Metro 2033: Ingenious End Time Drama with Tunnel View and Lots of Information about The Story and Location | 10 years ago | Page 8

Pretty much exactly 10 years ago, I not only played and benchmarked Metro 2033, but also examined the story behind it. Because I was not only once in Moscow and know the also Metro from my own excursions quite well. I was also able to find something new, because as a student and foreigner, in the days of the Soviet regime, one always had the ubiquitous watchdog beside you and the information was, let's say politely, filtered a little. But I, too, have been walking in the tubes before - without a comfortable train and coin insertion.

We forcibly placed the game on DirectX10 and now repeated the test with common cards. The picture is somewhat different, but here, too, the bar for the hardware used is extremely high. The test system is the same, the scene is the same. However, this time we tested with 16xAF ingame, because we assumed that the resources of the hardware would be sufficient. Note, all other settings are set to the maximum values for the respective DirectX version.

Our test system:

Test
Processor:	Q6600, G0 stepping
Clock:	3.8 GHz
Ram:	8 GB DDR2 1066 CL5
Motherboard:	DFI Lanparty DK X48 T2RS
Operating system:	Windows 7 Ultimate X64
Graphics card:	Radeon HD 5870, HD5850, Geforce GTX 480, GTX 470
Driver:	Catalyst 10.3, Forceware 197.17

With AAA it remains playable…

4x MSAA brakes properly:

If you don't have any of the current high-end cards, you should avoid high resolutions and settings. In the end, it is up to the user's taste to decide whether to opt for an even lower resolution and higher settings, or for their minimization and instead a higher resolution. The existing CPU plays an important role here. Dual-core CPUs around 3 GHz or lower are already overloaded when PhysX and sound need to be done on the CPU. If you don't have a PhysX card, you should at least look for some relief when it comes to sound.

DirectX 9/10, less details, angular eyepieces, mask closed

DirectX11, more details, round eyepieces, mask open, face with bulges

The difference between DirectX9, 10 and 11 is visible, but you only notice it in details such as omitted objects, less modeled facial features, or just a different appearance of the person (helmet on/to). If you have performance problems, you can confidently switch back a version. Under DirectX9, the HD5870 marches through this scene at over 100fps, where the frame rates fall to 25 fps under DirectX11. Who can do without tessellation and may even on DirectX10, which is rewarded in any case by a huge performance increase. The performance difference between Directx10 and 11, on the other hand, is not so serious.

It is also annoying that many interesting sequences are missing without hardware-accelerated PhysX. The game is a hardware eater – well suited to put a new system through its paces. If you have an average PC, e.g. with a non-overclocked E8400 and an HD4870, which will have to be satisfied with lower settings than it was used to. The gameplay will surely compensate him and ultimately encourage him to boost the economy a little bit.

Pages: