There are two varieties of ray tracing game which have emerged over 2019. On the one hand you’ve acquired your large, bombastic feast-for-the-eyes sort games like Minecraft RTX, Control and Metro Exodus, and on the opposite you’ve acquired your refined, squint-and-you-miss-it jobs like Battlefield V and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and its ray traced shadows fall squarely into the latter camp, though at the very least its marketing campaign has the additional benefit of going down principally at evening so that you might be doubly certain you don’t miss them.
But what precisely does Modern Warfare’s RTX help add to the game, and is it value switching it on if it means taking successful to your PC’s efficiency? In my Modern Warfare RTX information under, I’ll take you thru precisely what Call of Duty’s ray tracing appears to be like like, in addition to what sort of efficiency you’ll be able to anticipate to see throughout all of Nvidia’s RTX graphics playing cards.
Modern Warfare RTX: Ray tracing choices
Unlike Control’s RTX choices, Modern Warfare solely has a single setting for its ray tracing help, and also you’ll discover it buried deep within the Shadow & Lighting part of the primary Graphics menu.
As you’ll be able to see from the screenshot above, it’s both ‘Enabled’ or ‘Disabled’. There’s no further shadow settings like Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s RTX options, altering the depth of its ray tracing. Just a easy On or Off swap.
In some methods, that makes issues a lot simpler. Instead of spending ages faffing round with the settings looking for which stage of ray tracing your PC can deal with with out exploding, it’s merely a case of “Can my graphics card do it or not?”. As I discussed above, nevertheless, it’s fairly rattling refined plenty of the time, and I struggled to seek out bits of its marketing campaign the place I may see a visual distinction within the high quality of its shadows. Have a take a look at the screenshots under to see what I imply.
RTX off…
RTX on?
Here we’ve acquired the opening of the marketing campaign’s second stage, which is ready in London’s Piccadilly Circus. I believed, ‘Brilliant, lots of lovely lights and shadows here, let’s see what this factor’s made from.’ Cue plenty of peering at my monitor and double/triple-checking of the graphics settings menu to verify I’d truly switched it on correctly.
Another scene from that very same stage left me equally unimpressed.
RTX off…
RTX on?
Apart from the apparent immersion-breaker that’s that diamond-shaped Tube signal, there’s even much less of a distinction right here than the primary set of screenshots. I used to be anticipating the lamp shadows to vary, the railing shadows to develop into real looking, one thing that will make it look extra real looking than having RTX switched off.
Finally, I discovered it:
RTX off…
RTX on!
See the shadows in entrance of the Danovo cafe and the Noemi Dup-something store? With ray tracing turned off, you get plenty of stark, arduous shadows. With ray tracing switched on, they’re all good and delicate. The identical goes for the lighting on the partitions round these retailers. The edges of these shadows are a lot finer than they’re with ray tracing switched off, and it correctly appears to be like like they’re being illuminated from the brilliant store indicators beneath them.
Doesn’t that simply need to make you chop your PC’s efficiency by 15%?
Err…
There was, admittedly, a a lot better instance I discovered in one of many close by bookshops within the Piccadilly stage, however even then I’m undecided I’d actually care and / or discover any of it after I’m scrabbling round attempting to not get shot within the head on a regular basis.
RTX off…
RTX on!
Yep, the perfect instance ray tracing I may discover was a barely extra genuine wanting armchair and accompanying plant. And that statue by the entrance door, let’s not neglect that, both. Still, whereas all these bits of furnishings would possibly look extra real looking once you take a look at them facet by facet, I discovered there was merely an excessive amount of occurring within the varied marketing campaign ranges for me to actually cease and respect all of it. At least Battlefield V had the added bonus of catching the odd explosion rip by means of a puddle on the ground each as soon as and some time. This, although, doesn’t actually look massively totally different to having no ray tracing in any respect.
Modern Warfare RTX: Ray tracing efficiency
The excellent news, although, is that you just would possibly as effectively swap ray tracing on in Modern Warfare, as Infinity Ward, Beenox and Nvidia have all finished a outstanding job getting it to run good and easily. Even on a daily RTX 2060, for instance, I noticed common body charges effectively above 60fps on max high quality settings with ray tracing enabled, and that was at each 1920×1080 and 2560×1440. As a consequence, these with higher-end RTX playing cards can be completely laughing at these resolutions, and the one space the place I actually struggled to get a constant 60fps was at 4K. For that, I wanted at the very least an RTX 2080 Super, if not an RTX 2080 Ti simply to make sure.
At 1920×1080 and 2560×1440, although, any of Nvidia’s present RTX playing cards will do you simply fantastic.
Of course, with out the help of a correct benchmarking software, I used to be solely in a position to take tough estimates utilizing the game’s built-in body fee counter. As a consequence, the next figures could differ a bit from stage to stage, however within the Piccadilly stage at the very least, I recorded the next minimal and most body charges for my normal RTX 2060 card.
At 1920×1080, my RTX 2060 managed a variety of 97-135fps with out ray tracing at 1080p, and between 75-120fps with it switched on. That’s a median of 116fps and 97fps respectively. At 1440p, it produced between 68-90fps with ray tracing switched off, and 56-77fps with it turned on, averaging 79fps and 66fps.
That’s actually not dangerous for Nvidia’s entry-level ray tracing card, and it’s undoubtedly much more spectacular than what EA managed with Battlefield V this time final 12 months. As you might recall, Battlefield V’s ray tracing help incurred a reasonably large efficiency hit when its RTX reflections have been enabled, making it tough to run at a clean sufficient body fee on an RTX 2060, even at 1920×1080.
As a consequence, I’m truly not that bothered that Modern Warfare’s RTX stuff doesn’t make an enormous quantity of distinction to the general look of the game. Unless you’ve acquired a excessive refresh fee monitor, the precise impression in your PC’s efficiency is fairly minimal, so you might as effectively have it turned on, even should you can’t actually inform the place it’s making a distinction.
So keep frosty, RTX house owners. Modern Warfare won’t be as spectacular as Control or Metro Exodus, however at the very least it gained’t one-hit KO your PC once you try to run it.
