The Medium, developed by Bloober Team, arrived three weeks ago for PC. The game uses ray tracing and NVIDIA DLSS technologies to enhance its horrific atmosphere featuring ray-traced reflections, ambient occlusion, and transparent reflections. It recently got updated and reportedly introduced performance improvements, so having an in-depth review of the expected and current performance of The Medium on PC is relevant.

We offer a review of The Medium‘s graphics performance pre and post-Patch 1.1, using its Game-Ready driver with a high-end gaming PC using 1440p resolution. Besides, we show image quality (IQ) comparisons of its quality presets and RTX settings. We make suggestions for getting the best game’s graphics performance and discuss the effects of using ray tracing and DLSS features.

The Game

The Medium is Bloober Team’s most ambitious and innovative video game to date. It is a third-person narrative adventure game with psychological horror elements.

We play as Marianne, a young woman with the rare ability to experience the spiritual dimension and contact the spiritual entities that inhabit it. The adventure begins the hardest-day of her life with a phone call from an unknown man. In that call, the man asks us for help, and that we meet him on an abandoned vacation resort, Niwa. The man claims to know the dream that repeats and disturbs Marianne since childhood and to be able to answer all our questions if we meet him in that abandoned and mysterious location.

From here, Marianne will have to gradually discover the secrets that this dilapidated place still holds and its possible connection with the dream that haunts her and with the man who called her. Of course, this journey and investigation will not be without dangers and frights, that the protagonist will have to face making use of her abilities as a medium through a dual experience of reality. These abilities allow her to interact with both the material and spiritual dimensions of reality.

We liked The Medium in terms of plot, innovative gameplay, music, and art design. However, the subpar and troublesome graphics performance devalues the final experience. We recommend The Medium, but its graphics performance flaws – even after patch 1.1 – really disappointed us.

The Game Graphics Settings

Here are the settings that we used for benchmarking:

But before offering the game’s performance data and charts of each different analysis scenario, it’s important to describe both the hardware and software configuration used in our testing as well as its analysis methodology on the next page.

Benchmarking Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i9-9900K (Hyper-Threading/Turbo boost on; stock settings)
• Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO motherboard (Intel Z390 chipset, v.F9 BIOS)
• Kingston HyperX Predator 32GB DDR4 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 3333 MHz CL16)
• Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 3080 MASTER 10GB (rev. 1.0); v.F2 VBIOS, stock clocks
• Samsung 500GB SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2
• Corsair RM750x, 750W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q 27? IPS 2560 x 1440 165Hz 4ms G-Sync Monitor (G-Sync off, Fixed Refresh Rate on)

Test Configuration – Software

• NVIDIA GeForce 461.40 drivers; ‘high-quality’ and ‘prefer maximum performance’; fixed refresh rate (globally).
• V-Sync application controlled in the control panel, V-Sync off in-game.
• AA and AF controlled by the application, set according to video quality game presets
• Windows 10 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v20H2, High-performance power plan, Game Mode, Game DVR & Game Bar features off.
• GIGABYTE tools not installed.
• Latest DirectX
• CapFrameX (CX), the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), latest version

Custom Scene Benchmark-related

• We use two different custom scenes to benchmark the game’s graphics performance in single-reality and dual-reality scenarios:
  • Single-reality: First three rooms walk-through (recording time, 41 seconds).
  • Dual-reality (split-screen): Corridor to Dayroom walk-through (recording time, 41 seconds).

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

• CapFrameX is used for capturing and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded custom benchmark scene.
• Consecutive runs until detecting 3 valid runs (no outliers) that can be aggregated by CapFrameX using the following method:
  • ‘Aggregate excluding outliers’:
    • Outlier metric: Third, P0.2 (0.2% FPS percentile).
    • Outlier percentage: 3% (the % the FPS of an entry can differ from the median of all entries before counting as an outlier).
• We compare and value the results and aggregated records in terms of performance gain/loss, by looking at the following metrics:
  • Avg FPS
  • P1/P0.2/0.1% Low integral FPS
  • Adaptive STDEV (the standard deviation of values compared to moving average) as an additional or alternative criterion when valuing frame times consistency.

Let’s head to our performance charts.

WQHD (1440p) — The Medium Pre-Patch 1.1 vs. Post-Patch 1.1 Performance Review

Next, we review The Medium‘s pre-patch 1.1 and post-patch 1.1 performance using the 2560×1440 (1440p) or WQHD display resolution, which is the native resolution of the G-Sync monitor used to conduct this performance analysis.

The performance charts below compare the performance of the game’s quality presets using DX11 and DX12 modes, ray tracing performance, and DLSS using DX12. We show average FPS numbers for the raw performance; and P1, P0.2, and 0.1% low integral values for frametime stability. We use the adaptive STDEV metric as an additional or alternative criterion to evaluate frametime consistency.

Each graphics quality preset and RTX setting are tested on both single-reality and dual-reality (split-screen) scenarios.

Quality Presets Performance — High, Medium, and Low

Single-Reality Scenario

DirectX 11 and DirectX 12

DirectX 11 Mode

In this single-reality and DirectX 11 scenario, the only quality preset showing an improvement in raw performance after the patch is Low. The rest don’t improve in terms of average FPS and perform the same overall.

From the graphs, we see how, despite the improvement in P0.2 using the low-quality preset, the consistency of frame times worsens in all cases when we take into account the numbers of 0.1% low integral and adaptive STDEV after applying the patch.

DirectX 12 Mode

From the chart, we see that the only quality preset showing a better raw performance after the patch is Low. The rest don’t improve in terms of average FPS and perform the same overall.

We see that the frametime consistency is overall the same using High and Medium presets when we look at 0.1% low integral and adaptive STDEV metrics. However, the Low preset is also less stable after the patch in this scenario.

Please, note that in this single-reality scenario, the game performs better overall when using DX11 than DX12. However, both API modes present notable frame pacing, hitching, and stuttering issues.

Dual-Reality (Split-Screen) Scenario

DirectX 11 and DirectX 12

DirectX 11 Mode

In this split-screen and DX11 scenario, we found no significant performance differences in all cases after the patch in terms of average FPS.

From the charts, we see that frametime consistency is overall the same after the patch in this DX11 dual-reality scenario.

DirectX 12 Mode

In this scenario, we found that the only quality preset that showed a better raw performance post-patch was Low. The rest didn’t improve in terms of average FPS and performed the same overall.

From the graphs, while we see an improvement in P1 using the low-quality preset, High and Medium were less stable considering their corresponding 0.1% low integral and adaptive STDEV values after the patch.

Note that in this dual-reality scenario, the game performs smoother overall when using DX11 than DX12, but the raw performance is significantly lower using DX11 than DX12. That said, both API modes still show severe frame pacing, hitching, and stuttering issues in this scenario.

Ray Tracing Presets Performance — Ultra, and On

Single-Reality Scenario

In this single-reality and DXR scenario, we see a significantly better raw performance pre-patch than post-patch using all the ray tracing presets.

Note that, paradoxically, high-quality without ray tracing performs worse than high-quality with RT-On in terms of average FPS.

From the charts, we see that the high-quality preset with RT-on is smoother after the patch, but the high preset with RT-ultra performs worse in terms of frametime consistency after the patch.

Dual-Reality (Split-Screen) Scenario

Although the charts above show no significant differences in average FPS after the patch in this DXR split-screen scenario, high-quality with RT-on is smoother in terms of frametime consistency after the patch.

DLSS Options Performance — Quality, Balanced, and Performance

DirectX 12 and DLSS

Single-Reality Scenario

We saw no significant performance differences after the patch using all the DLSS options. However, we found a performance increase of ~12% per step and before and after the patch, moving from DLSS Quality to DLSS Performance.

In this scenario, we only saw a worse frametime consistency when using high-quality with DLSS-performance.

Dual-Reality (Split-Screen) Scenario

From the charts, we overall see the same post-patch performance when using high-quality with each DLSS option.

Also, note that the gains of using DLSS are always minor in the split-screen scenario, which is quite disappointing.

Ray Tracing Pres ets and DLSS

Single-Reality Scenario

RT Ultra and DLSS

In this scenario, we found regressions in both raw performance and frametime consistency using each DLSS option after applying the patch.

RT On and DLSS

From the charts, we also see both worse raw performance and frametime stability after the patch using each DLSS option with RT enabled and high-quality settings.

Note that the performance gains, in this single-reality scenario, when using high-quality with DLSS compared to high without DLSS were overall negligible.

Dual-Reality (Split-screen) Scenario

RT Ultra and DLSS

RT On and DLSS

From the charts, we see that while post-patch raw performance was slightly better in these testing scenarios, frametime stability was overall significantly worse in all cases after the patch.

Also, note that the performance gains, in this split-screen scenario, when using high-quality with DLSS compared to high without DLSS were overall negligible.

Let’s see our IQ comparisons.

The Medium IQ Comparisons

Next, we will perform some relevant dual comparisons between graphics game presets that will allow us to identify the recommended and most balanced presets in terms of performance/IQ when moving from a lower to higher quality preset.

Quality Presets — High , Medium, and Low

Here is the Low-Quality preset (low) compared with the Medium-Quality preset (medium).

[twenty20 img1=”21990″ img2=”21991″ offset=”0.5″ before=”Low-Quality” after=”Medium-Quality”]

Look at the Low-Quality preset (low) compared with Medium-Quality preset (medium) from a different location.

[twenty20 img1=”21995″ img2=”21996″ offset=”0.5″ before=”Low-Quality” after=”Medium-Quality”]

The change from ‘Low-Quality’ (low) to ‘Medium-Quality’ (medium) is probably the most noticeable improvement among the presets in terms of IQ.

Now, let’s see the Medium-Quality preset (medium) compared with the High-Quality preset (high).

[twenty20 img1=”21991″ img2=”21994″ offset=”0.5″ before=”Medium-Quality” after=”High-Quality”]

Here is the Medium-Quality preset (medium) compared with the High-Quality preset (high) from a different room.

[twenty20 img1=”21996″ img2=”21997″ offset=”0.5″ before=”Medium-Quality” after=”High-Quality”]

This is the case where the difference in image quality between the presets is the least noticeable. There is not much difference between the two presets in IQ.

We recommend using the Medium-Quality preset if you want to boost your average FPS while preserving good image quality.

Ray Tracing Presets — Ultra, and On

Here are some relevant dual comparisons between ray tracing presets combined with the high-quality preset that will allow us to identify the recommended and most balanced RT preset in terms of performance/IQ when moving from RT-on to RT-ultra preset.

[twenty20 img1=”22018″ img2=”22019″ offset=”0.5″ before=”High-Quality – RT Off” after=”High-Quality – RT On”]

[twenty20 img1=”22019″ img2=”22017″ offset=”0.5″ before=”High-Quality – RT On” after=”High-Quality – RT Ultra”]

Look at some dual comparisons between RT presets with the high-quality preset from a different room.

[twenty20 img1=”22023″ img2=”22024″ offset=”0.5″ before=”High-Quality – RT Off” after=”High-Quality – RT On”]

[twenty20 img1=”22024″ img2=”22022″ offset=”0.5″ before=”High-Quality – RT On” after=”High-Quality – RT Ultra”]

Here are other dual comparisons between RT presets with the high-quality preset from another location.

[twenty20 img1=”22026″ img2=”22027″ offset=”0.5″ before=”High-Quality – RT Off” after=”High-Quality – RT On”]

[twenty20 img1=”22027″ img2=”22025″ offset=”0.5″ before=”High-Quality – RT On” after=”High-Quality – RT Ultra”]

For users with DXR-capable GPUs, we recommend using the RT-on preset if you want the best balance between performance and image quality.

DLSS Options — Quality, Balanced, and Performance

DirectX 12 and DLSS

Finally, look at some dual comparisons between DLSS options using DX12 and high-quality settings.

[twenty20 img1=”22037″ img2=”22035″ offset=”0.5″ before=”High-Quality – Native” after=”High-Quality – DLSS Quality”]

[twenty20 img1=”22035″ img2=”22036″ offset=”0.5″ before=”High-Quality – DLSS Quality” after=”High-Quality – DLSS Balanced”]

[twenty20 img1=”22035″ img2=”22038″ offset=”0.5″ before=”High-Quality – DLSS Quality” after=”High-Quality – DLSS Performance”]

‘DLSS Balanced’ is our recommended DLSS option in terms of performance and image quality for RTX users, at least from a 1440p native resolution.

Let’s head to our conclusion.

Final Thoughts

The Medium on PC is a good game overall, but with notable graphics performance flaws. Its gameplay is enjoyable, especially for those players who like a narrative interactive adventure game. We highlight both the use of a third-person perspective with semi-fixed camera angles – in the style of the older Resident Evil or Silent Hill games – and the innovative implementation of synchronous split-screen gameplay, which allows us to interact simultaneously in two different but connected realities.

Probably its main strengths are its interesting mystery plot with remarkable ‘thriller’ and psychological elements. The detailed and beautiful art-design masterfully recreates an immersive horror atmosphere. This immersive atmosphere is also possible thanks to its excellent soundtrack, created by masters Akira Yamaoka and Arkadiusz Reikowski.

However, The Medium‘s graphics performance is one of the worst and weirdest we have seen in a PC video game, showing noteworthy performance flaws, even after applying patch 1.1. In fact, our in-depth performance review clearly shows how the game still suffers from severe frame pacing, hitching, and stuttering issues. Bloober Team has not been able to fix these faults so far, and patch 1.1 not only fails to overall improve graphics performance but significantly worsens it in some cases. This troublesome situation is unacceptable and devalues the game.

Summary – Results and Recommendations

Here is the summary of our main performance results and recommendations:

• There is no absolute superiority of DX11 over DX12. While frametime consistency is notably better when using DX11 mode, DX12 provides a significantly higher average FPS in dual-reality scenarios (split-screen).
• The best and most balanced graphics quality preset in terms of performance (FPS avg. and frametime stability) and image quality is Medium-Quality.
• The best and most balanced ray tracing preset in terms of performance and image quality is RT-On.
• Overall, the best and most balanced DLSS option in terms of performance and image quality is DLSS-Balanced.
• The performance gains from using the DLSS options do not scale well, or even barely, in DXR scenarios.

The Medium is a game we would normally give an 8/10, but its poor performance drags the score down to a 6/10. Wait for another patch or two or pick it up on a sale.

We hope our performance and IQ reviews will be helpful to you. Please comment below.

Horizon Zero Dawn finally arrived last week for PC from Guerrilla Games and Sony as a PS4 console port. Although it doesn’t make use of ray tracing technology, Horizon Zero Dawn – Complete Edition includes some nice additions for PC gamers. Some of these improvements include support for ultra-wide screens, high frame rates, an adjustable field of view, and remapping capabilities for keyboard, controller, and mouse. Also, the PC version contains certain significant and specific graphical enhancements over the console version of the game such as enhanced lighting and reflections.

It’s important to have a reliable in-depth review of the current and expected graphics performance of Horizon Zero Dawn. We offer an exhaustive review of its performance using the latest drivers with a high-end gaming PC using 1080p, 1440p and 2160p resolutions, and an IQ comparison of its major video graphics settings. We will make suggestions for an optimized graphics profile, as well as analyze the effects of using FPS limiters on performance to get the best 60 FPS gameplay experience.

Another recent PS4 to PC port, Death Stranding, also uses the same Decima graphics engine but is sponsored by NVIDIA and uses DLSS 2.0. Although technically not directly comparable despite sharing the same graphics engine, both ports have aroused a lot of expectation and interest as Horizon Zero Dawn is sponsored by AMD and is the first game to use the FidelityFX Single Pass Downsampler (SPD). The PC version of Horizon Zero Dawn together with additional digital content including its only expansion, ‘The Frozen Wilds,’ is available for Windows and is distributed through Steam and the Epic Games Store.

The Game

Horizon Zero Dawn is a highly enjoyable post-apocalypse game specially created for players who like the action RPG genre set in a huge and visually diverse open-world. It’s a very good RPG Lite that starts painfully slow, but it gets a lot better as it progresses. It’s a big-budget AAA game and the gameplay is well-polished

Although the visuals are very good, Horizon Zero Dawn is ported from an aging console platform. For what it is, it’s well-done although it is nothing ground-breaking, and it features a decent story, superb voice acting, and great audio that make the game an addicting journey by driving one on just to see what happens next. The gameplay, choices, and action are excellent since you can choose to make your warrior a stealth mistress or into a tank that can go toe to toe with the largest machines.

Horizon Zero Dawn is a huge game, and it does what all great action RPG Lite games do well. It offers loot, loot, and more loot, together with crafting and skills to choose from and upgrade to as your hero transforms from a little girl into a mighty warrior. One of BTR’s senior editors completed the main quest in 30 hours, but there is still a lot left to explore and many side missions to complete.

His PC also features an RTX 2080 Ti, but with an i9-10900K instead of my i9-9900K, and he got an almost identical performance. He also benchmarked an Anniversary Edition of the RX 5700 XT, averaging 36 FPS at 4K and 69 FPS at 1440P, which leads him to conclude that the game is better optimized for Radeons than for GeForce. It’s not surprising as Horizon Zero Dawn is an AMD-sponsored game that implements FidelityFX instead of DLSS for improved image quality.

We could not find much information about the FidelityFX implementation for Horizon Zero Dawn so we reached out to AMD, and they replied:

“FidelityFX is a series of open-source effects available on GPUOpen and will work across all GPUs. Horizon Zero Dawn is the first game to feature FidelityFX SPD (Single-Pass Downsampler), which utilizes asynchronous compute to accelerate texture mapping for more efficient post-processing, driving effects like bloom and screen space reflections faster without sacrificing framerates. The end-user is not able to toggle FidelityFX SPD on or off, and it is enabled by default.”

We both agree that Horizon Zero Dawn deserves an 8/10 as it is a lot of fun after an extremely slow start. After about 8 hours, the story comes together as it takes off on an amazing flight of fantasy complete with exciting battles versus huge AI-controlled machines culminating in an exciting and very satisfying ending to the main quest as you race to save your world from extinction against impossible odds.

Here are the settings that we used except HDR off for benching:

Our 4K DSR benchmarking specifically applies to NVIDIA cards (although AMD has VSR). But before offering the game’s performance data and charts of each different analysis scenario, it’s important to describe both the hardware and software configuration used in our testing as well as its analysis methodology on the next page.

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i9-9900K (Hyper-Threading/Turbo boost on; stock settings)
• Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO motherboard (Intel Z390 chipset, v.F9 BIOS)
• Kingston HyperX Predator 32GB DDR4 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 3333 MHz CL16)
• Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming OC 11GB, stock clocks
• Samsung 500GB SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2 (both OS and HZD installed)
• Corsair RM750x, 750W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q 27″ IPS 2560 x 1440 165Hz 4ms G-Sync Monitor (G-Sync Off, Fixed Refresh Rate On)

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce Hotfix 451.85 drivers, High Quality, prefer maximum performance, DSR for simulating 4K resolution (x2.25-native), fixed refresh rate,
• V-Sync application controlled in the control panel, V-Sync Off in-game
• AA and AF controlled by the application, set according to video quality game presets
• Windows 10 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v2004, Game Mode, Game DVR & Game Bar features Off
• GIGABYTE tools not installed
• Latest DirectX
• Horizon Zero Dawn, the latest version
• CapFrameX (CX), the latest version
• RivaTuner frame limiter
• NVIDIA Control panel frame limiter
• SpecialK mod frame limiter

Built-in Benchmark-related

• The built-in benchmark sequence is used. It is consistent and repeatable, and although not the most demanding scenario, it offers a good picture of average game performance

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

• CapFrameX is used for capturing and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each 174-second built-in benchmark sequence
• Consecutive runs until detecting 3 valid runs (no outliers) that can be aggregated by CapFrameX using the following method:
  • “Aggregate excluding outliers”
    • Outlier metric: Third, P0.2 (0.2% FPS percentile).
    • Outlier percentage: 3% (the % the FPS of an entry can differ from the median of all entries before counting as an outlier).

Note that DSR specifically applies to NVIDIA cards (although AMD uses VSR), and I did not test Radeons. A senior BTR editor supplied the RX 5700 XT performance results. Unless otherwise noted, all testing was done on the NVIDIA and Intel-based high-end gaming rig detailed above.

To compare and value the aggregated records in terms of percentages of Gain / Loss, the following thresholds are set to consider a certain % value as significant (not within the margin of error) for our benchmarking purposes:

• FPS Avg > 3% when valuing raw performance
• P1/P0.2 > 3% when valuing frame time consistency; custom formula:

[(Percentile_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (Percentile_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

Let’s head to our performance charts.

Full HD (1080p) Performance

Full HD 1920×1080 is probably still the most common display resolution for PC gamers in 2020, and particularly for the lower to mid-end range PCs. However, it’s also probably a more CPU-bound scenario when considering high-end PC platforms such as the one we use to perform our Horizon Zero Dawn analysis.

That said, the performance chart below shows the performance of each of the game’s individual graphics presets in terms of both raw performance (average FPS metric) and frametimes stability (P1 and P0.2 metrics).

From the chart, we see that the game progressively scales its performance on this resolution when going from the highest graphics preset to the lowest one in terms of both image quality and its use of GPU resources. In fact, we found that you can expect significant average FPS performance gains dropping from a higher quality graphics preset to a lower one. However, the same doesn’t occur with the same level of intensity in terms of frametimes consistency by looking at the corresponding P1 and P0.2 aggregated values. In this case, the increases are significant when considered by themselves and are also much lower when going from “Ultimate” or ultra to lower quality presets.

Finally, when we put the P1 and P0.2 values of each preset in relation to their corresponding and relative average FPS values, we also found a trend of improving frametimes stability from the “Favor Performance” preset to ultra or “Ultimate Quality”; the latter being the most consistent or steadiest quality preset at full HD resolution. This is also confirmed by the frametimes (ms) comparative chart below.

Next, we will perform some relevant dual comparisons between graphics game presets that will allow us to identify the recommended and most balanced presets in terms of performance/IQ when moving from a lower to higher quality preset. Here is the Favor Performance Preset (low) compared with Original (medium).

[twenty20 img1=”18265″ img2=”18266″ offset=”0.5″ before=”Original/Medium Preset” after=”Favor Performance/Low Preset”]

The change from “Favor Performance” (low) to “Original” (medium) is probably the most noticeable improvement among the presets in terms of IQ.

“Original” vs. “Favor Performance” – Full HD (1080p)

*[(Percentile_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (Percentile_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

In this comparison, the “Original” or medium preset is recommended. Although it offers lower performance in terms of average FPS (7.75% lower than “Favor Performance” or low), it offers an equivalent level of frametimes consistency with better image quality.

Here is the Favor Quality (high) Preset compared with Original (medium).

[twenty20 img1=”18266″ img2=”18264″ offset=”0.5″ before=”Medium Preset” after=”High Preset”]

The difference is still noticeable but less striking than in the prior IQ comparison.

“Favor Quality” vs. “Original” – Full HD (1080p)

*[(Percentile_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (Percentile_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

Here we have a similar situation to the previous one: an expected significant average FPS regression in exchange for a similar level of smoothness and better IQ when going from the “Original” medium preset to “Favor Quality” or low. So, because the average FPS on “Favor Quality” is still high (141.2), we would recommend using it over “Original”.

Here is the Ultimate (ultra) Preset compared with the high (Favor Quality) preset.

[twenty20 img1=”18267″ img2=”18264″ offset=”0.5″ before=”Ultimate/Ultra Preset” after=”High Preset”]

This is the case where the difference in image quality between the presets is the least noticeable. There is not much difference between the two presets in IQ.

“Ultimate Quality” vs. “Favor Quality” – Full HD (1080p)

*[(Percentile_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (Percentile_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

Here we see a comparable situation, but in this case we found a significant improvement in frametime consistency (3.67% gain in the 0.2% percentile FPS value) going to the “Ultimate” or ultra present from “Favor Quality” or high.

WQHD (1440p) Performance

Next, we review Horizon Zero Dawn’s performance using the 2560×1440 (1440p) or WQHD display resolution which is the native resolution of the G-Sync monitor used to conduct this performance analysis.

The performance chart below shows the performance of each of the game’s individual graphics presets in terms of average FPS numbers for the raw performance, and P1 and P0.2 metrics for frametimes stability.

Once again, the above results showed how well and progressively the game scales performance on 1440p resolution when going from “Ultimate Quality” or ultra to “Favor Performance” or high in terms of both IQ and GPU workload levels. In fact, we again found great average FPS gains and significant P1 and P0.2 improvements at each preset level moving from “Ultimate” to “Favor Performance”.

However, this time it’s interesting to note that the frame pacing and stability levels are significantly better across all graphics presets than at 1080p. This is because we can see the relative gap sizes or “Deltas” between the FPS low percentiles numbers and their corresponding FPS values across all presets when we compare them to the corresponding values at the full HD display resolution.

Focusing on the 1440p scenario only, and according to the frametimes (ms) chart below, on this testing scenario the steadiest or smoothest graphics preset with a high IQ level is high or “Favor Quality” and not “Ultimate” or ultra. It’s the same as at 1080p, and “Ultimate” in this case offers the most inconsistent frametimes.

We next present some dual comparisons between the graphics game presets that allow you to identify the best and most balanced presets in terms of performance/IQ for WQHD when you go from a lower to a higher quality preset.

IQ Comparisons (1440p) – All Major Presets

Here are enlarged images that show the visual degradation from changing the quality presets. From left to right: Ultimate (ultra), Favor Quality (high), Original (PS4/medium), and Favor Performance (low).

As you can see, there isn’t a huge difference between each step-down. Here is another example.

The PS4 is an aging console and even an enhanced graphics port cannot compete visually with many PC games that are designed primarily for the PC. For example, its shadows do not appear to be particularly well-implemented although they take a performance hit.

“Original” vs. “Favor Performance” – 1440p

*[(Percentile_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (Percentile_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

These comparative results suggest that the “Original” (medium) preset should be recommended over “Favor Performance” (low) because, despite the expected significant regression in average FPS, the “Original” preset will guarantee equivalent smoothness with better IQ at the same time.

“Favor Quality” vs. “Original” – 1440p

*[(Percentile_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (Percentile_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

Here are comparative numbers that also lead us to recommend the “Favor Quality” (high) preset over “Original” (medium). In fact, “Favor Quality” offers both a pretty similar level of performance consistency plus better IQ.

“Ultimate Quality” vs. “Favor Quality” – 1440p

*[(Percentile_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (Percentile_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

The results of this comparison confirm that on this preset setting, “Ultimate” or ultra is significantly worse than “Favor Quality” (high) in terms of stability. Therefore, “Favor Quality” is the recommended graphics preset to achieve the best performance with the best possible IQ.

4K DSR (2160p) Performance

We used Nvidia’s DSR technology to simulate a 4K (3840×2160/2160p) rendering resolution to compare the performance of each Horizon Zero Dawn graphics preset on this GPU-limited scenario. We proceed the same way for 4K as for our 1080p and 1440p testing.

The chart below shows how the game progressively scales its performance on 4K resolution when going from the ultra or “Ultimate Quality” preset to “Favor Performance” or low. Using 4K, we see that the improvements in average FPS and with low percentile FPS are still significant, especially when going from “Favor Quality” (high) to “Original” (medium), and/or from “Original” to “Favor Performance” low).

It should be noted that moving from “Ultimate Quality” to “Favor Quality” made a great difference in frametimes consistency since the “Favor Quality” preset performance is significantly smoother and more consistent than by using “Ultimate Quality”.

The latter is also supported and confirmed by the frametimes (ms) charts below.

Finally, we next show some key dual comparisons between the graphics game presets that will allow you to identify the recommended and most balanced presets in terms of performance/IQ on using 4K rendering when moving from a lower to higher quality preset.

“Original” vs. “Favor Performance” – 4K DSR (2160p)

*[(Percentile_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (Percentile_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

In this case, the “Favor Performance” (low) preset was better in performance – both raw performance and stability-wise – but the IQ dropped greatly as well, so it’s difficult to give a neat recommendation. There simply isn’t a balanced choice available for this comparison scenario, so choose the graphics preset that best matches your IQ/performance preferences or needs.

“Favor Quality” vs. “Original” – 4K DSR (2160p)

*[(Percentile_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (Percentile_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

Here it is also difficult to give a recommendation. While both presets, “Original” (medium) and “Favor Quality” (high), will give almost identical level of frametimes consistency, one will also experience a major performance regression in terms of average FPS but with better IQ, moving from “Original” to “Favor Quality”. If you prefer to attempt to achieve a steady 4K 60+ FPS experience while keeping an acceptable IQ level, the “Original” preset is your best choice.

“Ultimate Quality” vs. “Favor Quality” – 4K DSR (2160p)

*[(Percentile_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (Percentile_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

The “Ultimate” or ultra preset leads to a major overall performance regression. Especially remarkable is the performance loss in the P0.2 value (15.51%). Therefore, if you want maximum IQ with a near-average 60 FPS experience, “Favor Quality” (high) should be preferred over “Ultimate”.

All Graphics Settings Benchmarked

In this section, we will look at which Horizon Zero Dawn graphics settings are the best suited to lower from “Ultimate” quality to get significant FPS gains in case you need or want to boost its performance.

We identified the most demanding in-game graphics settings by first setting a baseline benchmark figure with all settings at maximum to exactly match our results for the “Ultimate Quality” preset. From there, we lower each of the individual graphic options to its lowest/off setting and we compare to the baseline to determine how it influences performance to get the best possible IQ with an optimal trade-off in terms of average FPS performance.

*% FPS (avg) gain over our “Ultimate Quality” preset baseline of 98.1 FPS (avg)

** This result was probably because, as the developers acknowledged, the AF setting does not currently work due to a game bug that will be patched in a future game update.

From the graphics settings performance breakdown table above, Horizon Zero Dawn just doesn’t have many graphics settings to tinker with. However, there are a couple of settings that will greatly influence performance like “Reflections” and “Clouds” at 11.4% and 9.2% average FPS performance gain respectively.

Although “Reflections” and “Clouds”, are undoubtedly the settings that provide the greatest average FPS performance gain when lowered, there are three other settings, “Shadows” (5.3% gain), “Ambient Occlusion”(5.1% gain), and “Model Quality” (3.2% gain), which are also associated with lesser but significant performance gains if you turn them down.

1440p Optimized Video Settings vs. All Video Presets

We decided to play with the above graphics settings to see which ones we should lower to get a significant average FPS improvement. Ideally, we aim for an optimal combination of settings at 1440p that will provide a mix of High/Ultra IQ settings with a boost in performance (both raw performance-wise and stability-wise), particularly when compared to both “Favor Quality” (high) and “Ultimate Quality” (ultra) presets.

The “Optimized Settings” custom profile we created and benchmarked are as follows:

• Textures: Ultra
• Model quality: High
• Anisotropic Filtering: Ultra
• Shadows: High
• Reflections: High
• Clouds: High
• Anti-aliasing (AA): TAA
• Motion blur: On
• Ambient Occlusion: High

From the performance charts above, the “Optimized Settings” at 1440p that we recommend will give you significantly better performance than “Favor Quality” (high), but with an IQ level between “Ultimate” (ultra) and “Favor Quality” at the same time.

Now, here are some interesting dual comparisons between our suggested “Optimized” graphics profile and the “Original” (medium), “Favor Quality” (high), and “Ultimate Quality” (ultra) presets. This will allow us to identify the boundaries of our “Optimized” mix of game graphics settings, both performance, and IQ-wise.

“Optimized settings” vs. “Original” – 1440p

*[(Percentile_2 / FPSavg_2) / (Percentile_1 / FPSavg_1)] – 1} x 100

In this comparison scenario, our “Optimized” profile shows an equivalent level of frame time consistency with significantly better image quality, so the “Optimized settings” are recommended over the “Original” graphics preset.

“Optimized Settings” vs. “Favor Quality” – 1440p

*[(Percentile_2 / FPSavg_2) / (Percentile_1 / FPSavg_1)] – 1} x 100

In this case, with the “Optimized Settings,” you will get both a great improvement in average FPS with high image quality that is somewhere between the “Favor Quality” and “Ultimate” IQ levels.

“Optimized settings” vs. “Ultra Quality” – 1440p

*[(Percentile_2 / FPSavg_2) / (Percentile_1 / FPSavg_1)] – 1} x 100

Finally, and considering the best balance between IQ and performance, these results also confirm that the use of the “Optimized settings” profile is superior and preferable to the “Ultimate” or ultra graphics present at 1440p.

Getting the Steadiest 60 FPS Experience: Benchmarking FPS Limiters (in-game, NV CP, RTSS, and SpecialK)

A good way to improve the smoothness and frametimes consistency and to improve and control its generally high variability is to use an effective and optimal method of limiting the framerates. Below we offer a comparison of Horizon Zero Dawn performance, using our “Optimized settings” along with some of the best-known external FPS limiters as well as the in-game limiter, to maintain the best gameplay experience at 60 FPS.

First of all, the in-game limiter does not work properly, and it is the worst limiting method in terms of performance since it does not guarantee an average of 60 FPS (57.6 avg FPS). It also offers particularly low P1 and P0.2 values that are far below our 60 average FPS target.

Both NVIDIA’s Control Panel (“Max Frame Rate” in the Control Panel settings) and RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS) limiters work as intended, averaging 60 FPS, and they each performed quite well offering P1 and P0.2 values (~56-58s) that were close to the 60 FPS set target. Therefore both FPS limiters may be considered equivalent in terms of performance.

Special mention should be made of the limiter featured by the popular SpecialK mod since through its proper use and configuration, it offers performance and efficiency results that border on perfection. In fact, with the SpecialK limiter method we got the ideal target performance scenario, 60-60-60, that is, Avg 60 FPS, P1 60 FPS, and P0.2 60 FPS.

All of these considerations highlight SpecialK superiority as the best FPS limiter for Horizon Zero Dawn and are also confirmed by the frametimes (ms) comparison charts above. Let’s head to our conclusion.

Conclusion

Horizon Zero Dawn on PC is a good game overall, but with some weak points and room for improvement in terms of performance optimization.

The gameplay is highly enjoyable, especially for those players who like the open-world action RPG genre. Horizon Zero Dawn is a very good big-budget AAA RPG Lite that gets a lot better as it progresses. The game is not ground-breaking but it is fun and probably the equivalent of a big Summer blockbuster movie. It will become a popular series judging by the post-credits scene.

However, its performance and current level of optimization, although is not the worst we have seen from a PS4 port to a PC and far from perfect, shows some noteworthy and fixable performance faults. We refer to its broken AF settings and some briefly recurrent stutter during general world traversal and other bugs including camera swaps after cutscenes. From our testing sessions, we notice visible brief stutters during the built-in benchmark runs and can confirm that they are still present in the game although they are rarer. Fortunately, G-Sync or FreeSync works well to minimize them. The minor stutters we notice are reflected by some very low minimum numbers we encountered occasionally during the benching runs.

These optimization problems, related to a greater or lesser extent to its level of performance polish, detract from an otherwise mostly acceptable and fairly consistent performance level. We believe that the AF and stutter issues are game bugs and Horizon Zero Dawn can use more-fine tuning. It also appears to be better performance optimized for Radeons as it is an AMD-sponsored game. NVIDIA’s driver team probably has further optimization work to do. All in all, the developers have quickly acknowledged the issues and announced that they consider them as a high priority and to be fixed in a future game patch.

Here is the summary of our main performance results plus recommendations:

• Overall, and among the different graphic presets that the game offers, it is highly recommended to use the “Favor Quality” (high) preset for both the most consistent and stable performance experience and a high IQ.
• The only exception to using “Favor Quality” (high) is with the Full HD resolution, in which “Ultimate” (ultra) provided significantly better stability results and the best IQ.
• We recommended a custom “Optimized” settings profile, based on a mix of high and ultra in-game graphics settings, that provide a good boost in performance along with high IQ.
• For the best 60 FPS gameplay experience, avoid the in-game limiter and use the SpecialK’s FPS limiter for optimal results. Alternatively, if you do not want to use SpecialK, RTSS, or NVIDIA’s Control Panel limiters both performed similarly and quite well.

We recommend Horizon Zero Dawn as worth buying and playing – an 8/10 – and hope our first of many performance reviews will be helpful to you. Please comment below.

***

Rodrigo González (aka “RodroG”) is an enthusiast gamer interested especially in shooter games, open-world role-playing games, and software and hardware benchmarking. He is the author of the NVIDIA WHQL Driver Performance Benchmarks Series and founder and moderator of the r/allbenchmarks community on Reddit.

This editor hasn’t taken a vacation in over a year – that is until Borderlands 3 released just over a week ago. Thanks to 2K and AMD we received a game code and took a full week off from work to complete the main quest and most of the side quests in 50 hours of play.

It took parts of 7 days to complete Borderlands 3’s main story at Level 38 as we did not hurry. Borderlands 2 set a very high bar as one of our all-time favorite games with Handsome Jack as an awesome villain, and we wondered if he could be equaled in the sequel. It turns out, not quite, but the writing team at Gearbox delivered a decent story with some depth and dark humor that focuses on family relationships, friendship, and self-sacrifice. One of the side quests even focuses on Handsome Jack and helps to explain what changed him into a super-villain.

The Calypso twin villains don’t match up to Handsome Jack. Troy and Tyreen Calypso are presented as annoying but powerful teenagers leading a dangerous and violent cult. They exhibit severe mental issues complicated by a god complex as they attempt to harness the power of alien vaults to destroy the universe. They goad the Vault Hunter at every turn and are irritating enough to make the player hate them.

Besides the Calypso twins’ story, there are multiple back stories which are advanced by playing the side quests, some of which are very well-written. Side quests are also important to give a player experience points (XP) so he does not play the main story under-leveled. However, it is difficult to imagine playing any of the Borderlands games primarily for their storylines which have some large plot holes and inconsistencies.

The humor is still very juvenile with a lot of double meanings, and some of it is quite adult. But best of all, the Vault Hunter gets to meet characters from the earlier Borderlands games including Tina who is now grown up but just as crazy. Overall their stories are well-written and voice acted which is sufficient to advance the action which is the real star.

Borderlands 3 exudes personality partly by using variety for the excellent NPC audio and animation and with the level designs to keep it interesting so the fighting never goes stale even after many hours of play. The enemy NPCs vary their attacking, cover, and flanking tactics with sufficient AI to make it challenging although sometimes they appear confused.

The bosses are sometimes huge, and although Billy the Anointed may be one of the more difficult bosses, they not generally of the same high caliber of Borderlands 2 where one could spend far longer fighting BNKER, Saturn, or the Warrior. There are still good boss loot drops but it can be spoiled by some overpowered builds which can kill bosses in a couple of minutes. The latest 2GB patch which dropped last week attempted to balance some of these issues and it is expected that there will be more updates.

Borderlands 3 like its three predecessors offers a similar kind of fast-paced action shooter featuring an extreme variety of weapons that are distinct from each other, and it drives the player to experiment endlessly. The almost unlimited weapon choices for a player at any particular level adds in a lot of variables and modifiers as to which weapons work best for any particular build.

It appears to be part of the magic of Borderlands 3 to not explain this in detail and the weapons stats presented are only a rough guide which lets the player experiment on his own. A player should never replace a favorite weapon that is becoming under-leveled with a promising higher stat weapon until it can be tested first.

There are a variety of planets to explore and their settings are very different from each other which makes Borderlands 3 a welcome change from the drab and dusty Pandora.

Gameplay

We played as FLAK4 which is one of four new Vault Hunter choices. He is a robotic-type creature who summons one of three pets to aid in his fights, and we picked a skag. Amara is a Siren who summons exotic powers, Moze is a Gunner who can use and ride a mech, and Zane is an operative who specializes in gadgets.

There are multiple trees with many skill choices that one can build and there are also many ways to customize your Vault Hunter’s look. We concentrated on only a couple of trees instead of spending XP across many.

Originally we put a lot of points into building a super-skag, but we had difficulties beating some bosses. Fortunately there is a respec machine and we changed to a mostly Stalker build around Level 30. It worked well for us playing solo, and the mobs and end bosses proved challenging but not too difficult.

Borderland’s 3’s gunplay and fighting mechanics are improved over the earlier games. Combat has improved and it is more fast-paced. Fast travel has greatly improved and you can do it from almost anywhere. The new 3D map design is much less confusing although it is still easy to get lost. And a player still has a choice when revisiting a map to just run past the enemy NPCs to reach a goal.

Driving multiple types of new vehicles are a great experience although the vehicles appear rather overpowered.

Performance, Visuals and Bugs

This editor played the entire game in Ultra DX11 using a RX 5700 XT Anniversary Edition, a Core i7 8700K at 4.8GHz, and 16GB of T-Force XTREEM DDR4 at 3866MHz. The framerates were butter-smooth on an ASUS 34″ 1920×1080 120Hz display in both regular play and by using the built-in benchmark which we consider representative. Averaging just under 80 FPS in DX11, the RTX 5700 XT also gained a few FPS by switching to DX12. At 2560×1440 we experienced mid-50s FPS which were not sufficient for us.

Playing in DX11, Borderlands 3 crashed pretty regularly every 5 hours or so which to us is acceptable. However, switching to DX12 brought irregular crashes every half hour or so, and one happened immediately before the end of an otherwise successful boss fight. DX12 is still Beta, and although it brings higher framerates for the RX 5700 XT, the more frequent crashes were intolerable. The 2GB patch that dropped a few days ago helped a bit with overall stability.

After playing through the main quest, we played unfinished side quests using a RTX 2080 Ti with Ultra/DX11 settings on a 4K display and it was just as stable as playing with the Radeon. Unfortunately, we averaged just over 47 FPS at Ultra/4K and our RTX 2080 Ti even lost performance with DX12. At Ultra/DX11 we would consider 3440×1440 to be perfect for our RTX 2080 Ti and will use our ASUS Predator X34 GSYNC display when the DLC is released.

AMD partnered with 2K on Borderlands 3 to add new features including FidelityFX. It offers a dynamic sharpening filter to increase detail levels in low-contrast areas and it is perfect for using with TAA which tends to be blurry. We noticed no performance differences with FidelityFX enabled or disabled and were also able to use it with GeForce.

There is a Badass setting above Ultra that we did not use which gives limited visual enhancements at the cost of performance. In fact, we would still have loved the game if it was on Borderlands 2’s Unreal Engine 3. However, the Unreal Engine 4 which introduce new visual enhancements including HDR and improved lighting effects add greatly when you are acting as a tourist, but when the action starts, the enhanced visuals don’t matter to the gameplay.

Audio

Although the soundtrack and music are excellent with great fighting music, just being able to hear dialogue is sometimes a real problem. Without turning to directly face each character as they talk in turn, it is very difficult to hear what they are saying. Hopefully this bug will get addressed in a future patch.

Replayability

Borderlands 3 offers replayability once the main story is completed with Mayhem mode, harder difficulties, and co-op play with friends. There are a total of 4 characters to explore with different builds and strategies to employ that can give a player hundreds of hours of additional play. Unfortunately, the cutscenes are not skippable on the replays.

The Score – BTR’s GotY

If Borderlands 3 didn’t crash quite so often and if the audio was perfect, it would deserve a higher score than 8.9/10 – it is this reviewer’s Game of the Year just edging out Metro: Exodus. It offers a very good value with dozens of hours of action shooter fun and replayability for its $59.99.

There are some additional nitpicks as the ending boss was a disappointment since it went down in less than 10 minutes. FLAK4 may have been over-leveled but this was without finishing all the sidequests. The story is solid but a few of the later side quests seem to have ran out of good ideas and they appear less well-crafted than some of the earlier ones.

We are looking forward to playing the DLC and hope we won’t have to wait another 5 years for Borderlands 4. Borderlands 3 is BTR’s latest benchmark and we will feature it regularly.

Well, our Borderlands 3 vacation is over and we’re back to VR for the final review of BTR’s “VR Month” – the RTX 2080 Super and RTX 2080 Ti with the Vive Pro using 10 games to chart their performance.

Happy Gaming!

“We were in a f’ing boring game, but I couldn’t stop playing” – D. Faden

Control is a rare game that will immerse its players into a strange and supernatural world by keeping us entertained with a good science fiction mystery, difficult puzzles with depth, challenging tasks, intense firefights against a variety of enemy NPCs, and a dark atmosphere in multiple settings. We played for over 30 hours to arrive at the endgame after completing a dozen varied missions.

BabelTechReviews received a reviewer’s copy of Control for PC courtesy of Remedy, EPIC, and NVIDIA on Wednesday and began playing using both a RTX 2060 SUPER and a RTX 2080 Ti. Here are our impressions of Control including its implementation of real time ray tracing of ray traced reflections.

We spent so much time playing the game that we did not benchmark its performance for this review. Control will be patched tomorrow for its worldwide release, and NVIDIA will also release new drivers for it making any benchmarks outdated. Instead, we will focus on the game review and touch on its real time ray tracing reflections.

Control is a third-person action adventure shooter that will be released for PC by Remedy Entertainment and 505 Games on the EPIC platform on August 27. Remedy Entertainment, a Finnish developer, is best known for primarily linear games like the original two Max Payne games, the Alan Wake series, and Quantum Break.

Control even pays homage to Max Payne as the building elevators are made by the Paine company, and there are several references to Bright Falls and Alan Wake. The fighting sequences are very unforgiving and the boss battles may remind older players of Max Payne’s epic battles – but without Bullet time. This time, Control gives its players much more freedom encouraging exploration across its large hub world of four primary areas.

Control starts so slowly that it left this reviewer wondering what was happening for quite some time. It took a couple of hours before it got interesting. The player controls Jesse Faden who is on a quest for answers, and is apparently lead to a government building called the Oldest House which is the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC). Control is set in an alternate version of the United States where supernatural events are common and the FBC actively investigates the paranormal.

Control begins as Jesse enters the Oldest House which is under lockdown because of an attack by the Hiss, a mysterious force that has possessed and levitated most of the FBC’s employees who chant together what at first appears to be nonsense words. Red light floods the building evoking an atmosphere of foreboding evil, and the Hiss-possessed security and staff attack Jesse and their uninfected coworkers. The building itself shifts its shape and the rooms alter their appearance, sometimes radically.

Shortly after entering the Oldest House, Jesse picks up an alien shape-shifting and self-recharging weapon in the former FCB’s director’s office right after he apparently committed suicide, and she becomes the new director gifted with supernatural powers herself. Strangely, the former director appears to still communicate with her and offers guidance. During the course of her adventure, Jesse meets uninfected FBC supervisors who give her missions and help her to solve the mystery of the Hiss and of her own place in this adventure.

Besides using the director’s powerful weapon, Jesse also has the ability to capture, levitate, and fling objects with great force which can damage and destroy the Hiss-infected enemy NPCs. As Jesse completes missions, she gains ability points which may be used to strengthen her ability trees. After completing missions, she is encouraged to return multiple times for answers to her questions as the Control plot is progressively revealed. There are control points that Jesse captures and cleanses that allow her to fast travel instantly between them.

Jesse can add ability points to gain more health, or she can choose to use those points to strengthen her attack, for example. As she progresses, she can pick an option to control the minds of weakened enemy NPCs. She can also capture grenades that are tossed at her and fling them back. Eventually, Jesse even gains the ability to temporarily levitate and fly allowing her to reach areas in the game that were previously inaccessible. And as she progresses, she also gains clearance to access areas formerly closed to her which will encourage players to revisit areas multiple times.

Jesse’s director’s weapon is a four-in-one sidearm that compliments her unique abilities perfectly and it is best to switch often between them. The weapon needs time to recharge after multiple discharges, and it is the perfect time to start throwing objects. After three or four throws, there is also a cool down period which is the right time to use the weapon again.

Fights are non-stop action and Jesse needs to doge and move constantly to avoid being damaged. The only cat and mouse tactics played from cover are against the flying NPCs. Control is not a cover shooter but rather it encourages the player to be aggressive. Health is regenerated by picking up dropped energy left by defeated enemy NPCs. If your health bar drops to zero, it’s back to the checkpoint.

Jesse will also develop her skills as she locates and tames objects of power, many of which are found in the astral plane – a stark white ethereal location with special challenges requiring precise movements and combination key presses to proceed. If you fail, you go back to the checkpoint and start over. This reminds us of the unforgiving video games of the 1980s where a player must perfect his sequence of moves to continue. There is no “anytime save” and the game is rather difficult having no easy mode for those who just want to enjoy the story.

Jesse is not the only one who is capable of superhuman feats. Some of the NPCs who can also levitate and fly will gather debris to fling at her, and she has to be quick to get out of the way or she will take damage. If Jesse dies, she respawns at the last checkpoint or control point and will have to play from that point over again.

Although Jesse grows quite powerful, she never feels overpowered as the enemy NPCs also ramp up their numbers and abilities. Their AI is fairly predictable, but at times the unpredictable happens and Jesse will die often unless the player is really good. The checkpoints rarely require the player to replay more than a minute or two before getting right back into the battle with a few painful exceptions.

The voice acting, audio, and especially the fighting music are excellent, and the music tempo rises as Jesse enters into a firefight adding to a player’s excitement. As the last enemy NPC is killed, the music fades away. One of the real highlights comes near the end of the game as a very loud seven minute jam of “Old Gods of Asgard: Take Control” helps get the player through a difficult part. There is even a Finnish “Sankarin Tango” (Hero’s Tango) for those who may like that style of music, and somehow it just fits in well.

Control is not a short single player experience as we spent about 30 hours playing the game without seeing the ending although we reached the endgame. We completed 12 missions and would have completed even more except for the deadline that was imposed on getting this review completed in time, so we mostly stuck to the main story. However, completing the optional missions gains ability points which make it easier to get through the tough boss battles.

None of the side quests we played felt like grinding as they are very well done and integral to the story. Stopping to pick up notes and listening to recordings and watching videos greatly adds to the atmosphere, and they often give the player hints on how to proceed through the puzzles. In the tradition of a good novel, a player begins to understand the mechanics and the mind of the developers, and one may see patterns which may help to solve Control’s many puzzles.

The puzzles take a lot of thought and some are very complex but solving them are necessary to proceed. One of the puzzles involves trapping an immortal and destructive entity that requires a lot of thought plus good timing. Another puzzle involves traversing spinning turbines to reach a light switch while also remembering the “principle of 3” to move through a series of motel rooms to create a path across the void.

Control absolutely doesn’t hold any hands, and it is quite unforgiving. Many times this reviewer felt quite lost in this large world and spent a lot of time going over areas that were previously visited. Eventually, the maps made more sense as the Oldest House’s layout became clearer.

If you want to explore, you can spend as much time in the Oldest House as you wish. There is freedom to explore and some of the areas such as The Pit can be visited early, before the game takes you there on a mission, but it is much more difficult then and will have to be revisited anyway.

The characters Jesse encounters are well-developed and they mostly consist of researchers, security personnel, and many of the mad scientist variety, with an occasional bureaucrat. Ahti the Janitor speaks with such a heavy Finnish accent you may want to turn on subtitles to understand him since he has an important role in the game. There is also the mysterious Board which speaks to Jesse on a special hotline. The dialog is well-written and natural, and we are drawn to care about the characters if we take the time.

There are some weaknesses. Control’s story started very slowly which we found discouraging, and the endgame became tedious and we had to repeat the same thing over and over without much variety. Fortunately the beginning and the endgame were a real contrast to the ninety percent of the game that we absolutely loved. We neglected our chores, missed meals, went to bed late and even dreamed about the game, and then woke up early to get right back into it – a rare game indeed!

Although this reviewer hates the checkpoint system, Control’s is well implemented. When Jesse dies, you don’t have to start over way back nor are you forced to watch any cutscenes. Loading is very fast from a SSD and you get right back into the action.

Control appears to have little replayability. Mostly a player will want to explore everything on the first playthrough which may reach 30 or more hours. An excellent player may be able to complete the game in under 20 hours – perhaps less if he sticks just to the story missions.

There appear to be no major game-breaking bugs, but during more than 30 hours of play, we did experience several lock-ups which lead to crashes to the desktop.

One thing that immediately stands out is the detail and impressive graphics on Control’s higher setting. The characters are reasonably detailed and overall it succeeds brilliantly in creating a immersive world. The settings are diverse – from the mold you can almost smell in the overrun Pit, to brightly lit offices. In one area, the walls shift and new corridors open up as you attempt to navigate an ever changing maze that is also full of enemies at every turn. There is more visual variety in Control than in most other games.

Performance Options

There are many options for playing Control including using either DX11 or DX12. Here are the graphics settings that we generally used.

Ray Traced Reflections

Instead of prebaked rasterized lighting that game developers have had to use, ray traced reflections gives superior lighting which work well with the supernatural effect that Control strives for.

NVIDIA partnered with Remedy Entertainment to create realistic lighting effects for Control to add ray-traced opaque and transparent reflections, indirect diffuse illumination, contact shadows for many light sources, and DLSS for anti-aliasing using upscaling to maintain high performance.

We played smoothly with a RTX 2060 SUPER at 1920×1080 with maxed-out settings including ray tracing almost as well as we did with a RTX 2080 Ti at 3840×2160. Even with our new demanding benchmark, the framerates for the RTX 2080 Ti did not drop below 60 FPS with DLSS on. Turning off ray tracing brought framerates above 70 FPS.

[twenty20 img1=”14824″ img2=”14823″ offset=”0.5″ hover=”true”]

Control’s office environments are a good showcase for global illumination and reflections which cast realistic reflections on floors and walls. With ray-traced indirect diffuse lighting, we can see accurate details that include lighting from dynamic light sources reflected from nearby surfaces in real time.

[twenty20 img1=”14822″ img2=”14821″ offset=”0.5″ hover=”true”]

Control uses ray-traced contact shadowing to enhance accuracy of shadow maps cast from bright lights. By combining shadow maps and ray tracing, the most predominant shadows can be rendered at a high level of detail. Here are some comparison shots. Open them full-sized in separate windows or tabs.

RTX Off – 3840×2160

RTX On – DLSS upscaled from 2560×1440

RTX On – 3840×2160 – DLSS off/No MSAA

MSAA takes a substantial performance hit while DLSS is almost able to achieve the performance of the non-ray traced game. DLSS adds a slight blur and it isn’t perfect, but it looks great with the camera in motion.

The best time to check out real time ray traced reflections is while exploring. You do not want to admire the pretty visuals while in a firefight or Jesse will get shot. We played a considerable portion of the game in DX11 and still enjoyed it thoroughly – however, we missed the ray traced reflections on that API.

NVIDIA will have their optimization suggestions which may be helpful, or a player can just use the GeForce Experience included with the new Game Ready drivers that will be released before the Control launches on August 27. The GeForce Experience will, at the touch of a button, set near-ideal custom settings for any PC and for hundreds of games including for Control.

Conclusion

Control is a really good game and it has brought the most fun, challenge, and especially frustration that we have had with any game since Prey released. We were completely taken with and consumed by Control only stopping to eat and to sleep – and sometimes forgetting to eat. We neglected everything else while playing it. We went to bed late, exhausted, and when we woke up the next morning early, we returned immediately to playing.

Control is a really fun game once it gets started although it starts to drag on and get a bit repetitive and a lot harder in the endgame If you are a completionist, you may put over 30 hours into the game. If you just stick to the main storyline, you may play for 15-20 hours if you don’t get lost like we did.

Control deserves an “8” in our opinion as an excellent game that demands precision and good puzzle-solving ability. In this way, it is totally unforgiving and rather difficult. If the beginning was a little more interesting and the ending less tedious and repetitive, it would have tied with Metro Exodus for BTR’s Game of the Year so far for 2019.

Next up, BTR’s VR Wars with the Vive Pro and the Oculus Rift will compare the RX 5700 vs. the RTX 2060 performance.

Happy Gaming!

Editor’s note: Most of our gameplay footage was corrupted and useless. We will update this post as soon as we can recapture our lost footage.

Ubisoft may have learned from it’s past mistakes. It is sad to see developers ignoring past failures when they have so many reference points to look back on. The original Division launched in a broken state, Destiny has taken years to find itself, and most recently Anthem’s failures at launch meant its sales figures have been abysmal. My expectations for these so-called live games-as-a-service franchises have been set so low that I went into this review expecting the worst. It bodes well that the developers of this franchise have been updating The Division 1 since launch, and in its current state it is quite impressive. The Division 2’s beta also had some of the same bugs and issues that the original game had, but this time, the developer actually listened and took feedback from the Beta players and fixed a lot of issues.

Developed by Massive and Ubisoft, Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 is one of the most technically sound and fun experiences at launch that I have experienced in a long time. I feel thankful for receiving a complete game instead of yet another broken “it will be fixed” type of game. A developer who has obviously listened to the fans and learned from its past mistakes has created a great world to be in, but it’s not without its hiccups – and lootboxes.

Let’s discuss the core gameplay and see what Ubisoft has given us at the launch of their newest games-as-a-service entry in The Division 2.

Gameplay

Technically speaking, Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 (TD2) is so well-polished the only issues we have to complain about are some audio hiccups and character model issues. The game feels similar to its predecessor but better in almost every way. Instead of focusing on revolutionizing the genre, The Division 2 has taken the original game’s strongest points and revised and fixed almost everything around it so that it feels like the perfect evolution for this franchise.

Yes, at the end of the day you are still running through long stretches of road, killing enemies with large amounts of health, looting them, and rinsing and repeating. This is the gameplay loop that keeps fans of looter shooters coming back for more. Everyone knows the formula, and if you do not like it, this type of game would be hard-pressed to win you over but they do try.

The Division 2 is a shooter at its core, and movement and gunplay are paramount. Almost every gun type feels powerful and viable, every skill is useful and fun, and the enemies are gigantic fun-sucking bullet sponges. This game finally allows you to truly tell when you are damaging stronger enemies with clear indicators of weak points to target. I really dislike games that believe “difficulty” means throwing large waves of almost unbeatable foes at you or a single large unit with endless amounts of health. These simple changes to enemy health and armor allow for teams to coordinate with much better efficiency and strategy when trying to beat these strong armored foes by shooting hunks of armor off arms or other critical places.

Movement also feels solid and responsive and the cover system is great. Although there are problems with the wonky way a character exits cover at times, overall the game feels very tight. The core mechanics are still intact but the game surprised me many times with it’s AI. Horde-style waves of enemies can only be fun for so long, but here enemies seem to actively seek you out and flank you constantly. I was never safe in any area for too long before I had to focus on an enemy beside me while another one was driving an explosive RC car to me while another had me pinned down with a mini-gun. It’s exciting and it forces the player to play an active role in every fight, making you look for new cover or to make use of one of your skills instead of just slowly picking off groups of enemies with overpowered guns behind the same cover for an entire fight.

Speaking of skills, these are mostly tech-based tools to use in The Division 2 that can help you tremendously as a solo player or in a group. TD2 introduces some great new skills which can also be modded to add a new spin and with more loot to chase such as cooldown reduction mods or other bonuses. Skills include things like Firefly which can be used to blind targets or to specifically target enemy weak spots to make fights easier. Another skill is the Turret using a sniper or a seeker mine and even a drone. There is an annoying bug a lot of users are reporting right now that makes some skills disappear almost immediately after being used but we rarely experienced it.

The various skills are generally well-designed and we went with a more team-based build using a drone that had healing capabilities and a shield that deflected bullets and various other attacks. These skills are rather useful and a combination of them, especially in groups, can be very good to have.

I can also see loadouts as being extremely useful for specific fights throughout the game. Assault rifles and shotguns for one loadout and a sniper and a sub machine gun for another; it’s all a welcome layer of customization and options that make the game feel complete instead of something to be introduced down the line as an update. This is what impressed me most. The game at launch finally feels like a complete package that will only get better with a live service plan instead of something that felt chopped up and destroyed like with Destiny 1.

Loot, loot and more loot. This is the reason so many gamers play loot shooters to being with. Finally, I actually feel rewarded for playing the game instead of grinding for hours and hours in other games which have powerful loot stuck only behind arbitrary developer imposed time gates or required upgrade item like a “masterwork core”. In a gaming genre centered around loot drop rewards, leveling up, and ultimately fun – anemic drop rates are never the answer and it has proven to piss even the most loyal of fans off like Anthem recently has. So it is a welcome and fantastic feeling to see that TD2 never really wasted my time and I was always being rewarded with tons of loot.

Of course, there are loot boxes in The Division 2 and some players will hate that. But they are buried away and not shoved in your face thankfully. TD2 does have some interesting cosmetic items like emotes, weapon skins, shirts and pants, and even some hats along with various other things for your character. I largely ignored them but did get the occasional cache to open and enjoy for free, and I got several skins and outfits without ever paying a cent for them.

I really do not like loot boxes in a full-priced game, but they are here but can be ignored for the most part since you already get some rewarded to you by just playing the game. For now it is just cosmetic.

Let’s take a deeper look at the open-world of The Division 2’s Washington D.C.

Washington D.C.

D.C.’s weather, color palate, sound design, and enemy encounters feel fresh and fun compared to the original game. While I miss the New York setting, the open-world of D.C.’s The Division 2 is teeming with life. Whether it’s a random dog roaming the war-torn streets or a new historical area we visit, it always felt new and exciting. In the first hours, I visited the White House, the American History Museum, the Smithsonian Castle, a science lab, battled next to Air Force one, a subway, and other interesting locations.

You also have settlements, safe houses, outposts, and various open areas to visit with many things to do and upgrade. Various NPCs give you quests, upgrades to complete, and its all done in real-time as you complete “projects.” This helps make the game come alive and it is rewarding. For instance, in one mission, I collected enough resources that had me retake some important batteries the enemies had stolen, and those batteries were then shown as being used by everyone in the settlement. I actually improved the “lives” of the NPCs in front of me and it was great to see

The Division 2 is rather overwhelming with so much to do. I never felt like I had nothing to do because there are main missions, side stories, control points to take over, collectibles, SHD tech to gather (upgrade points), and much more. It’s a huge game and the single player campaign missions alone before the end game has about 30-40 hours worth of content if you rush through it.

The Division 2’s story is pretty standard fare but much improved from the original game. The game’s opening sequence is kind of bland and does not do an amazing job of setting the game up as a new entry, but that was our only complaint. The story took me to enough unique locations to keep me engaged and having a lot of fun without much backtracking or any boring filler. The Division 2’s story does not need you to have played the original to get into because it’s basically this: the enemy attacked us, you are a silent guy for no reason, and you help us build the world back up again. Thankfully, it moved away from being too generic since the locations, the enemy encounters, and the fun useful loot kept me exploring and wanting more.

You can also matchmake at any time, whether it be free-roam, missions, control points, or any other mode. I suggest that you matchmake because it makes the experience much better. I feel it is necessary to mention that most of the side missions are not just boring fetch quests or defend-a-spot horde mode. Instead, side quests are actually interesting and worthy additions to the game. Ubisoft did a good job of filling the world up with life and things to do but I do suggest waiting to complete the side missions. Leveling after you reach 20 or so begins to slow down and side missions scale up to your level after you are done with the main story and these are good sources of XP to use for reaching max level.

Speaking of maxing out your level, let’s discuss the most important part of any looter shooter, the endgame.

End Game from the Ground Up

I do not want to spoil too much so I will leave some things out, but the endgame of TD2 is very well-designed. The Division 2 was built around the endgame with developer designing it first and the rest of the world later. The endgame starts almost immediately after beating the final mission and reaching Level 30. The most exciting part is that you can unlock three specializations to choose from: Sharpshooter, Survivalist, or Demolitionist which can be freely switched around. Each specialization comes with a signature weapon such as a crossbow, an ability tree, and access to a special side arm. Most guns can be modded and recalibrated to change a perk once to try to improve its stats or usefulness as well. Gun mods also allow you to attack grips, change a weapons sights, or add a muzzle break or other attachments.

The world also changes dramatically once you reach the endgame with a new faction, Black Tusk, coming to D.C. to fight you. World events like Black Tusk laying siege to your settlements, replaying missions with Black Tusk enemies in them, occupied dark zones with powerful enemies, all of which are pretty hard solo and almost require matchmaking to enjoy. Tough bounties and a map that comes to life makes it an ongoing struggle and a game that never feels like you have won but it keeps you coming back for more to fend off the new enemy.

There is a large amount of content to enjoy and you can easily put in a huge amount of time into the endgame to experience everything that is new at least once. I only hope Ubisoft remains an active part of the discussion with the community and continues to expand on the universe and update it like they did with The Division 1.

Ultimately, you will create a powerful solider who will be enticed to try out the PvP modes this game has to offer.

PvP and Dark Zones

In order to unlock the 3 Dark Zones of The Division 2, you have to do an introductory mission and then you will be granted access to this most interesting part of the game. Dark Zones in the Division 1 were pretty toxic with level and stat differences that made new players nothing but cannon fodder. Now the new zones in TD2 are a hybrid PvEvP (player vs. enemy vs. player) experience with strong AI enemies to defeat for powerful rewards and normalization of stats across the board for player vs. player combat.

Ubisoft focused on player accessibility, so skill is the most important part of any Dark Zone and not just for those who grind to max level to became unbeatable killing machines. Dark Zones are very interesting because while you can just roam around doing PvE content, you really have to remember the human element. There is always someone who will shoot you in the back the moment they can to steal your loot. It’s pretty rewarding to those who come prepared, and matchmaking solo players and groups together ensures that a player is not overwhelmed constantly by large groups.

Rogue actions are all about greed. You can steal from anyone, pick locked chests, hijack extractions, steal dropped loot, access SHD terminals, and steal Dark Zone drops with the goal of entering a special Thieves’ Den to reset Rogue status back to normal. You can also become disavowed after killing agents creating a large timer and a bounty on your head. Live and you win the bounty, or you can kill enough agents to go into Manhunt status with no timer. The only way to clear manhunt status and get your rewards is to go a special terminal.

Extractions are also a huge piece of the mode because of contaminated gear. This is powerful and high-value loot that can only be yours if you reach an extraction point, call a helicopter, secure your loot to the chopper, and defend the point from scavengers that are hoping to kill you before the loot can be taken away. Its crazy fun and an adrenaline rush every time. There also perks to use the unlock with progression to get an edge over everyone to entice people to progress and keep enjoying this mode. All 3 zones are focused and interesting areas that all have their own unique strategies with fun to be had. It is all a rewarding grind with enough small quality of life refinements has made this a very fun PvP mode.

However, not everyone will be a fan of the Dark Zones with these changes so Ubisoft and Massive have also designed “Conflict” as a PvP mode. These are held in their own unique locations with head-to-head PvP with normalized stats. There are two modes you can launch at any time once the mode is unlocked: Skirmish and Domination.

Skirmish is The Division 2’s version of Team Deathmatch with everyone fighting and respawning until a set timer counts down to zero. The team with the most respawns left wins. There are some interesting chests that you can find during a match with special ammo and buffs to use as well. Domination is just like most other modes of the same name – your team must capture 3 locations on the map, and the first to capture enough points and hold them long enough until they reach 750 points first will win. Special ammo and buffs are also available here.

Conflict is a fantastic concept and I hope more modes are added down the line to break up the time between other endgame content and grinding for loot in the Dark Zone. Modes like rumble, or something ultra-competitive like Destiny 2’s Trials of Osiris, might be a great way to make The Division 2 even better.

Performance

The visual experience in a post-apocalyptic Washington D.C is a welcome change from the streets of New York in The Division 1, and a dynamic weather system without snow looked great. I did have some weird “tunnel” issues when entering and exiting an open area with a roof on it when it was blasting rain outside. One second there was loud thunder and rain, and the next it was like someone had thrown me into a sound-proof room and closed the all the windows and doors so I could only hear the ambient noises inside the room. It felt strange but it was a rare occurrence.

The soundtrack of TD2 is very good but the shining stars of the game are everything else around it. The game is at its best in a full squad with all the various skills deployed with sniper shots ringing out alongside shotguns and various rifles. It is designed so well that its great music is often forgotten in the background, but as a total package it is very well-designed. I could always tell exactly from where I was being shot at or flanked from and even the type of gun the enemy was using after enough experience.

I experienced some pretty nasty bugs at the onset of the game that almost ruined my entire experience. The first cut scenes and dialogue were unbearable with several pieces of audio missing and weird static. With the March 15th launch day update, my issues went away so it may have just been some residual issues left over from the beta.

Overall, The Division 2 is a pretty decent-looking game, but the facial animations and lighting on some characters is pretty awful as seen below. I laughed at some of the introduction sequences of new characters because of how awkward the dialogue was with your silent-for-no-reason protagonist staring blankly back at the other person. It somehow felt off and can hopefully be improved with some updates.

Framerates on our RTX 2070 at 4K and 1440p felt fluid. We also benched a large of cards on BTR’s test bench and saw some pretty good performance numbers. The game is very well-optimized, and besides the weird audio bug and facial animation issues, we experience almost no graphical glitches or bugs during our playtime.

Here are our Win 10 performance numbers from the built-in benchmark using the Ultra DX12 preset with a Core i7 8700K at 4.7GHz, 16GB of HyperX 3333MHz DDR4 on a EVGA Z370 FTW motherboard:

Post launch and Conclusion

Ubisoft has already laid out its future content plans promising a large 8-man Raid soon, and ongoing updates are already planned.

We can honestly recommend this game for anyone who is even remotely a shooter fan. Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 should be the blueprint for anyone looking to launch a similar game in the future. It is a technically sound complete experience filled with life and bursting at the seams with content to the point of even feeling overwhelming at times. We did experience some audio issues that were thankfully fixed with a patch and the only major issue remaining is the facial animation of many characters you interact with. Post-launch plans include introducing raids, new loot to chase, more specializations and other content.

I am excited to see what the future holds if this is the base game and the foundation of The Division 2. I spent almost a thousand hours in the Destiny universe over the years, and I struggled to continue suffering through Anthem’s anemic and broken launch state, so its crazy to me just how important more improvements and additions to the game can make. Far too often now, loyal fans have to continuously defend titles in the hopes that “updates are coming” that will vastly change the experience for the better. But why, when a game like The Division 2 can launch so strongly instead?

The Division 2’s loot drops are fun, every gun is viable, skills are fun and varied, enemies feel engaging and challenging without feeling like huge bullet sponges, and the world just feels alive. Ubisoft and Massive have clearly learned from their previous mistakes and have presented a compelling package teeming with fun hour-eating content. The Division 2 is available now for PC, Xbox One, and Playstation 4. See you in the Dark Zone!

Battlefield V released worldwide yesterday, and it is such an important game that it required two BTR reviewers to cover it properly. Battlefield V is also a very large and a visually stunning game that has improved over its predecessor, and it features the very first ray tracing found in any video game.

BabelTechReviews received two press copies of Battlefield V last week from EA/NVIDIA. Both of us immediately began playing it, and we have each put many hours into the game. Mario tackled multiplayer, and Mark played through the single player War Stories and benchmarked Ultra performance including Ultra DXR reflections with nine video cards.

The War Stories

The War Stories are single player missions that consist of three individual stories which are considered “untold” although they are somewhat loosely-based on historical events. They are each quite challenging, especially on the higher difficulties, and they may take many hours to complete.

If you choose an easy difficulty, you can run and gun, but if you choose the higher difficulties, you will be forced to use strategy, and crawling prone is often necessary to achieve your objectives. In all cases, strategy is important to disable alarms to prevent reinforcements from being called which will make your objectives much more difficult to achieve.

Under No Flag

“Under No Flag” is the story of one rebellious misfit who was given a choice of remaining in jail or serving in the British Army.

“Under No Flag” is a very good story with great voice acting, and although your character becomes a hero, it is still realistic and exciting. You become the demolition expert seeking redemption and whose goal is to blow up the German Luftwaffe bases behind enemy lines who are terrorizing the Allied infantry. This story explores your relationship with your commanding officer.

“Under No Flag” is set in the North African desert and there are excellent graphics, but with less chance for reflections until later on, although puddles of water and shiny objects offer good reflections. Here is a scene in the rain. We noticed some artifacting with the rain drops using Radeons that were improved somewhat by the latest 18.11.2 driver, but they are still visible as translucent boxes. This particular issue does not affect GeForce gamers.

The scope and the map size of “Under No Flag” are huge and there is a good variety of terrain, objectives, and with plenty of things to blow up. Here is an Ansel capture showing a panoramic view of one scene.

Nordlys

The second War Story, “Nordlys,” makes a great contrast to the desert that is set in a frozen world of snow and ice which offers great reflections on the frozen lakes with good opportunities for rendering accurate DXR reflections. “Nordlys” is a story of the Norwegian resistance, and the focus is on two women fighters who are heroes.

“Nordlys” is a cold world with a lot of snow and frozen surfaces. Even without reflections, it is quite impressive visually. This map seems smaller than the other two War Stories’ maps, although there are also multiple objectives. Here is another Ansel screenshot.

“Nordlys” starts out great, with superb voice acting and a logical sequence of events. The main characters speak mostly Norwegian and German, and subtitles translate what is being said. We get a deep look at the relationship between the two heroines and their daunting tasks that face them, to first investigate and then stop a major threat that could turn the tide of the war in Germany’s favor.

The skiing scenes leading to the frozen-over lake are not only fun but visually stunning as is this scene captured by NVIDIA’s Ansel. There are a few minor issues with the visuals as the rectangular grids that divide the map are visible in the snow and on the ice in some scenes.

Unfortunately, halfway through the story it degenerates into immersion-breaking stupidity in an effort to set the social justice record right all-at-once regarding the role of women in World War II. It is historical fact that there were thousands of women who served on the front lines. Some women acted as infantry and even carried arms and took on the German soldiers directly in combat, and some of these women were highly decorated as war heroes – in the Russian army.

The other allied armies generally used women for support, although thousands of women died alongside the men. However, this story could have used any gender, and it would still have been a failure. For example, the heroine is dressed warmly, then suddenly after a turning point, she has to dart from campfire to campfire just to stay warm enough to survive.

After falling into a frozen lake and not warming up nor drying her clothes, she becomes a superwoman while still freezing. Completely unarmed, she is able to knock out a helmeted German soldier with only a bottle, and then strangles him, after which she goes on a killing rampage that no ‘Rambo’ of any gender could dream of.

This sudden shift in tone was so immersion-breaking that this editor began to laugh out loud. Our objective changed to wanting to finish this episode as quickly as possible because this potentially great story was ruined by incredibly poor writing in an effort to somehow elevate women into goddesses.

Tirailleur

The Tirailleurs, or sharpshooter riflemen, were a corps of Senegalese colonial infantry in the French Army that were originally recruited from Senegal, French West Africa. The designation was given by the French Army to mostly indigenous men of color recruited from the colonies and possessions of the French Empire during the 19th and 20th centuries. They also fought in World War I.

This third War Story is about two brothers who believed that they had something to prove. Their goal was to beat the German army and to do what the regular French army could not accomplish by retaking the South of France.

Both brothers had very different points of view and different personal goals. The huge scope of these maps, along with that of the first story are utterly impressive. You actually feel like you are part of a huge battle taking place and there is an urgency to accomplish goals quickly to keep your comrades in arms alive.

You can run in any direction and pick your objectives in the order you choose as long as you do not stray out of the Combat Area. If you do, you will be given a warning message and have ten seconds to return to it or you will fail and be returned to the last checkpoint. As usual, we hate the checkpoint system although it is fairly well implemented in War Stories.

This episode is one of the very most intense areas for DXR reflections anywhere, and at its beginning, a RTX 2080 Ti may even struggle at 1920×1080 resolution with DXR on. There are dense foliage, lakes, and puddles of water everywhere. There is plenty of water which reflects, and the explosions look incredible with fire being reflected accurately, no matter from which angle you look. Let’s check out DXR ray traced reflections.

DXR Ray Traced Reflections

First, let’s look at a competitor’s game, Call of Duty; Black Ops 4, also on Ultra settings. Since it is DX11 and doesn’t have DXR available, you will notice that there are no reflections in the water from the explosions, although there are baked-in reflections of the wall and vegetation which do not change.

In contrast, check out the reflections from the flames and from the surroundings in the water in Battlefield V below.

Everything is accurately ray traced and reflected by the water even accounting for the ripples on its surface. And if you change your angle and pull back as we did using Ansel, the DXR reflections continue to be accurately ray traced by Turing’s RTX cores as you move around the scene. We look forward to the day when these ray traced reflections will become mainstream and will be taken for granted by gamers. At this point, only GeForce gamers who play with a RTX 2080 Ti, a RTX 2080, or a RTX 2070 will be able to enjoy ray traced DXR reflections. Mario played multiplayer with a RTX 2070, and this editor played the War Stories with a RTX 2080 and also with a RTX 2080 Ti.

Here is the another scene following a sequence of exploding barrels. In the first scene we see the barrels begin to explode, and we can see their reflections in the puddles of water on the muddy ground.

In the second scene, we see more of the explosion sequence, but the puddle’s reflections do not capture its full extent.

Finally, we switch to Ansel for a larger overview of the same explosion.

Here is another scene showing DXR reflections in water-filled muddy tracks.

Now we see it again from another wider angle.

DXR isn’t perfect, but it looks great and it is a huge step over the “baked-in” solutions that game developers have been using for many years.

Here is another scene in the desert from “Under No Flag”.

Next we pull back using Ansel and check the larger scene.

We applaud what DICE and NVIDIA have done, and we look forward to Battlefield V’s future patches that will improve DXR reflections. However, unfortunately, there is a major issue of performance.

Let’s check out Mario’s experiences with Battlefield V Multiplayer first.

Battlefield V multiplayer

I wanted to take some time to play the game thoroughly and review it properly as this is an important release for DICE and for EA. Battlefield V’s maps are stunning, the gunplay is skillful and refined, movement feels fluid, and the squad play is really good. However, DICE missed an opportunity to capture the entire picture of the war and it signals what the rest of the title feels like. At launch, there are enough innovations and promising features in Battlefield V to excite new players and Battlefield veterans alike. The 64-player grand operations and other modes feel incredible, but they also felt incredibly rushed. Here is a game that started off quite fun and it ends quite abruptly with a game crashing bug for no apparent reason:

The Battlefield franchise has been able to consistently capture the feeling of being in the middle of a large war, and the grand scale of it all impresses players with fun and great gameplay. The same can be said about Battlefield V – it is just beautiful to be apart of.

For example, I was running through a muddy field towards heavy enemy fire, and to my left, our allies are fighting for control of a bridge while suffering mass casualties. A squad mate and I saw a house and decided to vault through its window. We quickly dispatched two enemy soldiers and started to capture the point. Our enemies kept flooding in and they eventually get the best of us when a Junkers Ju-88 dropped a payload of bombs on our location, and the entire roof crumbled at our feet. We respawned and returned to battle over and over again.

This above is an example of the type of experience that only Battlefield can bring, and what makes this review so hard to do is when Battlefield V had arguably one of the worst marketing campaigns in recent history. Many players will ignore this game, but they should not.

Battlefield V takes the franchise in much more tactical and squad-based direction. Its attrition system mechanics have led to less health regeneration, scarcer ammo, and a much faster time-to-the kill. Squads are more important than ever before, and an efficient group can take over a map only by working together. Satisfying weapons and beautiful landscapes have led to some of the most immersive and intense moments I have ever experienced in gaming.As a player, you are constantly looking for medics to supply bandages as you can only self-heal once as a non-medic, and a support player will give you more ammo. I was actively keeping track of my teammates, but in contrast, I would mostly ignore them in Battlefield 1. Only a handful of gadgets allow a player to use the infamous 3D-spotting mechanic making it harder to spot enemies since they now blend in so well on the map. Instead, players can only point to a general enemy location, making it extremely fun and it leads to more intense matches.

Any player can now revive a downed squad member, albeit at a slower pace than the medic class who can revive the entire team as a whole, and this is a crucial part of any match. The Battlefield V class system makes each of the 4 main classes – recon, support, assault, and medic – all feel well-defined and important members of any match.

The bad and the very ugly parts of Battlefield V comes from barely functional menus, poor implementation of design concepts, and massive amounts of bugs. At launch, this is one of the worst user-interfaces I have ever used. It takes multiple clicks to customize weapons or to change your load outs or character options. There is no intuitiveness, and the design needs to be changed. I have encountered many small bugs which randomly do not allow me to revive some teammates, with the health not regenerating at all, and some poor netcode that leads to extremely fast times to kill. Even enemy movement is bugged as silent at times, and close firefights can often sound like a distant engagement.

There is an obvious lack of polish to many of the game menus that often lock up and require a force close. It is strange that DICE had all this nearly perfected in Battlefield 1 but is now starting over from scratch with Battlefield V.However, the core gun experience is incredible as there are 37 guns that all feel well-tuned and unique from one another. Gone are the days of random recoil patterns and suppression causing you to miss dead-on shots. Instead, most guns have a highly predictable recoil that you can master easily. Specializations are a sort of progression system that are essentially upgrade trees with perks for various weapons. This could have been better as many upgrades are mostly just recoil reduction perks and they offer little to no major changes to weapons otherwise.

Progression also allows you to earn cosmetic upgrades like skins and camos for your weapons and character. This does a great job of allowing you to feel like you earned something and it is a great addition to the game, regardless of historical accuracy. Thankfully, EA and DICE have said that all future guns and DLC are free, and everyone who owns the game can get everything that comes post-launch.

There are also a multitude of vehicles – about 26 – that are fun to drive. Tanks and ground vehicles feel very useful, but the third-party aiming system of tanks needs some work as it feels slightly off. Airplanes with good pilots can absolutely dominate matches. Once you start getting bombed over and over again by the same two pilots dominating the sky, it can lead to some massive frustration. You will have little to no choice but to focus on the skies above instead of on the ground objectives. I do not see this air domination lasting long, and hopefully we can get some better counters to airplanes instead of just blanket nerfs.

At launch, Battlefield V offers 8 maps that have mostly been well-received by players. They are all fun and beautiful. They are not the largest maps ever seen, but overall they fit perfectly into the franchise. The 7 multiplayer modes are standard with conquest and grand operations still being the best of the bunch. These modes often play well on the maps offered although some maps have awkward moments and unbalanced spawn points that leads to one side being massacred over-and-over.

DICE’s solution to these issues are fortifications. Essentially, everyone gets a tool that allows you to build sandbag walls, chain link fences, and more to try to stop the enemy onslaught or to defend a position. DICE needs to show the outline of these points at all times or with proximity. I have often found that fellow players just ignore this important mechanic when we could have stopped a flood of enemies and regained control. Simple things, like closer ammo or health boxes, are available but are also often ignored by teammates. With just a few simple UI updates, this can be the game changer that DICE wanted it to be.

Even with all of these issues, Battlefield V has given us some of the best gaming moments of the year. It is jaw-dropping at times, especially if you have a card that can run DXR smoothly. Even without DXR working properly, Battlefield V’s small bugs and issues at launch are all fixable. Battlefield veterans are sadly used to this type of launch, but we are also no stranger to patches and to growth. With free DLC and patches already on the way, Battlefield V has the potential to be even better than it already is, and that is the most exciting part.

Let’s take a look at the Ultra performance of Battlefield V after we check out the test configurations that we each used.

Test Configuration – Hardware

Mark’s Hardware

• Intel Core i7-8700K (HyperThreading and Turbo boost are on to 4.7GHz for all cores; Coffee Lake DX11 CPU graphics).
• EVGA Z370 FTW motherboard (Intel Z370 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 3.0/3.1 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x), supplied by EVGA
• HyperX 16GB DDR4 (2x8GB, dual channel at 3333 MHz), supplied by HyperX
• RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition, 11GB, stock settings, supplied by NVIDIA
• RTX 2080 Founders Edition, 8GB, stock settings, supplied by NVIDIA
• RTX 2070 Founders Edition, 8GB, stock settings, supplied by NVIDIA
• GTX 1080 Ti Founders edition, 11GB, stock settings supplied by NVIDIA
• GTX 1080 Founders edition, 8GB, stock settings supplied by NVIDIA
• GTX 1070 Founders edition, 8GB, stock settings supplied by NVIDIA
• Gigabyte RX Vega 64 8GB, Liquid Cooled edition, stock settings
• PowerColor Red Devil RX Vega 56 8GB, stock settings, supplied by Powercolor
• PowerColor Red Devil RX 590 8GB, at stock Red Devil clocks, supplied by PowerColor
• 2 x 480 GB Team Group SSD; One for AMD and one for NVIDIA
• 1.92 TB San Disk enterprise class SSD
• 2 TB Micron 1100 SSD
• Seasonic 850W Gold Focus power supply unit
• EVGA CLC 280mm CPU water cooler, supplied by EVGA
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• Genius SP-D150 speakers, supplied by Genius
• EVGA DG-77, mid-tower case supplied by EVGA
• Monoprice Crystal Pro 4K

Mario’s Hardware

• Intel Core i7-4790K (reference 4.0GHz, HyperThreading and Turbo boost is on; DX11 CPU graphics), supplied by Intel.
• ASUS Z97-E motherboard (Intel Z97 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 3.0 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x)
• Kingston 16 GB HyperX Beast DDR3 RAM (2×8 GB, dual-channel at 2133MHz), supplied by Kingston
• HyperX Fury RGB 480GB Savage SSD, supplied by HyperX/Kingston
• EVGA RTX 2070 Black, 8GB, supplied by EVGA.
• SCEPTRE U275W-4000R 4K display

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 416.94 WHQL.
• AMD’s Adrenalin Software 18.8.40 (Press Launch Drivers) are used for the RX 590 & 18.11.2 used for the other two Radeons.
• VSync is forced off.
• AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified
• Gaming results show average frame rates in bold including minimum frame rates shown on the chart next to the averages in a smaller italics font.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 10 64-bit Home edition latest version 1809. DX11 and DX12 were used along with DXR for Turing cards.
• Latest DirectX
• Battlefield V is patched to its latest versions at time of publication.
• Wattman used for Radeon settings
• MSI Afterburner, latest beta for GeForce cards.
• OCAT, latest version
• Fraps, latest version
• Battlefield V, 2 press review copies supplied by NVIDIA/EA

AMD Control Center Radeon Settings

All AMD settings are set so as to be apples-to-apples when compared to NVIDIA’s control panel settings – all optimizations are off, Vsync is forced off, Texture filtering is set to High, and Tessellation uses application settings.

We used Wattman to set power, temperature and fan limits are set to their maximums to prevent throttling.

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the NVIDIA Control Panel settings.

We used MSI’s Afterburner to set the highest Power and Temperature targets. By setting the Power Limits and Temperature limits to maximum for each of our test cards cards, they do not throttle, but they can each reach and maintain their individual maximum clocks while overclocked.
Let’s check the settings and performance of our 9 video cards on the next page, and then head for our conclusion.

The Graphics and the Settings

Battlefield V is an incredibly good-looking game on its highest settings, and it is visually improved over Battlefield I. Although it is very scalable from Ultra for high-end cards down to Low settings, with many options that are individually customizable for low-end cards, we decided to play and benchmark on Ultra settings, including Ultra DXR ray tracing.

Ultra settings are what really sets the PC version of Battlefield V apart from the consoles, besides the options for higher resolution. The fastest console, the XBox 1X, essentially runs the game comparably to a PC on medium-plus settings but without DXR. For the PC, and specifically for Turing video cards, DXR settings are also offered in Low, Medium, High and Ultra settings, but Ultra stands out since its ray traced reflections are not limited like the lower settings are. The differences between Ultra DXR and even High or Medium DXR are not subtle, and so we chose to play and benchmark on Ultra DXR settings to see what this revolutionary and first implementation of ray traced reflections in any game can offer.

There is a large performance hit moving from Ultra with no DXR to Ultra with even low settings, and playing with Ultra DXR will even make framerates on NVIDIA’s top Turing card, the RTX 2080 Ti, unable to maintain satisfactory fluid frame rates even at 1920×1080 in areas with dense foliage and with many reflecting surfaces. We believe that DICE and NVIDIA will continue to work together to optimize Battlefield V and we will probably see playable framerates in the future that are not quite playable today.

The new patch which enabled DXR last week is essentially an Alpha or a raw Beta patch that we consider a “proof of concept”. DICE has much work to do in refining their implementation of DXR reflections, and we would hope that they would also eventually implement DLSS which would allow for significantly higher framerates. There is no reason that these two brand new technologies cannot be implemented simultaneously.

Since it is nearly impossible to play Battlefield V multiplayer with RTX enabled, we concentrated on DXR in the single player campaigns – the three War Stories. Most multiplayer gamers will choose DX11 over DX12, because for most players, DX12 has a stutter that it seems to have inherited from Battlefield 1. However, we found a way to possibly minimize the slightly inconsistent framerate delivery, latency, and stutter using the DX12 pathway on a fast PC.

DX11 vs. DX12

For this editor, DX12 looks better and is just as smooth as with DX11. Mario, however, reported minor stuttering with DX12 and he played multiplayer in DX11. We both noticed that DX12 appears to be slightly less efficient than DX11, but this is completely dependent on a player’s video card and system, as well as on specific settings and a player’s chosen resolution. One feature that appears to really impact both DX11 and DX12 performance is Future Frame Rendering.

Future Frame Rendering

When the Future Frame Rendering option is set to Off, it uses the operating system default, which is usually the limit for GeForce gamers as set in NVIDIA’s control panel’s Pre-Rendered Frames. By default, it is usually set to 3 which is a good compromise for keeping the CPU busy while not having extra input lag by using more pre-rendered frames. If you set Future Frame Rendering higher, you may have more fluid and smoother framerates with less mass drops, but input lag increases the higher it is set.

Setting Future Rendering to Off in DX11 causes a very big performance hit in the neighborhood of a 20% loss of FPS. However, setting DX12 Future Rendering to Off in DX12 causes a performance loss of about 1%. If you are a competitive player with an extremely fast video card and a display with extremely low latency and want the lowest possible latency, you may consider turning Future Rendering Off even in DX11 in the hopes of lower latency even though there is no stutter on the DX11 pathway. It may be worth experimenting with it.

For DX12, however, depending on the resolution and card, Off may gain slightly more FPS or lose slightly more FPS. However, we noticed that besides improved latency, the DX12 stutter with Future Frame Rates Off seemed to be mostly resolved over using the option set to On. With Future Frame Rates Off, the minimum frametimes will vary depending on the resolution and the settings used. It is up to each player to experiment with these settings to find what works best for them as we believe that the “best” settings are up to each gamer’s preference and may mostly depend on the PC configuration and the individual settings that are being used.

Comparing DX11 performance versus DX12 performance with Future Frame Rates On, relative FPS also seems to depend on the card and the resolution used. Sometimes DX12 is more efficient and delivers higher framerates, while at other times DX11 is faster, but the performance deltas are never large. However, DX12 is somewhat visually superior, and BTR will bench Battlefield V from now on in DX12 with Future Frame Rates Off, so we did not show DX11 performance in this review.

Ultra DX12 Performance including Ultra DXR

We benchmarked nine video cards at Ultra settings at 1920×1080, 2560×1440, and at 3840×2160 resolutions using the very latest drivers. We also benched the three Turing cards at Ultra settings with Ultra RTX reflections enabled. Even though DICE admits their implementation of DXR is still somewhat buggy and NVIDIA asks that reviewers benchmark with RTX on Low for now, the Ultra reflections are the best-looking implementation of this feature and this is how the screenshots in this review are presented.

The benchmark that we have chosen for Battlefield V is extraordinarily demanding on any video card – with or without DXR enabled – and it can be considered “worst case” for the War Stories. However, it was carefully chosen so as not to include a lot of foliage which DICE admits played havoc with their DXR implementation.

Ultra DXR using Ultra settings are unplayable above 1920×1080 for any card – especially at the beginning of the “Tirailleur” War Story – where there are a lot of foliage and reflecting surfaces. Our RTX 2080 Ti’s framerates dropped so much as to be nearly unplayable. We consider DXR, so far as implemented in Battlefield V, to be more of a “proof of concept” rather than something a gamer would use in playing through War Stories, never mind attempting to play multiplayer. But it does look incredible.

On Monday, AMD released their Adrenalin 18.11.2 Software drivers, so we used it for all three Radeons that we tested. We also got caught by Origin’s ridiculous 5 hardware changes rule which even applies to press copies of Battlefield V which has delayed our review. It means that if you change out your video card 5 times, you are locked out of the game for up to 24 hours. In fact, we had to leave out two cards that we had planned to benchmark because we were most recently locked out after only three (3) changes!

NVIDIA’s development team has helped DICE integrate their DXR technology which is used primarily for ray traced reflections. One thing that immediately stands out is the incredible detail and impressive graphics at the game’s highest Ultra setting – with or without DXR.

The characters are nearly as detailed as in Crysis 3, and Battlefield V succeeds in creating an immersive world in an attempt to put the player into World War II with an emphasis on realism. A lot of emphasis and time was placed on making the World War II experience feel alive and natural, and we really missed the DXR effects when we switched them off although the framerates immediately improved.

NVIDIA’s advanced DXR ray tracing effects contribute to the realism of the game but they also take a unbelievable performance hit. If you are just playing War Stories with DXR Ultra reflections on – the puddles, ice, mirrors, and shiny surfaces reflect just as they do in the real world – you just might be able to handle the lowered performance at 1920×1080 with a RTX 2080 Ti.

Unfortunately, although DXR can be switched off by simply escaping to the menu and toggling it off, the game has to be restarted for the changes to take effect, and this precludes playing scenes with any serious action as you will be returned to the last checkpoint. We would absolutely recommend not enabling DXR for multiplayer as the framerates may tank, and you will be a sitting duck for the enemy.

We are going to compare the performance of nine video cards using DX12/Ultra settings only at up to three resolutions – 1920×1080, 2560×1440, and at 3840×2160. We will also show the performance of our 3 Turing cards – the RTX 2080 Ti, the RTX 2080, and the RTX 2070 – using Ultra settings with Ultra DXR On separately. Low, Medium and High RTX look very similar, and the only DXR setting that we would pick is Ultra – it just looks so much better than the lesser settings.

There is no built-in benchmark, so we picked the most demanding scene from War Stories which does not have a lot of foliage nor extreme reflections. Here are the three Turing cards, the RTX 2080 Ti, the RTX 2080, and the RTX 2070 running Ultra settings with Ultra DXR On versus Off at three resolutions.Without using DXR, only the RTX 2080 Ti can play at Ultra 4K with framerates above 60 FPS. However, all three cards take a massive performance hit from enabling Ultra DXR at Ultra settings. Realistically, only the RTX 2080 Ti can handle Ultra DXR at even 1920×1080, and not very well in some areas where there are a lot of foliage and with many reflecting surfaces.

Until DICE’s bugged implementation of DXR is fixed, NVIDIA recommends playing with Low DXR on Ultra settings – which is quite a disappointment after seeing Ultra DXR. It is also unfortunate that DICE did not choose to implement SLI.

Now we see our other 6 cards on Ultra settings which cannot play with DXR on at all.

None of these cards are well-suited for playing Battlefield V at Ultra 4K although the GTX 1080 Ti stands alone as the closest, and some detail settings would have to be lowered to stay above 60 FPS.

Playing on the DX11 pathway gives no practical framerate improvement to any of these cards, and some of them may even have lower framerates. The top 4 cards are well-suited for 2560×1440 at Ultra settings and they may even manage 3440×1440. The GTX 1070 and the RX 590 can easily manage 1920×1080 resolution with Ultra settings, but no higher.

Single Player Bugs, Graphics and Performance

Battlefield V is a massive World War II game which on its Highest visuals puts it well among in the top ten of the best-looking video games ever. On Ultra settings, it has improved even over Battlefield 1, especially with regard to details and shadowing, and of course DXR reflections are brand new and impressive. Loading times from a SATA SSD are quite reasonable and a player will be back into the action quickly after dying while playing a War Story.

We encountered few single player bugs, but we did lose one of our saves after we completed one of the War Stories that could not even be recovered from the Origin cloud. Overall, Battlefield V is a very polished single player experience and there are only a few areas with visual artifacting, not counting DXR. Video memory appears to be very well-managed although Ultra is precluded for cards having less than 6GB of vRAM, even at 1920×1080.

Ansel

Ansel integration works very well for War Stories, although we did have a couple of crashes to desktop while using it. If you have the GeForce Experience installed, using ALT+F2, Ansel will pause the action to capture images. Ansel is an incredible screen capture tool that provides advanced filters and editing. Most of our screenshots were captured using Ansel.

Conclusion

We are going to give an 8.6 “score”, and we both highly recommend Battlefield V both for the single-player War Stories and for the Multiplayer action. We expect that multiplayer will improve, and that DICE will fix DXR reflections. And if you want to see DXR in action, Battlefield V is included as a bundle with any Turing RTX video card or system from participating etailers while supplies last.

Battlefield V has become BTR’s latest benchmark. Stay tuned as we have many more reviews and evaluations coming up. But both of us cannot wait to get back to playing the game

For gamers in the USA, Happy Thanksgiving, and to everyone –

Happy Gaming!

Square Enix has left the classic systems such as turn-based battles in the past with a modern battle system in an open world while retaining the classic JRPG style and role-playing elements fans want. This title is engaging with a great story that the series is known for with fun quests that still have that unique Final Fantasy feeling. Square Enix managed to deliver a game in one of the best packages the studio has ever put out. Sold now as Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition, this game includes all the DLC extras, updates, and NVIDIA-powered graphics enhancements that make this version of the game the definitive one.

Final Fantasy XV puts you in control of Noctis, the crown prince from the kingdom of Lucis who is forced to take on a greater role when his kingdom is invaded. Prince Noctis and his three constant companions must go on a long and winding journey across a massive world to save their kingdom. It is a familiar story the series is known for, but your companions and the living world around you are some of the most engaging and interesting experiences we have had in quite some time.

The game is unique as a large “buddy road trip” game that has all the side-quests, leveling, and character development hardcore fans are looking for. These characters are memorable and interesting, and as the story progresses we genuinely felt anger and shock as each chapter twists, turns, and evolves the narrative. Noctis, Gladiolus, Prompto and Ignis are very unique characters each with charming characteristics.

The constant banter and companionship they provide are some of the very best elements of the game. Final Fantasy XV then throws this group into a vast open world so large that you need a car just to get around it. There are hundreds of hours of content to enjoy along with fluid combat coupled with tight skill and gear development that make this game incredibly satisfying to play.

Final Fantasy XV is unique in the world of AAA gaming today while still retaining the development and progression fans of the series will enjoy. The gameplay and graphical fidelity are both fresh and beautiful to look at. However, before we discuss gameplay, let’s take a deeper look at Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition.

What’s included?

Any game with ten years of buildup and rumors will have trouble achieving perfection and will have a lot of hype to live up to. This game is far from perfect, but it is certainly a return to form for the studio and a welcome entry for old and new fans. Final Fantasy XV’s Americana, open-world, and JRPG gameplay is a vibrant, gorgeous, and a massive quest that anyone can jump into and enjoy. So what sets the Windows edition apart from the console release over a year ago?

Since Final Fantasy XV’s original console release in November, 2016, it has seen several DLCs released and the studio has even added cut scenes to clarify the story. The current version of the game also has some additional final boss battles and other minor tweaks that serve to further enhance the overall game and tighten up the original ending. It still suffers from becoming more linear near the end of the game but that doesn’t take away from the amazing journey it will take to get there. The road to the endgame can be long with hundreds of hours of great content including dozens of side-quests, hunts, fishing, and more.

Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition is a great package including all the post-launch DLC Square Enix has released for console. The base game on PC includes all current weapons, regalia skins, items and the three DLC episodes: Episode Gladiolus, Episode Prompto, and Episode Ignis. The game also includes the Final Fantasy XV: Comrades DLC that includes an online co-op mode that lets you explore the world and try quests with your friends.

Along with all the aforementioned content, PC gamers have been promised all upcoming story content and releases the studio puts out.

Mods, NVIDIA, and more

For the first time, first-person mode is available in Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition. This mode feels natural using the mouse and keyboard but some of the games menus and interactions still feel like they were designed for controllers. Overall, they are tight enough to feel great on PC and first person mode is there for gamers who may like it. This mode especially shines on high-end rigs and during the stunning battles that occur in the game. It’s what what makes PC gaming one of the best platforms to play on.

Mods

Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition has been out for about a week and we already have a mod that optimizes the game’s performance and brings even higher textures to it. We can only imagine the future mods that will enhance the title, like characters skins, new weapons, and more.

Speaking of textures, the game is massive and needs a total of 155 GB of storage space. This includes all the aforementioned DLC and base game along with 4K textures and HDR. The “normal” version of the game without the texture packs will still require around 100 GB of hard drive space. This game is huge and may be staggering for those with data caps or limited SSD storage space. We highly recommend installing this game on an SSD, as some of the loading times between chapters or large areas will remind you of playing Final Fantasy VII on console a little too much. Loading can take over a minute or even two at various sections of the game even on high-end systems using hard drives.

NVIDIA GameWorks features are quite welcome and they put the console versions of the game to shame. Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition is truly beautiful and the already great Luminous engine is enhanced by NVIDIA GameWorks technologies. The full potential of the game is realized only on the PC. Whether you are riding in your car, fighting a huge boss or a mob of enemies, or simply walking through a city, the world is stunning and absolutely gorgeous.

If you have a graphics card at the GTX 1070 level and can turn all of these effects on, the benefits of these features become immediately evident in comparison to consoles and even over playing on a GTX 1050 Ti. The ability for PC gamers to use these technologies coupled with the game’s already impressive engine is a totally new experience for Final Fantasy gamers. Even if you don’t like Final Fantasy’s style, the game is simply stunning in 4K and hectic battles become easier to understand and process with faster frames per second seen only on high-end cards.

Let’s take a look at the gameplay and new systems in Final Fantasy XV.

10 years Later, Final Fantasy has Evolved

Final Fantasy XV has gone through quite a wild journey to get to where we are today. The game has changed with the landscape and Square Enix has delivered fluid and fun combat with enough depth for hardcore fans. The game features a lock-on system that is extremely satisfying once mastered. The battle system features dodging, blocking and parrying attacks, linking with your partners for dynamic attacks, magic, and more. Royal Arms are also very strong specialized weapons that only Noctis can use, but although they drain his energy they can be great tools. Noctis can even summon a god at just the right moment when fighting a tough boss and it feels amazing the first time it happens.

These design changes and overall experiences in Final Fantasy XV feel like the perfect evolution that the series needed to undergo in the modern gaming world and is more easily accessible to newcomers because of these design choices. While we miss the old turn-based design of classic entries in the series, the revamped system is still fun and it feels fresh for a 2018 game. There is also a “wait” mode that serves as a middle ground for fans of slower paced combat. This mode allows you to pause between attacks and slows the gameplay down for those who like picking their targets and planning their attacks.

To be honest, the wait mode felt too slow when compared to the engaging and fun battles featured when using the normal system, although it is a very nice alternative for many people.

Noctis and his companions have several upgrade paths, weapons, and skills to keep combat interesting. The open world is full of quests and items to get and we enjoyed them, but gamers looking for dynamic events may be disappointed until much later in the game. Still, the game progresses quite nicely and grinding for EXP and levels are fun and interesting with your companions. Later chapters in the game open up the world and the experiences tie in together well. The banter between your companions also keeps it interesting along with various systems the game implements for progression. On rare occasions the conversations are deep.

For example, leveling-up requires sleeping in a hotel or making camp in the wild, and it felt natural with great transitions and with sometimes witty dialogue exchanges between the group. Riding Chocobos, Final Fantasy’s iconic chicken-like creatures, across vast fields is extremely different and great to experience on PC. It is hard to describe without experiencing it first-hand, but the camaraderie on the journey is truly engrossing and my fellow reviewer and I have jointly spent over 90 hours on the game and we have only barely scratched the surface of the game.

Some item gathering and repetitive side-quests may become boring as they lack diversity and are just small variations of the same concepts. Monster hunts, for example, are quests given to you by designated NPCs that let you gain some money and experience quickly by going out to specified areas and clearing a wave of enemies, a large boss, or random groups of demons. These events are fun and rewarding as they allow you to level up rather quickly but they are really a grinding tool that can be skipped. Still, we got sucked into weird side quests like fishing for a finicky cat who looked hungry.

The game is weird and design cues from Japanese developers thrown in like a random Cup Noodles stand in the city just make the game more memorable and uniquely Final Fantasy. Fun and interesting elements such as Prompto’s photos, Ignis coming up with new recipes, and more is the main strength of the game. You and your friends going on a journey in this huge weird world makes it one of the best role-playing experiences we have had for quite some time.

Square Enix has promised fans even more content for the game and we look forward to it. However, the game is demanding and some lower-end cards such as our GTX 1050 TI struggle to pass 34 FPS on average and our GTX 1060 6GB maxed out its performance capabilities at 1080p for the title.

Let’s take a deeper look at the gameplay, visuals and the performance of Final Fantasy XV

Performance and IQ

Final Fantasy XV is too big for just one reviewer to fully cover in just one week, so two of us tackled it. BabelTechReviews received a reviewer’s copy of Final Fantasy XV last week from NVIDIA, and a second key was purchased from retail. Both of us immediately began playing it, and we have put well over 90 combined hours total into the game.

Here are the 25 video cards that we tested at Highest, High, Average, and at Low settings at 1920×1080, 2560×1440, and at 3840×2160 resolutions with the very latest drivers. We also benched the fastest cards at Highest settings with all of the GameWorks features enabled.

In the middle of our benchmarking, AMD released their Adrenalin 18.3.2 drivers this week which gave us noticeable performance improvements especially for Fury X, Polaris, and also for Vega. Final Fantasy XV was also updated by a 106.7 MB patch while we were playing, but it did not affect our performance.

NVIDIA’s development team has helped Square Enix integrate their GameWorks library using Turf Effects, HairWorks, Voxel Ambient Occlusion, ShadowWorks and Flow technologies. One thing that immediately stands out is the incredible detail and impressive graphics at the game’s higher setting. The characters are nearly as detailed as in Crysis 3, and Final Fantasy XV succeeds in creating an immersive world. A lot of emphasis and time was placed on making the world feel alive and natural, and we really missed the GameWorks effects when we switched them off.

NVIDIA’s advanced GameWorks effects contribute to the realism of the game but they also take a significant performance hit. Fortunately, traversing the world with a high end video card can often be enjoyed with the GamesWorks effects on – the grass sways in the wind, the NPCs’ hair and fur moves naturally, and shadows look more real. Best of all, GameWorks can switched off by simply escaping to the menu and toggling it off if more performance is needed for fighting.

Below are the major settings which include Low, Average, High, and Highest (shown below). Each time a player toggles between these major settings, unlike toggling GameWorks effects on or off, the game needs to restart, and any progress since the last save may be lost. However, it makes no sense to enable GameWorks unless you are on the High or Highest settings and have enough performance headroom to use them without slowing framerates down too much.

We are going to compare the performance of 25 video cards by changing the four major settings, and we will also look at the image quality (IQ) differences that result from changing these settings.

Bugs, Graphics and Performance

Final Fantasy XV is a massive open world game with its Highest visuals that put it in the top ten. But loading times even from a SATA SSD are relatively slow. It takes about 30 seconds to launch the game, and then it takes approximately 30 seconds for the first game load, and then about 20 seconds for each subsequent level load. Still, it’s a lot better than the up-to-two minutes that it can take to load the game from a HDD.

We encountered few bugs, and during more than 50 hours of play, this editor experienced only a few lock-ups which required a game restart. Although there has been only one patch since we started playing the game, it is a very polished experience. There is a very strange bug that halted progress beyond a certain point with the TITAN Xp that would crash the game to desktop. After switching to a GTX 1080 Ti, we were able to pass that point, and we even returned to playing with our TITAN Xp as it offered us the best experience.

We found that playing at 4K with the highest settings and with GameWorks on is too demanding for any current video card. An overclocked TITAN Xp will maintain framerates above 30 FPS which is what the devs targeted, but it is not a satisfactory experience even with GSYNC enabled especially during the more demanding fight scenes where fluidity is needed most.

For us, playing on a 3440×1440 GSYNC-enabled display with a TITAN Xp, framerates could dip into the upper-30s while remaining reasonably fluid, or into the upper-40s FPS without GSYNC. However, for us, minimum framerates should ideally remain at least in the 50s FPS for fluid gameplay during battles. This meant that most of the time GameWorks features were off. It’s unfortunate that multi-GPU is not supported, but the GameWorks features are quite forward-looking, and we are already eager to play this game at 4K/60 FPS with everything enabled on the next generation of video cards.

Final Fantasy XV is very scalable and Very High can be played on high-end GPUs at 3440×1440 while lower end cards like either a GTX 1050 Ti or a Radeon 270/370X can still be played on Low at 1920×1080. Video memory appears to be very well-managed usually staying just below whatever the amount of vRAM a card has; either a TITAN Xp or a GTX 960 2 GB card will each have their memory nearly fully utilized. Even the Fury X 4GB can achieve decent framerates at High/1920×1080.

Ansel

Unfortunately, Ansel integration has to be submitted to the bug list. If you have the GeForce Experience installed, with the ALT+F2 command Ansel will capture images, but the color balance is off and many outdoor scenes look washed out. Ansel is an incredible screen capture tool that can capture in Super Resolution and even in 360 degrees as well as providing advanced filters and editing tools. We look forward to using Ansel again after its issues are addressed by a future driver update.

Performance

We played Final Fantasy XV at Very High details through more than 35 hours at 3440×1440 to find the perfect benchmark in Chapter 9. It is far more demanding than most of the other potential repeatable benchmarks that we found in earlier chapters, and it is close to “worst case”. This benchmark is about as demanding as the most intense boss fights as there are a lot of changing reflections, shadows, high textures, effects, and long draw distances.

Here is BTR’s Final Fantasy XV benchmark as captured by Shadowplay at 4K but uploaded to Youtube at 1920×1080 with all the GameWorks features enabled on the Highest settings. Notice that the overclocked TITAN Xp manages to stay at 30 FPS or above.

There is some visible artifacting around the body of the gondola operator that we will hope be addressed soon. We played Final Fantasy XV mostly using our Pascal TITAN Xp and GTX 1080 Ti at 3440×1440 on an ACER Predator 34″ GSYNC display, and then replayed much of it with our 23 other video cards using our Core i7-8700K at 4.7 GHz, an EVGA Z370 FTW motherboard and 16GB of Kingston HyperX DDR4 at 3333MHz.

On the next page, we will introduce static image quality screenshots to compare the main settings, and later we will give the performance results. Let’s check out the settings that we used as well as their impact on Image Quality (IQ).

The Final Fantasy XV developers targeted 30 FPS which may be OK for consoles, but it is not so good for playing fluidly on a PC. Low is really low compared to the other 3 settings which are grouped far closer together in performance, but Low allows RX 270 and GTX 1050 Ti gamers to play at 1920×1080, although some players may further lower the resolution if necessary.

Image Quality & Settings

The main settings are Low, Average, High, Highest, and any of these settings may be played with GameWorks enabled or disabled. It makes the most sense to us to enable GameWorks only if there is enough performance at High or Highest detail settings. A NVIDIA graphics card owner may also choose to use the GeForce Experience to suggest optimal settings. Custom settings can be chosen for more control over the individual settings under each main grouping.

Now let’s look at a series of screen shots takes from the same place beginning with Low and progressing through Average, High, Highest, and Highest plus all of the GameWorks features on.

Low

Our first impression after dropping from Highest to Low, was … Half Life 2. There is a big difference visually, and it is a shock going from the highest to the lowest settings. However, Low settings look decent even if the lighting is a little washed out, but the detail is still acceptable. Lighting is harsh, shadows are not softened, and we don’t see any anti-aliasing. Draw distances are down and there are no reflections on the water.

Low is perfect for the low end cards which now include the GTX 960-2GB and the Radeons 270X/370X but also the newer cards like the RX 460/560 and the GTX 1050/Ti. The next step up, Average, gives the largest improvement visually, but it also takes the biggest performance hit percentage-wise.

Average

Average settings look much better than on Low and there is now more detail and there are basic reflections.

Average is a good choice for midrange graphics cards as the lighting improves, there is some measure of anti-aliasing applied, and the detail sharpens. Final Fantasy XV on Average looks pretty decent and the immersion improves significantly over Low settings. The next step, High, improves incrementally over Average

High

High improves further on the lighting, draw distance and details. However, if you have a choice between having to turn settings down to Average or suffering with low framerates on High, we would suggest that while playing the game, you may not really notice the visual difference.

High is a good balance of visuals for upper midrange cards.

Highest

Highest is the top setting and if your PC can handle it, it is a great experience. The draw distance increases to maximum, higher textures are used, the shadows soften, and lighting is improved.

Highest settings are very demanding and should only be used by perhaps the TITAN Xp or a GTX 1080 Ti above 2560×1440, and a GSYNC enabled display is always recommended. Highest settings are also playable on upper-midrange video cards at 1920×1080. But there is one further group of settings that are perhaps saved for future graphics cards as GameWorks adds further realism to the game but really slows down performance.

Highest plus GameWorks

GameWorks settings, especially HairWorks, really affect performance and they are best left off except for taking screen shots unless you have a TITAN Xp or a GTX 1080 Ti and a very powerful PC. Fortunately, G-SYNC smooths the experience so that framerate drops into the 40s can be tolerated at 3440×1440 or 2560×1440. If a non-synchronized display is used, 50 FPS should be the minimum target for fluid gameplay.

With GameWorks settings on, the entire game becomes more “real”. Interactive, tall grass waves naturally in the wind, the NPC’s hair and fur move naturally, lighting is improved, and fluid physics make fire and smoke behave properly. However we did not post GameWorks enabled settings results on AMD cards because they take a significantly higher performance hit than do NVIDIA cards which are optimized for GameWorks. It’s a hard choice to make between playing at a higher resolution or enabling GameWorks.

Final Fantasy – IQ in motion

Low is a mess of aliased and shimmering textures that crawl with the camera in motion. Average settings help, and as one moves up through the settings, the game looks great and aliasing in motion is greatly reduced. There are some issues with texture pop-in that are made a bit worse by the texture pack, but overall, it adds a bit to the visuals.

Final Fantasy XV looks fair and runs good at at Low settings, but by the time we get to the Highest settings, we begin to sense what Square Enix’ Luminous Engine is capable of once future hardware gets faster. We also got to play the game in HDR, but our 4K display doesn’t have sufficient brightness to really differentiate the game’s lighting.

Let’s look at our Test configuration on the next page.

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i7-8700K (HyperThreading and Turbo boost is on to 4.7 GHz; DX11 CPU graphics).
• EVGA Z370 FTW motherboard (Intel Z370 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 3.0/3.1 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x), supplied by EVGA
• HyperX 16 GB DDR4 (2×8 GB, dual channel at 3333MHz), supplied by HyperX
• TITAN Xp 12GB, Star Wars Collectors Edition, supplied by NVIDIA
• GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB, Founders Edition, supplied by NVIDIA
• GTX 1080, 8 GB, Founders Edition, supplied by NVIDIA
• GTX 1070 Ti 8 GB, Founders Edition, supplied by NVIDIA
• GTX 1070 8 GB, Founders Edition, supplied by NVIDIA
• GTX 1060 6GB, Founders Edition, supplied by NVIDIA
• EVGA GTX 1060 3GB, supplied by EVGA
• PNY GTX 1050 Ti XLR8, 4 GB, supplied by PNY
• GTX 980 Ti 4GB, Founders Edition, supplied by NVIDIA
• GTX 980 4 GB, Founders Edition, supplied by NVIDIA
• GALAX GTX 970 EXOC 4GB, supplied by GALAX
• ASUS Strix GTX 960 2 GB, supplied by ASUS
• GTX 780 Ti 3 GB, Founders Edition, supplied by NVIDIA
• GTX 780 3 GB, Founders Edition, supplied by NVIDIA
• Gigabyte RX Vega 64, Liquid cooled edition, 8 GB
• Red Devil RX Vega 56, 8 GB, supplied by PowerColor
• Fury X 4GB
• Red Devil RX 570, 8 GB, supplied by PowerColor
• Gigabyte RX 480 8GB at 1290 MHz factory clocked and at RX 580 speeds (1340 MHz)
• Red Devil RX 470 4GB, supplied by PowerColor
• PowerColor 290 X PCS+ (reference design) 4 GB
• VisionTek 270X, 3 GB, supplied by VisionTek
• PowerColor 270X PCS+, 3 GB, supplied by PowerColor
• Two 480 GB Team Group SSDs, one for each platform
• 1.92 TB SanDisk SSD for additional game storage
• EVGA 1000G 1000W power supply unit
• EVGA CLC 280mm CPU cooler, supplied by EVGA
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• Genius SP-D150 speakers, supplied by Genius
• EVGA DG-77 mid-tower case, supplied by EVGA
• ASUS 6X Blu-ray USB writer
• 28″ Monoprice Crystal Pro 4K
• ACER Predator 34″ G-SYNC WHQD display, supplied by ACER/NVIDIA
• 43″ LG HDR enabled 4K TV

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce WHQL 391.01 was used for all NVIDIA cards. High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display. See control panel images below.
• AMD Software 18.3.2 drivers were used for all AMD cards. 18.3.1 was used to compare the performance increase using the RX 480/580. See control panel image below.
• VSync is off in the control panel. G-SYNC is off.
• Specific settings enabled as noted on the chart.
• All results show average frame rates including minimum frame rates shown in italics on the chart next to the averages in smaller font.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 10 64-bit Home edition
• Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition key was purchased from Green Man Gaming and another came courtesy of NVIDIA. The game has been patched to its latest version at time of posting.
• Sapphire TriXX overclocking utility used to set the AMD cards Power Draw to +50% and to reference speeds – except for RX Vega which are both set to Balanced for stability.
• MSI’s Afterburner used to set all NVIDIA Power Limit and temperatures to maximum and clocks to reference speeds.

AMD Adrenalin Control Center Settings:

All AMD settings are apples-to-apples compared with NVIDIA’s control panel – all optimizations are off, Vsync is forced off, Texture filtering is set to High, and Tessellation uses application settings for all cards tested.

NVIDIA Control Panel settings:

Let’s check the performance of our 25 video cards on the next page and then head for our conclusion.

Performance & Conclusion

NVIDIA has their own optimization suggestions which may be quite helpful, or a player can just use the GeForce Experience included with the latest recommended 391.01 GeForce drivers. The GeForce Experience will, at the touch of a button, set near-ideal custom settings for any PC and for more than 100 games including for Final Fantasy XV.

For the best AMD experience, use the latest drivers – Adrenalin 18.3.2 driver – which is optimized for Final Fantasy XV. Here are the performance changes from 18.3.1 to 18.3.2 using a Gigabyte RX 480 at 1290 MHz (stock clocks are 1266 MHz) and the same card simulating a stock RX 580 at 1340 MHz.

AMD’s performance improvement of “up to 7%” for RX 580 at 1920×1080 appear to be accurate, and these new drivers have made Fury X playable.

Performance

There is a no built-in benchmark but our run is reasonably representative of the most demanding gameplay. Here are our performance results using 25 video cards at 3 resolutions using Highest+GameWorks, then Highest, High, Average, and Low settings. The main summary chart serves as a spreadsheet that displays all of the information so that it may be easily cross-referenced. Unfortunately, the AMD and NVIDIA cards cannot be ranked together, as the graph would become much too long.

AMD cards are grouped together as are NVIDIA cards from their flagship cards, down to the low end and are tested at resolutions that make sense with Average FPS in bold text followed by Minimums in smaller font italics.

Any of our lower-end cards can play reasonably well at Low settings at 1920×1080 except for a RX 460/560. However, once the settings are increased to Average, a player will need a RX 470/570 or a GTX 1050 Ti to play at 1920×1080. Moving from Low to Average is the largest improvement jump visually, but it also takes the biggest performance hit percentage-wise. Moving from Average to High and from High to Highest require incremental performance power increases from a video card, but each step up in the settings also provides incremental visual improvement.

Enabling GameWorks features adds realism but it takes a solid performance hit. HairWorks probably takes the largest performance hit compared with the other three GameWorks settings, and a player may wish to experiment by enabling the settings individually. GameWorks features are worth turning on to check out on a NVIDIA card, but it makes a proportionally larger negative performance impact on Radeons.

Final Fantasy XV is a very scalable game that can run fluidly on a wide range of video cards depending on the settings chosen, but it looks incredible at Highest settings and we wish that we could enable all of its features. Let’s head to our Conclusion.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Final Fantasy XV is a game that you can sink hundreds of hours into if you truly want to, but it can also become tedious with repetitive and tiresome side quests and hunts. There’s many elements to this game that are interesting and a great course-correction for the franchise that has had its ups and downs over the years. Final Fantasy XV is a great package that was a long time coming for PC fans and it is well worth taking a look at the game.

There are well over 200 hours here with all the DLC included in the package and a gamer will get his money’s worth. Square Enix did a good job of porting the game to PC, and this unique and fun game is one we will definitely return to and take our time with to complete. Some of the changes may be hard for hardcore fans of the classic series to like, but there is just too much good fun to be had with Noctis and his friends to simply ignore the title.

Final Fantasy XV has become BTR’s latest benchmark. Stay tuned as we have many more reviews and evaluations coming up. But we cannot wait to get back to playing the game and completing at least the main quest. It is that good.

Next up, we’ll review Far Cry 5 and also ARK: Park VR before heading to NVIDIA’s GTC. Afterward, you can expect a full review of Team Group’s 2×8 GB 3000 MHz DDR4 kit and, then we will bring you another mega 20-game VR showdown between AMD’s and NVIDIA’s best video cards.

Happy Gaming!

This Project CARS 2 PC and VR performance evaluation is performed using a Core i7-6700K at 4.0GHz where all 4 cores turbo to 4.6GHz, an ASRock Z170 motherboard and 16GB of Kingston HyperX DDR4 at 3333MHz on Windows 10 64-bit Home Edition. We benchmark at four resolutions using NVIDIA’s 385.69 WHQL driver and AMD’s 17.9.2 driver although 17.9.3 was just released for Total War: Warhammer II this morning as this evaluation was being written. Here are the 11 video cards that we are comparing – 6 from Team Green and 5 from Team Red:

• GTX 1080 Ti FE 11GB (VR)
• GTX 1080 FE 8GB (VR)
• GTX 1070 FE 8GB (VR)
• EVGA GTX 1060 SC 6GB (VR)
• EVGA GTX 1060 3GB
• PNY GTX 1050 Ti XLR8 4GB
• Gigabyte RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooled Edition 8GB (VR)
• PowerColor Fury X 4GB (VR)
• Gigabyte RX 480 G1 8GB at RX 580 clocks (VR)
• PowerColor RX 570 4GB – Red Devil overclocked version (VR)
• XFX RX 460 4GB OC

One has to experience Project CARS 2 as a player to appreciate it, and absolutely not from viewing clips on a tablet, nor from watching Youtube gameplay videos. And there is absolutely no way to convey the sense of immersion that comes from playing it in VR using a wheel and pedals.

We received a reviewer’s code courtesy of Bandai Namco the day before the game released on Friday, September 22. Although we have spent an entire week playing Project CARS 2, we feel that we are just now getting really familiar with the game. It is a huge game that a player may spend hundreds of hours with, and there is a bit of a learning curve as one cannot just jump into a supercar and expect to immediately race successfully even against the AI. Project CARS 2 is a sim, and although it can be dumbed-down into an arcade-style racer, it is best played with a racing wheel and pedals.

Although the original game was ground-breaking in many regards, the sequel appears to be a solid improvement over Project CARS, especially with regard to having more of everything – improved weather and changing track conditions, as well as better handling and greatly improved tire physics. We use the same track, California’s Highway 1 as in the original, but we now use Stage 3 as our 2 minute benchmark run in Project CARS 2 for both our desktop and VR runs.

The menus have become a lot easier to navigate and the options are much better explained than in the original. Like the original, almost every major setting change requires the game to be restarted for the change to take effect, and a lot of time is wasted with experimentation. However, the amount of options that a player has to fine-tune his controls are amazing and very welcome. This editor plays with an entry-level Thrustmaster Ferrari X58 Italia wheel that usually has a noticeable deadzone that can be minimized by editing the assignments.There are even options to synchronize the car with the dips in the track. In another big improvement, unlike with the original, the game is actually playable with a controller, but a wheel gives the best results especially for VR. There is also a big improvement with the number of tracks increasing to 60 with over 130 layouts, along with a doubling to around 180 the number of vehicles accessible to the player in the new game over the original.

There are almost 30 unique series and the player is now allowed to race against cars in a similar class. A player can pick a career and spend many hundreds of hours tinkering with and driving in every sort of race including rallycross. Or a player can just choose to practice, engage in single race mode, or race online against other human players. The player-adjustable AI is competent but inconsistent.

Project CARS 2 has its own Ansel-style camera which allows you to compose your perfect screenshot. You can also use a Drone Camera to take shots from creative angles. Every race that you complete is recorded and you can save these races for playback or for use as a desktop or VR benchmark. You can also choose to view the race from a number of many different camera angles. We picked the cockpit view as our default for benching.

Of course, Project CARS 2 offers a wealth of performance options and settings and we prefer playing with MSAA High for what we think are the best and sharpest visuals, followed by SMAA Ultra, and then by FXAA High. SMAA Ultra appears to give a bit of temporal anti-aliasing, and for a performance hit of 5% or less over using FXAA High, there is much less shimmering and crawling with the camera in motion. We would prefer to lower other settings before we drop from SMAA Ultra to FXAA High.

Unfortunately, there is no overall default “ultra”, “high”, “medium”, or “low” setting, so we picked either the SMAA Ultra or the High MSAA pre-set and we used maximum settings for Ultra – except for Motion Blur which looked best to us on Low for all settings. Each other individual setting was moved to “high” for our High tests; likewise to “medium” for Medium and to “low” for Low testing. However, we left Pit Crew Detail to “All” and said “Yes” to Enhanced Mirrors. These same settings are available for VR and the only difference was that we set our mirrored desktop resolution down to 1024×720.

A good desktop performance goal is to try to maintain at least 45 FPS (frames per second) as a minimum for responsive handling, and 60 FPS or higher would be far better. VR looks and plays best when 90 FPS are delivered at all times, but Project CARS 2 makes good use of Oculus’ Asynchronous Space Warp (ASW) so that a card delivering less than 90 FPS will intelligently reproject every other frame and will still be playable without causing VR sickness. However, for best handling and responsiveness, we found that it is better to turn down settings than to suffer with more than occasional reprojection.

Although we picked Ultra/Maxed settings, we would not hesitate to drop them in the interest of more raw frame rates. Ultra grass doesn’t look particularly more impressive than Low grass at 150 mph, and reflections are another easy setting target to lower. Although Ultra looks spectacular in VR, it is more practical to play with medium settings and some amount of SuperSampling for the greatest amount of realism and handling balance. We benchmark as we do to highlight the differences in the video cards’ performance, and to leave room for each player to choose which settings to turn down, as well as to allow for benching future more powerful cards.

Handling, Physics, and Changing Road Conditions

Handling and physics are greatly improved with Project CARS 2 over the original. In the first game, even with a powerful rear engine car, it was impossible to recover from a slide once the tires broke traction. However, with a new physics engine, the tire physics allows a player to power on during a slide with a chance of recovery. There is a real feeling of immersion, and pulling off an intense power-slide while drifting through a corner in the Indy 500 neck-and-neck with leaders of the pack was memorable after spending just a few minutes with the game. And after many hours of play, we have come to the conclusion that Project CARS 2 is absolutely awesome on the desktop but far more spectacular in VR.

Weather effects are both impressive and believable. Just as in real-life racing, as a track get wet, the stock dry tires will begin to slip and it’s time to change them. And driving in snow gives its own challenges. Fortunately, the performance hit from driving in bad weather is much lower in Project CARS 2 than in the original, perhaps up to 10-15%. But BTR’s benchmark is run on a sunny day.

Graphics and Bugs

The graphics are very good and they are a step up over the original game. However, there are inconsistencies and some tracks look a lot better than others. There are a multitude of individual settings but no overall “ultra”, “high”, “medium” or “low” settings, and every setting change requires a restart of the game. Cars generally look very detailed and realistic, and the interiors are particularly very well detailed. This attention to detail works particularly well with the virtual reality cockpit and it adds greatly to a player’s immersion.

There is support for all types of displays including using 3 displays, but we preferred playing on the desktop with our 34″ 3440×1440 ACER Predator GSYNC display with a GTX 1080 Ti. Both VR and multiple displays require using a powerful GPU, although using a single display the game can be played fluidly at maximum settings across a wide range of video cards as we shall see.

Project CARS 2 was stable for us with only a few crashes to desktop that seemed to be related to using Fraps to record frame rates. We noted that there were a few instances where the realism failed, as in one example we went airborne in the benchmark yet survived without flipping over, and the NPC driver AI sometimes behaves strangely. One can nitpick the debris balance and the AI, but overall, the graphics and the gameplay are top notch and the bugs are minimal. We also expect that future patches will address current game issues and will probably provide a better balance just as happened with the original game.

Realism and Fun factor

There is absolutely no comparison with racing in real life and driving in even the most sophisticated sim. However, for a game, Project CARS 2 is believable and it immerses the player into the world of racing very well. Virtual reality is particularly well-suited for racing games as you place your hands on the wheel and your feet on the pedals just as your eyes confirm it is happening in the VR world, and a player’s sense of immersion becomes exceptionally deep. The HMD limits a player’s field of view just as a racing helmet does, and a VR racer can look in any direction just as in real life. However, there is a screendoor effect that SuperSampling can minimize, but a GTX 1080 Ti is barely sufficient for maxed out VR settings without SuperSampling without dropping into frame reprojection.

Project CARS 2 is a lot of fun. It is difficult and there is a steep learning curve, but the AI can be adjusted downward so that a new player can just start racing with an entry-level car or even pick a go-kart from the Career Mode.

Audio

Project CARS 2 audio is positional which means that it’s easier to tell where other nearby cars are based on their engine sounds, making the audio more immersive than in the original game. The audio from the Oculus Rift headset is particularly well-delivered adding to the immersion of the VR experience. Some of the sounds don’t quite fit as well as others and the shifter sometimes makes a really unpleasant and unnatural sound.

Overall, Project CARS 2 is an excellent sim and a solid improvement over the original game. Let’s take a look at our test system before we look at performance.

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i7-6700K (reference 4.0GHz, HyperThreading and Turbo boost is on to 4.6GHz; DX11 CPU graphics).
• ASRock Z170M OC Formula motherboard (Intel Z170 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 3.0/3.1 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x)
• HyperX 16GB DDR4 (2x8GB, dual channel at 3333MHz). All of the following video cards are at reference clocks except as noted.
• GTX 1080 Ti FE 11GB (VR), supplied by NVIDIA
• GTX 1080 FE 8GB (VR) supplied by NVIDIA
• GTX 1070 FE 8GB (VR) supplied by NVIDIA
• EVGA GTX 1060 SC 6GB supplied by EVGA (VR)
• EVGA GTX 1060 3GB supplied by EVGA
• PNY GTX 1050 Ti XLR8 4GB supplied by PNY
• Gigabyte RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooled Edition 8GB (VR)
• PowerColor Fury X 4GB (VR)
• Gigabyte RX 480 G1 8GB at RX 580 clocks (VR)
• PowerColor RX 570 4GB – Red Devil overclocked version supplied by PowerColor
• XFX RX 460 4GB OC
• Two 2TB Toshiba 7200 rpm HDDs for each platform
• EVGA 1000G 1000W power supply unit
• EVGA CLC 280 CPU liquid cooler, supplied by EVGA
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• Genius SP-D150 speakers, supplied by Genius
• Thermaltake Overseer RX-I full tower case, supplied by Thermaltake
• ASUS 12X Blu-ray writer
• Monoprice Crystal Pro 4K
• ACER Predator X34 GSYNC display, supplied by ACER/NVIDIA

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce WHQL 385.69 was used for all NVIDIA cards. High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display. See control panel images below.
• AMD Crimson Software 17.9.2 hotfix drivers were used for all AMD cards. See control panel image below.
• VSync is off in the control panel. G-SYNC is off.
• Specific settings enabled as noted on the chart.
• All results show average frame rates including minimum frame rates shown in italics on the chart next to the averages in smaller font.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 10 64-bit Home edition, Project CARS 2 was run under the DX11 render paths. Latest DirectX
• Project CARS 2 has been patched to its latest version at time of publication
• MSI’s Afterburner used to set all NVIDIA Power Limit/Draw and temperatures to maximum and clocks to reference speeds.
• AMD’s WattMan used to set all AMD Power Limit/Draw and temperatures to maximum and clocks to reference speeds.
• Fraps
• FCAT VR

The Game

• Project CARS 2 digital code, supplied by Bandai Namco as a reviewer’s copy

AMD Crimson Control Center Settings

Here are the global game settings in AMD’s ReLive control panel that we use. We used WattMan to set the Power and temp limits to their maximums.

Using WattMan for our regular non-overclocked settings, the Power Limit is set to +50%, the temperature is allowed to reach the maximum, and the fan is also allowed to spin up to its maximum, but the core and memory clocks are unchanged.

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

We use NVIDIA’s latest drivers plus used MSI’s Afterburner to set all the clocks locked to the reference speeds and also set the Power and Temp limits to their maximums.

Let’s check the performance of our eleven tested video cards on the next page and then head for our conclusion.

Performance Summary Charts and Conclusion

Desktop Performance

Below are the summary charts and the benches were run at 1920×1080, 2560×1440, 3440×1440, and at 3840×2160 with all settings maxed-out and On except for Low Motion Blur. The top set of results use MSAA High while the bottom set of results use SMAA Ultra. All results show average frame rates and higher is always better. Minimum frame rates are shown next to the averages but they are in italics and in a slightly smaller font. “x” means the benchmark was not run.

What is surprising is that Vega 64 takes a much smaller performance hit from using MSAA than do the competing GeForce or other Radeon cards. In our earlier testing, enabling MSAA took an inordinately large performance hit. The GTX 1080 Ti is in a class by itself, the Vega 64 Liquid Edition trades blows with the GTX 1080 Founders Edition, and the other cards line up according to performance. It appears that even the lower end cards that we tested could play Project CARS 2 well if some settings were adjusted downward and its engine appears well-optimized for desktop performance.

Let’s look at VR performance next.

Project CARS 2 VR Performance

We have favorably compared FCAT VR with our own video benchmarks which use a camera to capture images directly from a Rift HMD lens. For BTR’s VR testing methodology, please refer to this evaluation.

Until FCAT VR was released in March, there was no universally acknowledged way to accurately benchmark the Oculus Rift as there are no SDK logging tools available. To compound the difficulties of benchmarking the Rift, there are additional complexities because of the way it uses a type of frame reprojection called asynchronous space warp (ASW) to keep framerates steady at either 90 FPS or at 45 FPS. It is important to be aware of VR performance since poorly delivered frames will actually make a VR experience quite unpleasant and the user can even become VR sick.

By using the Oculus Rift performance HUD, it is easy to see how much headroom there is while the game benchmark is running. Let’s take a look at BTR’s Project CARS 2 benchmark as captured from a lens of the Oculus Rift, first using a GTX 1080 Ti at maximum settings (including Ultra SMAA):

As you can see, the GTX 1080 Ti is mostly able to deliver a constant 90 FPS but there is no room for any SuperSampling. Next, here is the RX Vega 64 running the same benchmark but at High settings (including Ultra SMAA):

The RX Vega 64 LC can only manage High settings at a pretty consistent 45 FPS which means that the HMD was reprojecting every other frame using ASW. It is not ideal and we would recommend turning down the settings to “Medium” to get mostly out of reprojection.

Now that we have seen the GTX 1080 Ti running the benchmark on Ultra, let’s compare the FCAT frametime graph on Ultra and also on High with the video.

Just as in the video, there is almost no performance headroom, but on either Ultra or High settings, there is little reprojection and only a few dropped frames. At Ultra settings, the unconstrained FPS is 88.1 which increases to 95.1 FPS on High. Unfortunately as we have seen from our RX Vega 64 video, only the GTX 1080 Ti can manage Ultra or High settings, but both the RX Vega LC and the GTX 1080 can manage Medium settings as below, while the GTX 1070 struggles.

The RX Vega is a little weaker at 82.1 unconstrained FPS than the GTX 1080 at 88.5 FPS although the experience is similar. Now let’s look at which cards need to use Low settings.

Of the four cards tested here, only the GTX 1070 can really manage Low settings with mostly 90 FPS delivered, while the GTX 1060, the Fury X and the RX 480 OC all go into reprojection for most of their runs. The unconstrained frame rates are shown on the chart below.

Unconstrained Frame Rates

Unconstrained frame rates are a measure of how fast a video card can deliver frame rates if they were not held back by the HMD’s 90 FPS limit. It is one good measure of the performance of a video card when taken together with the frametime charts and interval plots presented above.

Project CARS 2 is quite demanding in VR and only the GTX 1080 Ti can manage either High or Ultra settings with SMAA Ultra. The GTX 1080 and the RX Vega 64 LC can both manage medium settings without a lot of reprojected frames, while the GTX 1070 is suitable for Low. The Fury X, GTX 1060, and the RX 580 class of cards will have a hard time maintaining framerates above 45 FPS and will rely on reprojection. Reprojection isn’t bad, but it isn’t ideal.

As our recommendation, we would suggest dropping settings to maintain 90 FPS and even work to add some amount of SuperSampling which minimizes the screendoor effect at the expense of lowering detail settings. For example, we would prefer to play with a GTX 1080 Ti on Medium with 1.2 SuperSampling on, than on Ultra with no SuperSampling. But each player needs to experiment with which settings work best for increasing their own immersion.

Let’s head to our conclusion.

Conclusion

NVIDIA has their own optimization suggestions which may be quite helpful, or a player can just use the GeForce Experience included with the latest recommended WHQL 385.69 GeForce drivers. The GeForce Experience will, at the touch of a button, set near-ideal custom settings for any GeForce-powered PC and for more than 100 other games. And for the best AMD experience, use the latest drivers – Crimson Software ReLive 17.9.3 is optimized for Project CARS 2.

Project CARS 2 is a really fun game once a player gets past the initial learning curve and learns to adjust the settings to suit their playing style. It is a huge game with hundreds of hours of replayability to interest the casual racer and to delight the hardcore sim racer. It is a solid improvement over the original game, and bigger and more are definitely welcomed along with the improved dynamic weather, and greatly improved handling from better tire physics.

The immersion level that VR provides really adds to this game and it is perhaps the strongest argument for VR in gaming. Although VR performance is a bit low, we are looking forward to patches which may help as they did with the original game. There are still issues with uneven AI and with balance that may be addressed with future patches to make a very good game even better.

If we have to give it a score, Project CARS 2 deserves an “8.5” in our opinion as an excellent racing sim that stands up with the best available today. However, it has a fairly steep learning curve that may discourage the casual racer.

Project CARS 2 comes highly recommended especially for fans of other racing games and sims. It is also a must have for Oculus Rift owners who like driving games such as Project CARS and DiRT: Rally. The graphics are very good, racing has a great feel, and the options and choices are awesome. We feel it is worth the current asking price of $60 for a high-quality sim with tons of customization, replayability, and online multiplayer.

Project CARS 2 has become BTR’s latest benchmark. Stay tuned as we have many more reviews and evaluations coming up. Our next scheduled review is of the VertDesk v3.

Happy Gaming!