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Elden Ring Ray Tracing Upgrade Test - Is It Worth It? - PS5 vs Xbox Series X vs PC

rickybooby87

rickybooby87

Member





"Elden Ring was recently upgrade to Patch 1.09, bringing with it the introduction of hardware-accelerated ray tracing on all current-gen systems... exclusing Xbox Series S. In this in-depth content, you'll see exactly what the difference is, how the PC version scales across multiple settings - and most scary of all, the performance hit for engaging RT up against the rather minimal improvement to the presentation."



Thanks for the summary adamsapple adamsapple


TL;DR

- No.


www.eurogamer.net

Elden Ring's RT upgrade is not the feature we wanted​

Tom Morgan examines the performance impact and visual upgrade offered by the new, unexpected RT mode added to Elden Ring on PS5, Series X and PC.
www.eurogamer.net

Elden Ring's RT upgrade is not the feature we wanted​

Its impact is minimal while performance problems and basic issues remain.
Click to expand...

To sum up then, the addition of RT is a welcome surprise, an additive feature that pays dividends in terms of the presentation of shadows and ambient occlusion on PS5, Series X and PC. However, it's hard to see this as the feature most Elden Ring fans wanted, in the context of continuing sub-60fps performance on console; in the context of hitches and missing features on PC. And given its performance penalty, we can't recommend actually enabling RT for a playthrough of the game, although it might be good for taking screenshots.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
adamsapple

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
TL;DR

- No.


www.eurogamer.net

Elden Ring's RT upgrade is not the feature we wanted

Tom Morgan examines the performance impact and visual upgrade offered by the new, unexpected RT mode added to Elden Rin…
www.eurogamer.net www.eurogamer.net

Elden Ring's RT upgrade is not the feature we wanted​

Its impact is minimal while performance problems and basic issues remain.
Click to expand...

To sum up then, the addition of RT is a welcome surprise, an additive feature that pays dividends in terms of the presentation of shadows and ambient occlusion on PS5, Series X and PC. However, it's hard to see this as the feature most Elden Ring fans wanted, in the context of continuing sub-60fps performance on console; in the context of hitches and missing features on PC. And given its performance penalty, we can't recommend actually enabling RT for a playthrough of the game, although it might be good for taking screenshots.
Click to expand...
 
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Puscifer

Puscifer

Member
Admittedly I'm kinda over RT shadows and lighting, RTAO is my shit having a 4080 to display it properly I don't know how to explain it but it does look better, RTAO really grounds Elden Ring, Dying Light and Cyberpunk in a way rasterized shadows just can't. I just know from my experience playing around with it that the amount of AO really adds to the game and gives the presentation a lot depth it doesn't have without it. I'm sure someone with @ me and tell em how wrong I am but I don't care, I'm enjoying it.
 
GC_DALBEN

GC_DALBEN

Member
I Liked, but i have a good pc and i can barely run 60fps 1440p. it need DLSS for lower end gpus.
 
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SmokedMeat

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
Elden Ring’s the goat, but I honestly can’t even be bothered to update for this. Probably the weakest RT I’ve seen.

Just not worth it.
 
A

alucard0712_rus

Gold Member
It's 2023 and FromSoftware still struggles with PC ports. Basically there is no improvement over consoles. Forget about DLSS or FSR. It's very frustrating because their games are excellent. What a shame and I gave up on them in terms of graphics (and UI too). RT shadows and AO are very good by themselves but it's overshadowed by very poor draw distance, no casting lights (torches), no grass shadows... It was such an opportunity to make ER looked as good as possible on PC but we got this. What a crappy PC port.
 
H

hlm666

Member
Not sure why Tom decided to use the 2070 and then use 1800p, are people with 2070 level hardware really gonna be using a display greater than 1440p? If it was to be comparable with console he already had said they are going lower than 1800p anyway.
GHG said:
The PC version's RT at max is similar to the console setting.

It's a botch job.
Click to expand...
Its because the pc is staying at 1800p and not dropping resolution like the consoles are with dynamic res.
edit: just realised you may have ment they should have used more RT effects and not botched because of performance.
 
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intbal

intbal

Member
The cut-rate shadow animation with the RT enabled looks much worse than the quality of shadows with RT off.
I don't see how this is an upgrade.
 
Fbh

Fbh

Member
It sucks but was anyone expecting something different from FROMSOFT?
As much as I love their game design, gameplay and art direction, their tech has always sucked.

Luipadre said:
instead of making the game run at a solid 60 they implement a useless RT mode with half the framerate. Nice
Click to expand...

Well people were constantly whining about the promised RT mode.
Because for someone reason they thought the team that can't even pull off 30fps without terrible frame pacing was going to make a solid RT implementation
 
adamsapple

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
CgMoPFE.png








RT mode not only sucks away even more of the performance, it also degrades IQ and resolution, look at the rock face, the trees and distant landscape.

This is without a doubt, the worst way to play the game.

From should be focusing on getting the Performance mode to a locked 60 instead of wasting time with frivolous updates no one asked for, or will use in most cases.
 
Last edited:
ToTTenTranz

ToTTenTranz

Banned
Them choosing to implement raytracing before solving all the frame pacing and shader compilation issues is pretty questionable.

Is this a RTX thing, a contractual obligation to Nvidia?
 
K

kingyala

Banned
adamsapple said:
CgMoPFE.png








RT mode not only sucks away even more of the performance, it also degrades IQ and resolution, look at the rock face, the trees and distant landscape.

This is without a doubt, the worst way to play the game.

From should be focusing on getting the Performance mode to a locked 60 instead of wasting time with frivolous updates no one asked for, or will use in most cases.
Click to expand...
but people will tell you rsaytracing is better... regardless
 
Tarnpanzer

Tarnpanzer

Member
If u got a 4090 I would say go for it. Since this card will do 4k/60 with or without RT easily, so there isn´t a real downside when activating it.

For consoles this will be a good option when playing on the coming iterations of Xbox and Playstation.
 
Last edited:
T

Thief1987

Member
At least this is not Blighttown-level disaster. We should be thankful to geniuses at fromsoftware for sparing us this time around.
 
nemiroff

nemiroff

Gold Member
Poltz said:
Bluepoint should lend them the engine.
Click to expand...
That would be better. But why the Bluepoint engine now if they didn't already? I mean, I don't know much about Bluepoint, but Unreal seems to have the more future proofed tech, and with a much bigger budget and larger dev team to make sure it's stays there.

Edit: What PC games runs on the Bluepoint engine anyway, is it proven?
 
Last edited:
Poltz

Poltz

Member
nemiroff said:
That would be better. But why the Bluepoint engine now if they didn't already? I mean, I don't know much about Bluepoint, but Unreal seems to have the more future proofed tech, and with a much bigger budget and larger dev team to make sure it's stays there.
Click to expand...
I am basing this off Demon's Souls PS5, I don't know anything.
 
killatopak

killatopak

Member
kingyala said:
but people will tell you rsaytracing is better... regardless
Click to expand...
I wouldn’t say better. I think it’s a matter of preference just like framerate vs resolution.

As of now, it’s not clear cut better because of the tradeoffs incurred.

For consoles, I think a framerate cap on RT mode would do wonders.
 
K

kingyala

Banned
killatopak said:
I wouldn’t say better. I think it’s a matter of preference just like framerate vs resolution.

As of now, it’s not clear cut better because of the tradeoffs incurred.

For consoles, I think a framerate cap on RT mode would do wonders.
Click to expand...
not just consoles.. you can put any raytracing effect on elden ring and it still wouldnt look as good as demon souls remake... this is because you need better artists and the a better graphics pipeline that is made around raytracing in order for raytracing to look better than traditional techniques... just applying raytraced shadows and whatever rt bolton effects isnt gonna change substantially how a rasterized game was designed.. this isnt the raytracing generation yet... only a few games stand out cyberpunk, ratchet.. that utilize raytracing as much as they can but i in all honesty the ps6 will be the real raytracing era not this one
 
nemiroff

nemiroff

Gold Member
kingyala said:
but people will tell you rsaytracing is better... regardless
Click to expand...

Completely removing context and replacing it with a strawman for cheap points seems to be popular hobby of yours.

Edit: To be fair, your second post was actually much better, more of that please.
 
Last edited:
killatopak

killatopak

Member
kingyala said:
not just consoles.. you can put any raytracing effect on elden ring and it still wouldnt look as good as demon souls remake... this is because you need better artists and the a better graphics pipeline that is made around raytracing in order for raytracing to look better than traditional techniques... just applying raytraced shadows and whatever rt bolton effects isnt gonna change substantially how a rasterized game was designed.. this isnt the raytracing generation yet... only a few games stand out cyberpunk, ratchet.. that utilize raytracing as much as they can but i in all honesty the ps6 will be the real raytracing era not this one
Click to expand...
Depends. The implementation on Elden Ring isn’t as extensive as some of more pronounced examples of adding raytracing. For example, Minecraft and Quake are games with pretty old graphic pipelines that have noticeable difference in look. Obviously, you can still recognize the underlying game but the difference is stark compared to Elden Ring’s.
 
K

kingyala

Banned
nemiroff said:
Completely removing context and replacing it with a strawman for cheap points seems to be popular hobby of yours.

Edit: To be fair, your second post was actually much better, more of that please.
Click to expand...
i didnt remove context, it was my understanding that people understand the context already... i dont explain much sometimes because i expect people to grasp my meaning without much explanations... the problem that exists today existed years ago... raytracing is simply being pushed as the new fashionable buzz word! we had physx, normal maps, tessellation, even dedicated physx card's... just because a new graphics technique is possible people want it on their games regardless...

i dont get the point of pushing raytracing for the sake of it instead of investing on how the game looks.. raytacing is treated as a magic technique that solves all your graphics problems and this is false... some games would look worse on raytracing because the graphics budget is wasted on tracing light instead of the overall art design and performance when otherwise if traditional techniques if applied well enough will look convincing as raytracing and perfrom better.. what is the point of raytracing in this game or gotham knights for instance if it looks worse than arkham knight..
 
K

kingyala

Banned
killatopak said:
Depends. The implementation on Elden Ring isn’t as extensive as some of more pronounced examples of adding raytracing. For example, Minecraft and Quake are games with pretty old graphic pipelines that have noticeable difference in look. Obviously, you can still recognize the underlying game but the difference is stark compared to Elden Ring’s.
Click to expand...
those examples are completely path traced... and in minecrafts example they remade the shaders to fit in the pipeline.. the games assets.. materials, shaders and all has to be made around raytracing you dont just bolt it on... you even have good and bad cgi even on films.. even though they almost all use raytracing... the technique doesnt always matter its the final painting that matters
 
Buggy Loop

Buggy Loop

Member
GhostNTheBashShell said:
Admittedly I'm kinda over RT shadows and lighting, RTAO is my shit having a 4080 to display it properly I don't know how to explain it but it does look better, RTAO really grounds Elden Ring, Dying Light and Cyberpunk in a way rasterized shadows just can't. I just know from my experience playing around with it that the amount of AO really adds to the game and gives the presentation a lot depth it doesn't have without it. I'm sure someone with @ me and tell em how wrong I am but I don't care, I'm enjoying it.
Click to expand...

You’re right

But

As seen in Dying light 2, RTAO is basically the same performance impact as RTGI, while enabling RTGI you have no penalty of enabling RTAO..

So it pisses me off that devs just stop there. The performances penalties you see are RTGI level, but without it. This game would benefit immensely from it.
 
Crayon

Crayon

Member
I tried it the day it dropped. I could tell it was shadows and AO pretty quickly. That's good for rt as it's usually pretty hard to tell any difference at all without help from a video like this. I think it looks nice, especially with foliage. Unfortunately, performance is destroyed an it's not worth turning on. Classic rt.
 
U

Unknown Soldier

Member
Imagine being FromSoftware and even bothering to implement DLSS alongside RT

Sasuga FromSoftware, why even add this feature if you're going to just tank performance and not offer any kind of upscaling to mitigate it?
 
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