internal 1080p TAAupscaled to 1440p then checkerboard reconstructed to 2160p, they say its not great image quality
use hardware Raytracing to accelerate rasturised global illumination, Raytracing is not used to drive the games visuals but rather to process rasterised effects faster.
great particle and physics effects
great use of sound.
60fps most of the time with dips in the low to mid 50s in heavy action scenes.
Thatâs one of the best review of the game actually. More than half of the video is about the gameplay, visual aspect, feeling of the game with Alex and John going back and forth with their commentary.
We can argue about semantics, but thereâs no RT, not that thatâs a bad thing, but yeah, RT is not used in the traditional way we expect. Itâs just advanced GI.
Then they go with the bad stuff. Itâs 1080p with TAA. And now I understand why the environments look so dark : you canât see the reconstruction artifacts on the foliage when itâs dark because it blends with the background. It gives a distinct look to the game though.
60 FPS with dips at 55.
Particles look good but the game is kind of grainy and blurry.
For me. Returnals IQ looks really quite nice, i was expecting like an internal 1512p with some good reconstruction tech.
The weak point for me is the environments, character model and how those two things are lit. These two areas actually look inferior to gears hivebusters, they seem to use the majority of there rendering budget on particle effects and complex enemies.
I really look forward to see what the coalition will do on next gen hardware.
Thoughts from another universeâŚ
It would be interesting to get a Developer DeepDive presentation for Returnal. At the very least Iâd like to see the image comparisons at each step: at 1080p, 1440p Temporal Reconstructed, and final Checkerboard Reconstructed 2160. I think the game looks nice, but still curious how each step impacts the image.
Iâm also curious if any aspect of their setup is dynamic. On a hypothetical 5Pro with 50% more GPU available or a BC PS6 with 100% more GPU, would the game adjust or would the devs need to issue a patch.
Would a PS5 pro really be worth it for native 4k or heaven forbid checkboard 8k.
I refuse to get a mid gen, with there being $499 consoles at launch this time around I dont think a mid gen is necessary.
Last gen started at 499 and we still got mid gen refreshes.
This is getting ridiculous.
TAA and then Checkerboard 
Too bad a PC version doesnât exsits to compare it with.
I like this approach very much to be honest. Most of the games budget is about making best quality visuals at 1080p. And then upsample it in two stages to 4k.
This approach makes it possible to have the best possible quality settings on a console.
I hope devs around the industry takes this approach and make games with best quality settings first and then resolution.
As a platform
Quality settings > Resolution
Well, the xbox one was $399 with a mandatory $100 camera. And it quickly ditched the camera and was $399
I also want to say its rather misleading sony marketing returnal as â4kâ
Your point here would be easier for some to notice if they watch it in motion I bet.
Normally I would say faux-k is fine even for marketing, but this is truly misleading imho. Might be the only game Iâve felt that way about too.
I was going to mention this. Itâs not 4K, come on Sony lol. I could let it slide if the image appeared like it was 4K, so say Spiderman, but it looks far below the clarity that 4K entails.
They would better off not mentioning the resolution at all, like Nintendo.
If ya canât resolve the details that extra polish on the settings side doesnât reach the playerâs eyeâŚ
For that the game could render without TAA or checkerboard at just 1080p in one mode.
In other mode it could try to reach 4k by whatever means it needs to.
I am trying to imply
Give me PC ultra settings at 1080p mode as an option. Thatâs all I want to happen.
This where I believe Xbox games has a better chance. The best version of an Xbox game will be out day and date for anyone who can pay for it.
For playstation, either chose 4k or Quality setting. And that if dev provide that option. Glad Insomniac provided three option for Spidey.
But in this case the resolution can take a destructive effect on the quality settings. See the textures for example having finer detail destroyed and looking lower res for the target resolution.
Iâm not sure the visuals at display here warrants such a drastic low resolution as well. Even the raytracing part that was hyped isnât what was made to be, itâs using same techniques as last gen games used, but with the RT hardware to speed them up, instead of the performance hit we usually get from using âactualâ raytracing.
Even after favouring quality settings over resolution - things are needed to be implemented successful.
Will have to concede at some point or case. Canât achieve everything.
Edit : just to addon
How good is xbox platform in this regard? So much potential here. Can have both quality settings vision and resolution targets achieved. It is expensive but option is there. On PC offcourse.
This is interesting:
The fact 4A suggests their own in-house reconstruction approach gives them the same or better results as FSR across the board, yet they were happy to implement DLSS, means that DLSS is indeed notably superior for IQ than FSR is targeting to be. This does not bode well for those who are waiting around expecting FSR to compete with MSâs ML SS tech.
EDIT: Seems they had a typo potentially,or that AMD got on their ass and 4A slightly backtracked:
"4A Games has not evaluated the AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution feature for Metro Exodus at this time. In our FAQ, we were referring to the AMD FidelityFX open source image quality toolkit which targets traditional rendering techniques that our new RT only render does not use, and noting that we have our own Temporal Reconstruction tech implemented natively which provides great quality benefits for all hardware, so do not currently plan to utilize any other toolkits.
4A Games is always motivated to innovate, evaluate, and use the newest technologies that will benefit our fans across all platforms and hardware."
Good catch. I just hope that all the waiting on Xboxâs part to get the full rdna2 feature set bears some fruit starting later this year.
It could simply be a PR talk. But most importantly, it will take a work around to implement a new thing in there engine or workflow.
Statememts like these donât make much sense to be honest without a hard proof.
Good thing is that even without the contribution of GPU makers, game devs are looking and implementing these type of tech in there games.
