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Metro: Last Light
Despite Middle Earth amassing a reputation as the most merciless graphical inquisition of its generation, a handful of titles hurled heavier gauntlets at our devoted GPUs and harboured far less forgiving instruments of persuasion than fluffy cushions and a comfy chair. Last Light was one such case. Littered with more occlusion and tessellation than a Schoenberg sonata was with 12 tone atonality, this spellbinding Direct X 11 showcase had many convinced it would take longer for their rigs to negotiate its monumental demands than it had for them conquer Crysis one. Two years later, here’s how things were poised.
An intriguing discrepancy unearthed by the video are the subtle shadows during the Fury’s medium and high quality loops at 2:16 and 5:26 that appear to be absent in its ultra run at 8:35, but that the Titan X retains.
Vociferous debate regarding the image clarity delivered by both GPUs under synchronised conditions was manifest from the moment reviews were published and screen grabs began trickling onto forums.
Many insisted specific textures to blurred, lines poorly defined and filtering less consistent on Maxwell powered cards leading to accusations that Nvidia were cutting corners to compete.
In light of the above evidence, an ironic explanation for these discrepancies and in this instance, the Fiji’s significant advantage, may well have been down to its failure to indefinitely apply certain enhancements, the picture on the right does indeed at moments appear crisper and to possess greater contrast though if true, the reasons for such omissions would remain wildly speculative.
Emerald acolytes would claim they were a conic symptom of the Fury’s insufficient memory, Redbeard’s ruffians would cite nascent and bug riddled drivers as the root cause.
But before anyone considers it was I who neglected to ensure both tests were uniformly configured, I reran them for the duration it took to me to locate a coherent classical playlist on Apple Music …with identical consequences.
