Digital foundry already got acquainted with Metro: Exodus for Xbox Series – the nextgen version features ray tracing when targeting 60 frames per second.
The key feature of the extended version of the shooter was the global illumination through ray tracing, which is very different from what was on the release in 2019 on PC – which is why in May a separate client was released for computers only for ray tracing.
As noted by Alex Bataglia of DF, two years ago he would never have believed that a game with RT-lighting would appear on consoles a couple of years later, but six months after the release of the PS5 and Xbox Series, this still appeared.
However, to achieve this result, serious compromises had to be made:
- Tessellation is disabled on consoles
- Expanded and bulky wool is disabled
- There are no standard ray tracing reflections (although on PC they work in tandem with SSR)
- Xbox Series X has a lot of ray tracing lighting artifacts
Pay attention to the far background – on the PC it is darkened, but on the Xbox Series X it is light.
Resolutions on new consoles are also noticeably lower:
- Xbox one x – honest 4K
- Xbox series x – 1080p-1728r (average about 1296r)
- Xbox series s – 512p-1080p (1080p is rarely achieved).
The Xbox Series S version looks very soapy in some locations like Taiga. In addition to the base resolution, the image is completed by the local upscaler, however, due to the low resolution on the Series S, the image seems to be covered with grain – a kind of upscaler artifacts.
Even on Xbox Series S, there is a big problem with the appearance of objects – they literally materialize before the eyes. This is especially noticeable in a deserted location, when grass and stones are constantly being loaded.
However, there is some really good news – 4A Games managed to achieve a fairly stable 60fps thanks to all the tradeoffs. Falls do happen, but they are either not very noticeable or not much of a hindrance.
For a game with global illumination through ray tracing, this is a very strong result.
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