Yesterday I had the pleasure of a demo of a 2080ti with an early build of Metro Exodus. It was in a locked room, no recording equipment allowed. We were not allowed to look at settings, tab out, or enable any sort of benchmarking. Basically, just play the game, but they did provide one tool: the ability to turn on/off RTX at will with the F1 key.
The game and hardware was provided with the disclaimer that nothing is final. Preproduction software and hardware, so glitches are to be expected (I did see some rainbow texture shimering on some of the wolves). Otherwise, things looked like you would expect given the franchise.
Initially, the visuals looked much like promised. Volumetric lighting, realistic shadows, reflections, etc. The difference in 90% of the gameplay was obvious. Most of the effects were familiar from the previous RTX demo streams and screenshots online. Volumetric lighting, soft shadows, dynamic light sources, etc. The one thing that caught me offguard and was my "wow" moment, was when I equipped a weapon with a scope, but did not aim down sights. The lens of the scope reflected the environment behind me, acting as a small but noticeable rear-view mirror. Of course, being a round lense, it was distorted, but an effect/feature like this could be useful for a sniper/camper trying to watch their back. That was the moment that I realized RTX has the potential to change not just how games look, but also how they're played.
But I do use the word "potential" literally, because the demo was clearly running at 30hz with heavy motion blur. It was also a lower resolution, likely 1080p. (Again, these are my estimates, because I was not allowed to adjust settings). If these performance numbers remain consistent throughout development, will the pro's be enough to outweigh the performance cons? My guess is, it will take a couple generations of hardware before enthusiast and competitive gamers turn all the settings on. But this is certainly a gorgeous start and a treat for those willing to look past the compromises to see what Future generations of games can look like.
The game and hardware was provided with the disclaimer that nothing is final. Preproduction software and hardware, so glitches are to be expected (I did see some rainbow texture shimering on some of the wolves). Otherwise, things looked like you would expect given the franchise.
Initially, the visuals looked much like promised. Volumetric lighting, realistic shadows, reflections, etc. The difference in 90% of the gameplay was obvious. Most of the effects were familiar from the previous RTX demo streams and screenshots online. Volumetric lighting, soft shadows, dynamic light sources, etc. The one thing that caught me offguard and was my "wow" moment, was when I equipped a weapon with a scope, but did not aim down sights. The lens of the scope reflected the environment behind me, acting as a small but noticeable rear-view mirror. Of course, being a round lense, it was distorted, but an effect/feature like this could be useful for a sniper/camper trying to watch their back. That was the moment that I realized RTX has the potential to change not just how games look, but also how they're played.
But I do use the word "potential" literally, because the demo was clearly running at 30hz with heavy motion blur. It was also a lower resolution, likely 1080p. (Again, these are my estimates, because I was not allowed to adjust settings). If these performance numbers remain consistent throughout development, will the pro's be enough to outweigh the performance cons? My guess is, it will take a couple generations of hardware before enthusiast and competitive gamers turn all the settings on. But this is certainly a gorgeous start and a treat for those willing to look past the compromises to see what Future generations of games can look like.