Many developers, including heavyweights like id Software, are shying away from RT on Microsoft's junior console, but this is not an option for 4A, who've built their entire technology around a ray tracing-based workflow. We've not seen how PS5 stacks up against Xbox Series X just yet (more on that soon) but we'd imagine the two consoles to be broadly equivalent - but Xbox Series S is an altogether different proposition. Resolution is a constantly moving target, it's fair to say. Dynamic resolution scaling is firmly in play, with native resolution operating at anything between 1080p and a theoretical 2160p, though 1728p was the highest I saw on Series X. Elsewhere, 4A chooses from a grab bag of medium, high and ultra settings for other elements in the game. In terms of overall settings comparisons up against the PC version beyond that, there's no tessellation in play, the tier one VRS solution is ramped up to the maximum 4x, while RT reflections look the same as PC's 'off' setting. Please enable JavaScript to use our comparison tools. The most basic optimisation is the use of PC's 'normal' RT setting, which essentially calculates the ray traced effects at quarter resolution. However, necessarily, there are further differences between the PC version and the new consoles - whether it's RDNA2 AMD hardware or GeForce RTX, there's more power and performance available to RT features, while Nvidia's DLSS provides a huge accelerant. The realism is on another level, to the point where the lighting elevates the look of the game in a genuinely 'next-gen' way. PC ups the ante, but the console version still delivers a more natural look than the last-gen version.Īll told, when viewed side-by-side with the old game, the visual improvement is profound. The console rendition, meanwhile, sticks with SSR but uses global illumination data to fill in the missing image data. The Enhanced Edition on PC keeps SSR, but uses ray tracing to fill in those gaps - an accurate but expensive implementation. Cubemap approximations - static 'samples' of the scene - are mapped into these areas without screen-space data to help preserve the effect, with varying levels of success. The problem with this is that it cannot show things that reflect which are not on-screen, or are occluded by, say, the view weapon. The standard technique is screen-space reflections, which takes the rendered scene and maps that data onto reflective surfaces. Ray tracing also plays a part in how reflections work in Metro Exodus, though it shouldn't be confused with the mirror-like RT effect seen in, say, Ratchet and Clank on PS5 - or even the PC version of the Enhanced Edition when fully enabled. Watch on YouTube Watch it now - everything you need to know about Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition on consoles, tested on Xbox Series X and Series S. It's also far easier to show rather than tell, so please check out the video embedded below to appreciate how this technology works. It's all part of the global GI solution delivered by ray tracing. As a consequence of this, usual screen-space ambient occlusion (SSAO) isn't required. The original Metro Exodus's PC RT solution shipped with just one light bounce, while the Enhanced Edition - even on consoles - works with infinite bounces, calculated over time. Light from the sun, the moon - or objects that emit light - taps into RT, illuminating any given scene with accurately calculated light bounce. All of the old artist-placed lights are gone, replaced with a fully ray traced alternative that 'just works'. The rasterised real-time global illumination system of the old version looked fine, but ray tracing takes fidelity to the next level. Yes, you're getting twice the frame-rate (last-gen topped out at 30fps) but it's the transition to an RT-based aesthetic that makes all of the difference. However, the question we could not answer at the time was simple enough: how does that experience translate to the new wave of consoles? Is there enough horsepower on tap to deliver a state-of-the-art 60fps ray tracing showcase? We've now had the chance to test the game on both Xbox Series X and Series S hardware - and the results are excellent.Ĭomparisons up against the last-gen versions are entirely valid and looking at Xbox One X as the best of the lot, the new game is transformed. We've already taken a deep look at Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition on PC and were genuinely impressed with its phenomenal ray tracing - perhaps not surprising when the new 4A Engine is built from the ground up with hardware-accelerated RT hardware in mind.
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