Metro 2033 DirectX 11 Gameplay Performance and IQ @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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Metro 2033 DirectX 11 Gameplay Performance and IQ - Metro 2033 is proving to be a graphically demanding DX11 game. It offers a unique array of graphical features including Tessellation. We compare the GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 to the Radeon HD 5870 and Radeon HD 5850. We also have detailed apples-to-apples testing and image quality screenshots.
 
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Interesting review. I personally found Metro 2033 to be quite immersive. However it is hardware intensive. All the cards played about where they should. For a TWIMTBP title I didn't see any unfair advantages for Nvidia.
 
I was under the impression that Metro is not getting all the performance it should from the AMD cards. Specifically, AMD is just now getting to look at the binaries versus NVidia who has had access to them before release because it's a TWIMTBP title.


Is this still the case? Just curious.
 
I do know that AMD did not get a look a the final code drop for this game, so it is possible that we will see a driver release that will bring the 5XXX series a bump in performance. How much if any, who knows?

But let's try to avoid turning this into a TWIMTBP argument. It is what it is, love it or hate it.
 
Bought this game already but waiting for my 480s before I play. This review shows EXACTLY why I want the 480.
 
heatlesssun said:
Bought this game already but waiting for my 480s before I play. This review shows EXACTLY why I want the 480.
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Talk to Mark about the sound and the single card warming his office up. :)
 
The best I'm able to muster with 2x 5870s at 3600x1920 is "High" settings in DX11 with tessellation and DoF turned off. Nonetheless, it's still a pretty game.

Great article: Metro 2033 is one of the few games out there that really pushes recent cards. Since it takes multi-GPU/card setup to run this game at the highest settings, it would be nice to see how 5870 Crossfire (or 5970) and 480 SLI scale, especially across multi-monitor resolutions.
 
heatlesssun said:
Bought this game already but waiting for my 480s before I play. This review shows EXACTLY why I want the 480.
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I'm confused, this review shows that you want the 480 to play metro 2033? :p

on that note, the game looks pretty interesting!

maybe I skipped over the reasoning, but is there a reason for no 5970 in this review? A crossfire problem maybe?
 
Isn't 4xAA completely broken on AMD cards?

I enabled it on my 5850 and FPS went from mid-30's to about 10.
 
inotocracy said:
1920x800? Might as well use a single monitor. Good article though!
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Apparently you have not used multi-display gaming. It is something to behold and I would personally would rather play in 3x1, but as I specifically stated in the article, it may not be your thing.

harmattan said:
The best I'm able to muster with 2x 5870s at 3600x1920 is "High" settings in DX11 with tessellation and DoF turned off. Nonetheless, it's still a pretty game.
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You made me go back and look at what I typed. I was incorrect. Very High changed to High.

Digital Viper-X- said:
but is there a reason for no 5970 in this review? A crossfire problem maybe?
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This review focuses on single GPU gaming. We did not have the resources to deliver a full blown multi-GPU article at this time.

AceCR42 said:
Isn't 4xAA completely broken on AMD cards?
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No it is not broken as we showed in the article. Possibly seeing the limits of the 5850...and I think we did point out that the 5850 was not going to deliver the performance needed to turn on all the eye candy in this game.
 
"ATI has had hardware tessellation for several year"

but what is it good for? i have a 4870 that has HW tessellation, but what can it do?
 
i agree, why no 5970? Would have been nice to have a complete comparison of the relevant marketplace. not very [H] w/o it imo. i can only hope you must be prepping this same review in SLI mode?
 
spock said:
I'm also wondering about the lack of SLI/Xfire testing.
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I spent some time with 480 SLI and it does not have the power to deliver 2560 at Very High even with DoF turned off.
 
tricky0502 said:
"ATI has had hardware tessellation for several year"

but what is it good for? i have a 4870 that has HW tessellation, but what can it do?
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Pretty much do nothing for you. The point is that ATI is not new to Tessellation hardware.

McG2k1 said:
i agree, why no 5970? Would have been nice to have a complete comparison of the relevant marketplace. not very [H] w/o it imo. i can only hope you must be prepping this same review in SLI mode?
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Sorry we do not have unlimited resources in terms of times, cards, or manpower. I wish we could do everything you want us to do, but this is looking at single GPU. Your thoughts are noted. And no, we will not be doing a CF/SLI article specific to Metro 2033 at this time.
 
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I played this game all weekend in dx11, very high, DoF and tesselation OFF, 4x MSAA @1920x1080. The game looks fantastic. I did, however, have to crank my overclocks up above 900mhz/1200mhz on my 5850, 4xAA is a struggle, but made a big difference in visual quality.

Hopefully AMD has a driver tweak coming upping performance for my second playthrough.

IMO the game is up there with Half Life 2 for single player FPS in quality and immersiveness.
 
Nice review! I especially liked all the extra detail in the apples-to-apples section, comparing DX versions, and those new features on vs off. Also handy was the comparison of the old AA versus that new one.
 
Dang, I would almost rather play it with tessellation on and AA off. The guy's shirt sleeve looking like a stop sign is a huge turn off for me. Considering it's right in your face all of the time.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
I played this game all weekend in dx11, very high, DoF and tesselation OFF, 4x MSAA @1920x1080. The game looks fantastic. I did, however, have to crank my overclocks up above 900mhz/1200mhz on my 5850, 4xAA is a struggle, but made a big difference in visual quality.
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I too run my 5850 at your clocks but at a lower resolution: 1680x1050. This allows me to run with Tessellation. I notice a little slowdown in certain instances, but otherwise, it's very playable.
 
BallerX said:
Dang, I would almost rather play it with tessellation on and AA off. The guy's shirt sleeve looking like a stop sign is a huge turn off for me. Considering it's right in your face all of the time.
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It isn't in your face all the time. Only when using the .44 based guns. I didn't even notice it while playing, 4xAA is a much more noticeable improvement than tesselation is during your in-game experience.
 
I have played nearly the entire game in 3X1 landscape EF.
I use two 5870 1GB models.
From what I read, AMD has no complete CrossfireX profile yet for this game, so there may be more performance yet to come. Also, I don't think 10.3b Catalyst did anything different from 10.3a except add recognition of the E6 model and fix a Battlefield BC2 glitch.

I could not run the game in 6000 x 1200 in DX11.

I can play the game very well in DX10 on very high. It looks fantastic in EF and it very immersive.

I ordered two ASUS E6 5870s this weekend, I'm anxious to see what the extra GB of memory on each card does for this game.
 
Great review. The DX9 vs DX11 benchmarks are interesting. Big difference, that's a nasty hit. Is there a visual benefit in playing Metro2033 in DX11 if you have Tessellation and DoF both off? Something else has to be going on to cause such a hit.

I'm still on a non-DX11 card so I havent gotten this game yet. I'm wondering if DX11 is in the gimmick column for Metro2033, like "benchmark in DX11, but actually play it in DX9". Or if it has shifted to "dont bother playing Metro2033 unless you have DX11".
 
Great review! Looks like tesselation is one thing that Fermi does excel at.

One question: Did you notice any major differences in image quality with DX9 vs. DX10/11 (with DX11-specific features off)? I wonder this because of the huge performance difference DX9 seems to give, but I wouldn't want to sacrifice too much visual quality.
 
With my current setup with 5850 BE's in Crossfire, I was able to run in 1360x768 with DoF and Tessellation turned on, with all details set to very high. Once I tried turning MSAA on, the frame rates became a bit too erratic. I can't run at higher resolutions since my TV doesn't support them.

I'm actually curious whether the new 2 gig 5850 and 5870's that just hit Newegg make any difference with this game. There was talk a while ago that Metro 2033 might be hitting the 1 gig VRAM limit once you turn MSAA on, so that is why i'm curious. Of course we know that the 4 gig 5970's will be on their way out shortly as well! We have seen that the extra VRAM doesn't exactly make much of a difference in any of the games, but none of the other reviews i've seen tested Metro 2033.

Either way, it was good article that has gone further into depth with this game than any other review. If you guys happen to find yourselves bored on some Friday night in the future, perhaps an update with multiple GPU's, and multiple GPU systems? While I could never afford it, i've always been curious how the hardest core games would due with two 5970's running in quadfire with a demanding game like this. Of course that would be if you guys happened to be bored and somehow happened to come across these video cards :)
 
inotocracy said:
Been using Eyefinity since it came out, check the sig. While I do enjoy it, if I can't put the resolution up to something acceptable (1920x800 is really low), why bother? Might as well go with a big single monitor in that case.
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I guess if you only play one game, then you would be correct. As is easy to do with EF, you can just turn it off.....But I will stick with EF since 100s of others games seem to do just great. Also, take a look at it before you make a judgement. I did.

heatlesssun said:
The question is would 3x SLI 480 do it?
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No clue.
 
amdgamer said:
I'm actually curious whether the new 2 gig 5850 and 5870's that just hit Newegg make any difference with this game. There was talk a while ago that Metro 2033 might be hitting the 1 gig VRAM limit once you turn MSAA on, so that is why i'm curious. Of course we know that the 4 gig 5970's will be on their way out shortly as well! We have seen that the extra VRAM doesn't exactly make much of a difference in any of the games, but none of the other reviews i've seen tested Metro 2033.
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I've been told more than once that none of these are worth it unless you're going Eyefinity.
 
amdgamer said:
I'm actually curious whether the new 2 gig 5850 and 5870's that just hit Newegg make any difference with this game. There was talk a while ago that Metro 2033 might be hitting the 1 gig VRAM limit once you turn MSAA on, so that is why i'm curious. Of course we know that the 4 gig 5970's will be on their way out shortly as well! We have seen that the extra VRAM doesn't exactly make much of a difference in any of the games, but none of the other reviews i've seen tested Metro 2033.
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2gb doesn't seem to really matter much.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...hire-hd-5870-2gb-toxic-edition-review-18.html

Keep in mind, the Toxic has a decent OC.
 
amdgamer said:
With my current setup with 5850 BE's in Crossfire, I was able to run in 1360x768 with DoF and Tessellation turned on, with all details set to very high. Once I tried turning MSAA on, the frame rates became a bit too erratic. I can't run at higher resolutions since my TV doesn't support them.

I'm actually curious whether the new 2 gig 5850 and 5870's that just hit Newegg make any difference with this game. There was talk a while ago that Metro 2033 might be hitting the 1 gig VRAM limit once you turn MSAA on, so that is why i'm curious. Of course we know that the 4 gig 5970's will be on their way out shortly as well! We have seen that the extra VRAM doesn't exactly make much of a difference in any of the games, but none of the other reviews i've seen tested Metro 2033.

Either way, it was good article that has gone further into depth with this game than any other review. If you guys happen to find yourselves bored on some Friday night in the future, perhaps an update with multiple GPU's, and multiple GPU systems? While I could never afford it, i've always been curious how the hardest core games would due with two 5970's running in quadfire with a demanding game like this. Of course that would be if you guys happened to be bored and somehow happened to come across these video cards :)
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For a great review of the E6 cards singly and in CF go read the review on Widescreengamingforum.

It looks like the 2GB cards are really going to make a good bit of difference.

I've got two coming, so I'll let you know.
 
I know I'm approaching old fart status. But my eyes see little difference in not only this game but others in regards to tessellation enabled/disabled. Would we even notice the difference at all in a fast moving FPS type game? I seem to be underwhelmed with what I've seen with DirectX 11 features about as much as I was with DirectX 10.
 
Was there any overclocking done on the 5870 behind the scenes to see if it could close up the gap to the 480? AAA to 4xAA.
 
Anyone play this game with two GTX 285's in SLI? I have a core i7 setup with two gpu's in SLI, and am curious about how high I might be able to push the settings on this game @ 1920 x 1200.

As usual, great article. Nice to know hardware is starting to be pushed again.
 
Blazemore said:
Was there any overclocking done on the 5870 behind the scenes to see if it could close up the gap to the 480? AAA to 4xAA.
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No, these gameplay articles are meant to be an evaluation of the out-of-the-box experience. We don't OC the cards to get a better result, and we don't mess around with the game's config file(s).
 
Nice eval.
My read: If AMD tweaks the 5000 series for the 6000 series, Fermi 2 will crush it. Hopefully AMD is ready for a new chip soon, because their current tech IMO won't stand up to Nvidia next round. I mean, if this broken Fermi chip is competing NOW, it makes me wonder what a re-vamp and a die shrink will bring.
 
Nice comparison of features, this review is much appreciated.
 
I must not be understanding something, but on page four, I'm reading this statement:
The new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 made a strong showing in Metro 2033. The GeForce GTX 480 outperformed the Radeon HD 5870 by a significant margin, and even the GeForce GTX 470 performed on par with the more expensive Radeon HD 5870.
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But below the graph showing the results I'm reading this:
Even though the GeForce GTX 480 was running with a higher level of AA, its performance profile still very closely trailed the Radeon HD 5870. With Analytical AA (AAA) enabled, the Radeon HD 5870 lead the GTX 480 (with 4X MSAA) by only 2.4 FPS average.
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It seems it's a little contradicting.... Or am I missing the overall picture on page 4?
 
Having that high a resolution is not getting your the best quality experience at all, imo.

I played through the entire game with a 5970, in 720p resolution with everything on max, including the DoF and the 4XMSAA and it looked spectacular and ran at excellent frame rates almost all the time. There is so much post-processing going on that you'd be very hard pushed to tell what resolution it's running at, with everything on full.

I'm sure if you watched a clip of Avatar running at 720p, you would agree that it looked better than anything your computer could come up with. This game is no different. Drop the crazy high PC resolutions and whack up the post processing effects. There's no point having great technology available that gives us visuals we haven't seen the likes of before in the PC gaming space, and then turning it off so you can increase the resolution. Advanced DoF gets used all over the place in this game. There are some amazing supernatural sequences that use tons of DoF effects to warp the screen and they look fantastic. Switching it off is a crime, imo! :p

EDIT: One note on tessellation in this game. It seems very much 'put in there by nvidia to sell 480's' and overly-tessellated. The characters do come across like Mr. Stay Puft and everything about their outfits seems stuffed full of cotton wool, for the sole purpose of increasing polygon counts, even if it does look a bit silly. I had it enabled on my play-through but I often couldn't get it out of my head that I was going to war against nvidia's marshmallow men.
 
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LeninGHOLA said:
2gb doesn't seem to really matter much.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...hire-hd-5870-2gb-toxic-edition-review-18.html

Keep in mind, the Toxic has a decent OC.
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They have both Tessallation and Advanced DOF enabled in those benches, which is a huge performance hit on all video cards. Note that the 1GB per GPU video cards all failed the 2560x1600 test. The extra memory makes a difference when you either A) increase resolution greatly (2560x1600 or Eyefinity) or B) increase AA levels to 4x or above.

3DChipset said:
I must not be understanding something, but on page four, I'm reading this statement: But below the graph showing the results I'm reading this:It seems it's a little contradicting.... Or am I missing the overall picture on page 4?
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The GTX 480 was running at 4xAA while the 5870 was running with AAA. 4xAA is more demanding and makes the image look smoother than AAA.
 
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