Metro 2033: Do its Visuals Warrant Its Heavy Resource Taxation?

Considering the fact that the game taxes resources so heavily, it should look much better than it does. In my opinion, aside from the impressive use of HDR, the game is flat out ugly. Textures are flat and sport horrible mapping. Characters appear flat and angular, even when tessellation is enabled. What are your thoughts on this games visuals? Here are three screen captures I took of the game. The first one demonstrates the terrible texture mapping of the game. The second and third demonstrate the difference (or lack thereof) between the game's visuals when tessellation is on and when it's off.

Click on the images to enlarge them. They were taken with the following settings:

DirectX 11 Options: DOF: OFF Tessellation: ON

Resolution: 1920x1080

Quality: Very High

DirectX: DX 11

Antialiasing: AAA

Texture Filtering: AF 16x

Tessellation: ON

Tessellation: OFF

I think much of the ugly appearance of the game comes from the game's setting.. not the actual quality of the graphics. It's a really dark, depressing setting with very few colors. That being said, I still think it looks better than 95% of games to date, if not more.

I think much of the ugly appearance of the game comes from the game's setting.. not the actual quality of the graphics. It's a really dark, depressing setting with very few colors. That being said, I still think it looks better than 95% of games to date, if not more.

hartsickdiscipl

Did you take a look at the first image? Look at how bad the textures look. That has nothing to do with the game's particular visual style, but with the quality of the graphics.

[QUOTE="hartsickdiscipl"]

I think much of the ugly appearance of the game comes from the game's setting.. not the actual quality of the graphics. It's a really dark, depressing setting with very few colors. That being said, I still think it looks better than 95% of games to date, if not more.

BluRayHiDef

Did you take a look at the first image? Look at how bad the textures look. That has nothing to do with the game's particular visual style, but with the quality of the graphics.

The game looks amazing IMO, but it doesn't warrant it's horrible performance, specially on DX11.

IMO Metro 2033 is actually basicallymade to run on very average systems - but they had to provide "high end" features togain/maintain mainstream approval. The problem is that it's pretty difficult to polish a turd so to speak - and I'm actuallyNOT BAGGING the game by saying that -I'm simply saying that as a game that lloks and runs pretty damned sweet on average systems, yes it falls shortwhen you try to dial it up.

[QUOTE="hartsickdiscipl"]

I think much of the ugly appearance of the game comes from the game's setting.. not the actual quality of the graphics. It's a really dark, depressing setting with very few colors. That being said, I still think it looks better than 95% of games to date, if not more.

BluRayHiDef

Did you take a look at the first image? Look at how bad the textures look. That has nothing to do with the game's particular visual style, but with the quality of the graphics.

I have the game. :). I know what it looks like relative to other games.

NO. Ugly game is ugly. "flame shield"

I felt that the graphics were very inconsistent. Some parts looked great while others were meh. So to answer ur question...no. the game runs worse than crysis for me.

I don't know of any game that have perfect textures everywhere. Every game have their bad spots including Crysis.

I don't know of any game that have perfect textures everywhere. Every game have their bad spots including Crysis.

jun_aka_pekto

[QUOTE="jun_aka_pekto"]

I don't know of any game that have perfect textures everywhere. Every game have their bad spots including Crysis.

ATLReppa770

[QUOTE="ATLReppa770"][QUOTE="jun_aka_pekto"]

I don't know of any game that have perfect textures everywhere. Every game have their bad spots including Crysis.

SoxsMafia

Why the hell does that screen look so ugly? I play on Very High on DX10 and it looks plenty better than that. Also why is that screen so bright?

Why the hell does that screen look so ugly? I play on Very High on DX10 and it looks plenty better than that. Also why is that screen so bright?

ChubbyGuy40

What are your specs?

[QUOTE="ChubbyGuy40"]

Why the hell does that screen look so ugly? I play on Very High on DX10 and it looks plenty better than that. Also why is that screen so bright?

BluRayHiDef

What are your specs?

[QUOTE="BluRayHiDef"]

[QUOTE="ChubbyGuy40"]

Why the hell does that screen look so ugly? I play on Very High on DX10 and it looks plenty better than that. Also why is that screen so bright?

ATLReppa770

What are your specs?

I was just wondering because he said the game looks better for him than it does for me.

[QUOTE="ChubbyGuy40"]

Why the hell does that screen look so ugly? I play on Very High on DX10 and it looks plenty better than that. Also why is that screen so bright?

BluRayHiDef

What are your specs?

AMD Phenom II x4 965, 4.5GB DDR2, and evga GTX 260. Playing it at 2048x1152.

Yeah the game doesn't run at a silky smooth 30fps+, but I'm fine dealing with the bad performance because the game looks amazing. What really shocked me were how bad the textures are and how bright your screens are. Only real gripe I have with Metro are the character models. ONLY because they're eyes feel like they're pierceing my soul. Besides that everything about this game is great.

I think it looks amazing, great atmosphere and absolutely stellar lighting.ferret-gamer

I hope so, I'm expecting it in the mail in a day or two.

Well, Metro is much less taxing on my system than Crysis. It doesn't look better though. Still a great looking game though.

Stalker and Metro 2033 share something in common and that's the art style. It's not bad, different, but by no means should it be this taxing. DX9 looks identical to D10 and 11 to the naked eye. I can't tell the difference but DX9 certainly performs better than the latter, and more stable too. Overall, it doesn't warrant its heavy resource taxation, especially not in DX10 and DX11.

I thought it looked amazing maxed, better then crysis due to atmosphere in places. DX11 did make my 5850 overheat after a couple hours thought so that sucked.

I thought the graphics were quite impressive in places and pretty good everywhere else

not worth playing at dx11 with the reduced performance if you dont have a setup that can run it silky smooth. looks just a tad bit better than dx9. nothing noticeable tho, you gotta look for it. search for screenshots if you dont believe me.

edit: here is one of the many examples of dx9 vs dx11. DEFINITELY not worth the ridiculous performance loss.

not worth playing at dx11 with the reduced performance if you dont have a setup that can run it silky smooth. looks just a tad bit better than dx9. nothing noticeable tho, you gotta look for it. search for screenshots if you dont believe me.

edit: here is one of the many examples of dx9 vs dx11. DEFINITELY not worth the ridiculous performance loss.

yellosnolvr

[quote="VideoCard"]

[quote="Metro"]

[quote="VideoCard"]Hey, Metro. Can I get some AA?Metro

Yea, but I want half of all of your frames in exchange.

C'mon, man. That's way more than the usual rate. This is absurd, but whatever. Now, can I get some tessellation?

I'm afraid you can't afford that. No one can. In the even that you can, you'll be almost completely broke.

So I got the game today in the mail. I would say that the only real performance hog with dx11 is the "advanced" DOF, which I think actually looks worse than what dx10 normally offers.

So aside from that, yes I'd say it's worth it.

Well I can certainly say that Tessellation really wasn't a "requirement" for this title. The geometry load without tessellation is already pretty high and I can see tessellation being it's most useful in a game like Crysis where very heavy amounts of LOD are necessary to scale out the environment as objects get further away from the player to keep the framerate smooth. I would like to see some non-tessellation vs tessellation shots of Metro 2033 characters though. It's nice not seeing any polygon facets on NPCs, and it's what makes DX11 worth it I guess to me when implemented properly. Also DX11 has it's benefits in better multithreading when games are programmed for it specifically or target DX10 and DX11. I think for eastern European developers though, they have to target DX9 since XP probably still has a large grasp on computers there as opposed to Western Europe, NA, and the more modern parts of Asia like Japan and South Korea. It's still worth noting how much benefit there was for Just Cause 2 to specifically target DX10. The improvement vs games that were targeting DX9 + DX10/10.1 seemed to quite high from what developers have said. I think it's about time devs (at least Western ones) to completely shove DX9 out the window (no pun intended lol), and go after specifically DX11, especially since DX10 level hardware can technically run DX11 if I rememeber right. The hardware just won't be able to do DX11 specific functions.

wait til Valve does a DX11 gamerock_solid

I've always considered games by Valve to be ugly.

[QUOTE="rock_solid"]wait til Valve does a DX11 gameBluRayHiDef

I've always considered games by Valve to be ugly.

The Source engine looked really good back in 2004 and 2005. It's old now.

[QUOTE="BluRayHiDef"]

[QUOTE="rock_solid"]wait til Valve does a DX11 gamehartsickdiscipl

I've always considered games by Valve to be ugly.

The Source engine looked really good back in 2004 and 2005. It's old now.