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00:00Hey guys, I'm Tom the tech chap and I'm playing battlefield 5. This is the retail version of the game
00:05I bought it from the origin store and it's the first game that comes with DXR support. So real-time ray tracing
00:12I know a lot of people have been holding out on buying a new Nvidia RTX graphics card to see what impact
00:19Ray-tracing and also eventually other features like DLSS actually have in games in real life outside of just tech demos
00:27So in this video
00:28I'm going to show you the difference between DXR on and off in terms of the visuals and the performance impact
00:34To see if it's really a big deal
00:37Now in order to actually play bf5 with DXR enabled for ray tracing you'll need an Nvidia RTX
00:442070 2080 or 2080 TI as well as the latest October update of Windows 10
00:50So that's version 1809 and the latest Nvidia drivers
00:54Then in battlefield 5 go into the advanced graphics settings and enable DXR
00:59You can then scroll down and see there's different levels of DXR
01:03Ultra high medium and low and we'll look at the difference between these in a minute and all my tests are done with ultra settings
01:09at Quad HD, so 2560 by 1440
01:13All right, then so let's start with performance and it's not good
01:16Your frame rate takes a massive hit when you turn on DXR in a single-player prologue
01:22I was averaging
01:23123 FPS without DXR versus just 48 FPS with it enabled
01:29That's more than halved my frame rate, which is crazy
01:33We'll look more closely at the visual differences in just a second
01:36Although you can get a bit of an idea side-by-side here
01:39In
01:50Multiplayer things are a little bit better with higher frame rates across the board without DXR. I averaged
01:56133 FPS compared to 72 FPS with DXR on ultra high or medium
02:03Putting on low boosted up to 89 FPS
02:05But even then that's still 44 FPS lower than without it
02:11Now turning DXR on and off involves restarting the game so it's hard to get identical footage
02:16But I can show you the difference between DXR on ultra and low now
02:21My first impression was that well, there's no difference at all
02:24You may as well go with low since you get a better frame rate
02:27But have a look at the changes between DXR on ultra on high
02:33Medium and low
02:36So it seems high and medium don't do anything
02:39There's no visual or frame rate change
02:41But going down to low does look more like having DXR turned off with much less natural lighting
02:47But even on low you can still see the reflections in puddles when you look down your sights something that disappears when it's turned off
02:55So the final question is DXR on versus off
02:59Well, let's start with it off and even without ray tracing Battlefield 5 is a beautiful game
03:04But then let's put them side-by-side and already you can see a big difference in the lighting
03:09Look at the gun and the rocks
03:10That's the difference between the traditional global elimination lighting and the new real-time ray tracing lighting
03:16Also looking at the lamp, you can see the reflection on the wet crate with DXR
03:20But when you're not concentrating on tiny little details if I'm honest
03:24It really doesn't look a whole lot different aside from darker shadows with DXR
03:32Look at the reflections in the puddle though granted. I'm not standing in exactly the same place, but there isn't much difference between them
03:39However, look what happens when I aim down my sights at the reflections with DXR
03:44Everything stays the same on the left without it. The reflections completely disappear for some reason
03:50So then what do we think is DXR worth it?
03:53Well, firstly, I should say that the RTX graphics cards are the first generation to properly support real-time ray tracing
04:01You simply can't enable it with a 10 series card
04:03Secondly, this is the first game that's actually available to support it with brand new DirectX and NVIDIA drivers required to use it
04:11So with any bleeding-edge tech there will always be issues. There is a massive hit on frame rate
04:16But hopefully this is something we'll see improve over time
04:19Right now though even with an RTX 2080 Ti
04:22I won't be playing with DXR enabled. The performance cost is just too much for what is a fairly subtle difference in lighting
04:29Don't get me wrong
04:30It does look better and more natural with DXR on but you simply don't notice it when you're actually playing the game
04:36And not just staring at reflections in puddles
04:39Still though if we ignore DXR, I am getting a hundred and thirty FPS on ultra settings at Quad HD with the 2080 Ti
04:47So that's pretty awesome by itself and definitely will make use of a high refresh rate monitor
04:52So, what do you think then? Is DXR worth it? Can you see a big difference?
04:56Let me know in the comments below and if you found this video useful, which I hope you did
05:00Click that like and subscribe button. Thank you so much for watching guys. I'll see you next time right here on the Tech Jam
05:09You