Bechmark Scene and Setup
When it comes to benchmarking, hats off to Caliber for his trainer, which allows me to save positions in the game. This sidesteps the whole savegame headache when you want or need to do multiple runs. I capture about a minute and a half to get a balanced average. Basement, cutscene, and downtown – everything the graphics card can (or can’t) handle. This means you’ll find the basement sequence a bit less demanding and the city outdoors slightly more so than the initial forest scene, which was on the darker side. The save point is just before you step into the city (there’s a coffee flask to the right in the corridor). From there, I backtrack to the room with the TVs and then kick things off (check out the video).
Especially the city, along with the shadowy figures, is a real graphics card glutton. For those interested, you can check out the Ultra-HD video, and yes, there’s a bit of a hiccup, even though there’s a factory-overclocked RTX 4090 humming inside the machine with DLSS set to quality. Everything else is cranked up to the max, and even with Frame Generation, you constantly feel like you’re dragging your feet through molasses or trudging through deep sand for hours. Sure, Pathtracing and Frame Generation do make a difference, but unfortunately, they don’t cut the mustard for all cards. If you’re daring enough to recreate this hefty workload without the trainer: just stroll through the Caldera Station and its surroundings. Enjoy, because it’s pretty much six of one, half a dozen of the other. Up top, behind the tracks, there’s a handy save point you can take advantage of (picture below).
In the fray, we have an MSI MEG X670E Ace armed with a Ryzen 9 7950X3D and 32 GB DDR5 6400, accompanied by a zippy PCIe 4.0 SSD, specifically the MSI SPATIUM M480 Pro with 2 TB of storage space. And yes, even this beast of a system is pushed to the brink. Now, it’s showtime. It’s like playing graphics card roulette, and sadly, many cards fall through the cracks due to their lack of competence. I wasn’t looking to host a standstill party, even if getting things running, especially with the smaller cards, felt like pulling teeth. And these forthcoming charts are partly the reason for my initial reservations, as I don’t see the game as ready for prime time. Because when you dial the settings down to rock bottom, what’s left is a visually bland game that doesn’t really earn its accolades. However, it does run, and fairly smoothly at that, if you can turn a blind eye to the flawed German dub, which is peppered with English segments here and there. But let’s focus on the visuals for now.
Benchmarks without Raytracing
Alright, let’s dive into the promised flipbook of benchmarks. I intentionally skipped Ultra-HD since it would severely limit the pool of cards that could yield playable results, even with DLSS. Those wanting a higher resolution are welcome to try for themselves, but I found it just not fit for the masses. I settled on settings and resolutions where even a GeForce RTX 4070, in the worst-case scenario, could manage around 54 FPS in WQHD, even though I deem anything below 60 FPS as barely playable. I did start testing with Ultra-HD, but I felt it wasn’t worth the time as it would have been a one-horse race with only the RTX 4090 shining, given that even the RTX 4080 couldn’t hit the 60 FPS mark. And Full-HD was somewhat manageable up to the RX 7700XT without RT but with up-sampling. The rest of the cards aren’t worth considering, especially since the much-touted RX 6600 from Remedy barely clears the 30 FPS hurdle. Yes, it’s not a shooter, but it just feels off, apologies for that.
Even the GeForce RTX 3080 10GB dips below the magical 60 FPS boundary. And that’s just in WQHD with active up-sampling! Can we appreciate that? At least the older Radeon RX 6950XT just manages to clear the hurdle, while the rest lag behind. One has to dial down the preset in WQHD, which unfortunately diminishes the game’s visual appeal.
Benchmarks with Raytracing (RT Low)
Using the same preset, but with Raytracing set to Low – that’s the max most “standard” cards can manage, which is a real pity. The number of cards that can achieve at least 60 FPS dwindles to three in Full-HD and just two in WQHD. This creates frustration among those who don’t want or can’t spend a grand or more on a graphics card. AMD users are left in the lurch, as the gameplay isn’t smooth, even though it’s not a shooter. The immersion takes a significant hit.
Benchmarks with Pathtracing (RT High)
Now the graphics card landscape gets truly sparse. Only four Ada cards manage RT High with Pathtracing at playable frame rates, but only when up-sampling is set to performance. Whether one finds this appealing is subjective. I excluded the AMD cards; they’re below 30 FPS. The advantage of frame generation on the RTX 4000 series is evident, where an RTX 4060 can even slightly outperform the RTX 3090 Ti. The frame pacing remains acceptable, and even the limited memory just barely suffices.
By the time we hit WQHD, all cards below the RTX 4070 are effectively benched, and the RTX 4060 succumbs to the lonely memory death.
Conclusion and Verdict
A beautiful game, but perhaps released at the wrong time. Let’s revisit the performance discussion with a GeForce RTX 5090 or AMD’s RDNA4 because the current scenario feels quite skewed. The story, too, isn’t straightforward or logical. The twists and omnipresent eeriness are fun, but the flow is constantly interrupted by card indexing and bureaucratic note collection. The game tries to be many things and occasionally overreaches. The constant plot shifts may initially seem novel, but it eventually fragments into a “seek-and-find” with a lot of “trial and error”. Turn the light on or off? Start or collect again? Logic might help, but it’s time-consuming.
Endless dialogues and monologues, which non-cinephiles can (and should) usually skip, sometimes disrupt the flow, even though they’re not crucial to the gameplay. I won’t spoil everything, but it does stretch the game out. One has to be careful not to forget the puzzles solved just 10 or 20 minutes earlier. Or you could indulge in the sticky-sweet herbal liqueur that’s frequently hinted at in the beginning. Cheers!
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