Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, PC performance in our tests

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition

In the development of modern technologies there is always a turning point, a title that takes the responsibility of daring, trying to take full advantage of the hardware on which it runs. On consoles there are exclusives and on PC we have works like Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, a revised version of the original (and excellent) Metro Exodus released in 2018 and the first real video game built around ray tracing technology and consequently exclusive to Nvidia RTX cards and AMD Navi.

Over the last few days we have carried out numerous benchmark tests on the game, analyzing the behavior of the 4Games title with the Nvidia RTX 2000 and 3000 series cards with DLSS 2.0 active in quality and performance mode. Precisely for the type of tests performed, we have not taken into consideration the AMD cards, which do not yet offer FidelityFX Super Resolution which, moreover, seems not to be compatible with Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition. But do not worry, we will work on a dedicated article that will compare all the supported cards without taking into account the DLSS, so as to be able to compare the performance offered by the different solutions from Nvidia and AMD.

The configuration for testing

For our tests we used an Intel test platform, equipped with the new Intel Core i9-11900K mounted on an Asus ROG Maximus XIII Hero and paired with 16GB of Corsair DDR4 RAM with a frequency of 3600MHz. Below we leave you a table with the complete configuration of the test stand.

Processor Intel Core i9-11900K Motherboard Asus ROG Maximus XIII Hero WiFi RAM Corsair DDR4-3600 16GB Power Supply Asus ROG Thor 850W SSD Corsair MP600 2TB Heatsink Asus ROG Ryujin 360mm Driver Nvidia Game Ready 466.27

The settings used

To carry out the tests we used the integrated benchmark, setting the items "Shading Quality" and "Ray Tracing" to Ultra. As mentioned at the beginning, we used both the "quality" and the "performance" options of the DLSS, but we also performed some tests with the "ultra performance" setting. For the Reflection voice we finally chose “Raytraced”, while the Variable Rate Shading was left at 1x. In the screenshot below you can see all the settings.

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, performance on PC with our tests

Performance in 1080p

Let's start by telling you the game performance of 4Games at 1080p resolution, as well as the one most used and exploited by gamers all over the world. As you probably know, this revisitation activates ray tracing by default - which is why the game only works with cards that support the technology - but it must be said that the team has put a lot of effort into optimization, offering the possibility even to those who play " only "with RTX 2060 to enjoy the title in ultra details with a more than acceptable framerate.

From this point of view the DLSS 2.0 manages to do a real miracle, allowing you to reach 50 FPS with quality mode and 60 FPS with performance mode. By slightly raising the bar with 2060 SUPER, 3060 and 3060Ti, the game runs above 60 FPS almost always, reaching quite high values ​​when we start playing with 3070, 3080 and above all 3090.

In short, any RTX card is perfect for playing Metro Exodus in Full HD at maximum details, especially using DLSS in "performance" mode. The RTX 2060, 2060 SUPER and 2070 remain slightly below the 60 FPS threshold with the DLSS set to "quality", but the title is extremely enjoyable even at 30 FPS, so you will never have real problems during gaming sessions.

Performance in 1440p

We arrive at the so-called “middle resolution”, the Quad HD. Shortly before we wrote to you how much the software house has worked hard with optimization and the 1440p resolution fully demonstrates this.

To reach 60 FPS in peace you must necessarily focus on cards ranging from RTX 3070 upwards , the “lowest” card to offer (and exceed) this framerate with the DLSS “quality”. If you have a lower-end GPU, know that the game reaches 60 FPS in "performance" mode even with an RTX 2070 SUPER, an RTX 3060 Ti or an RTX 3060.

Consider that we always talk and however of settings to Ultra, this means that by lowering some settings you could very well get to 60 FPS with less performing cards like 2070 Super and 2070, even in quality mode.

Performance in 2160p

We come to the 2160p resolution, undoubtedly the most interesting to analyze, mainly because it shows how much DLSS is now an essential technology for anyone who plays with Nvidia cards. Just to give you an example, the RTX 2060 in performance mode allows you to play Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition in peace at 30 FPS at 4K resolution. We are talking about a crazy result if you consider the technical / visual quality of the game.

The "sore" note comes for those who would like to play everything at maximum in 4K 60 FPS with DLSS in quality mode, since the only card to guaranteeing this framerate is the RTX 3090, which reaches 70 FPS. In reality, even the RTX 3080 allows you to reach 60 FPS (in our tests it stops at 59.42), but the older sister offers that handful more FPS that makes the most obsessed with the framerate sleep peacefully.

As seen in the other cases, setting the DLSS in performance mode allows you to significantly improve the framerate: using this setting you can play at 4K abundantly above 60 FPS with RTX 3090 and RTX 3080, with the RTX 3070 you will find yourself in a situation like the one described above, with the card stopping at 59.62 FPS.

Performance with DLSS Ultra Performance

We also wanted to carry out some tests with DLSS in ultra performance mode, which they should guarantee a significant improvement in performance without impacting too much on the graphics sector, at least at higher resolutions. In this article we will focus mainly on the performance of the boards, in the next few days we will return to the issue with a visual comparison.

For these tests we used only four boards: RTX 2060, RTX 2060 SUPER, RTX 2070 and RTX 2070 SUPER . As you can see from the graphs, Nvidia's technology really works wonders: in 4K the performance of the RTX 2060 increases by 83.73% compared to those obtained with the DLSS in quality mode, with the title that becomes easily playable even in 4K, with a framerate well above the "minimum wage" of 30 FPS.

In general the performance improves significantly at all resolutions, even if in Full HD our advice is not to opt for the ultra mode DLSS performance: all cards offer sufficient performance to play DLSS in quality or performance mode, selecting “ultra performance” will only degrade (even if only slightly) the visual quality.

Conclusions

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition is a well optimized game and above all it should be praised the fact that it is the first truly exclusive experience for ray tracing cards. The DLSS demonstrates, once again, how much it is now a fundamental technology to be able to play at its best with active ray tracing: not only does it allow you to maintain the highest graphic quality and still have excellent framerates, but it also ensures that some cards (RTX 2060 in primis) can run the title at a higher resolution than they are intended for.

The new version of the 4Games title is perfect for putting a strain on your Nvidia RTX 2000 or RTX 3000 card (if you are managed to buy one), both for its playful quality and for its visual and technical quality. The hope is that in the future more and more games like this will come out, able to make the most of the latest generation hardware, in the hope that the current market situation will be resolved as soon as possible and users will be able to return to buy the coveted cards. video, to update your configuration and verify, with your own eyes, the advantages that ray tracing can bring to the world of video games.