Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition is the new Crysis. See you in 5 years.

Actually, the effective performance (the graphics-and-image-quality-per-performance-ratio) is better in the EnhanceEdition.

It´s some serious impressive work. In other words: It´s great work and I appreciate having (had) access to it on launch day at regular launch time.
+1 for 4A Games and DeepSilver. (a THQ Nordic-Division)

Now go port the old Metro-Games to the same engine revision!

Maybe that is why? (it is free)

So you can thank the GPU shortage for this free upgrade!

Not sure if this affects desktop GPUs more than e.g. gaming laptops, as I do see e.g. RTX 3060/3070/3080 powered gaming laptops available, and their prices seem about what I'd expect them to cost.

For instance, 1400€ for a ASUS TUF A15 gaming laptop with these specs:

AMD R7-5800H, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060
15,6" Full HD IPS 144 Hz

Or, ASUS TUF Dash F15, 990€:

Intel Core i5-11300, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060
15,6" Full HD IPS 144 Hz

Those don't sound too bad to me... Not sure how much cheaper it would be without any GPU shortage, 100-200€ cheaper at best? So something good about being a laptop gamer then?

Either way, unless I see a good deal, I think I'll just wait it out, yet again. Like I keep saying, the nice thing about PC gaming is that you have access to wealth of a bit (or a lot) older games too, that run just fine regardless what kind of rig you have.

So I guess I'll keep playing those in the meantime.... Currently I am still eyeing the XMG Neo 15 laptop, that seems to have pretty good reviews. Currently they have only the 3080 models available which I feel are over my price range (2600€), the 3070 models are sold out...

Sure the Nintendo Switch unit was pretty cheap when I bought it... but gawd its games seem considerably higher priced than what I am used to on PC.

And naturally I can only dream of DRM-free gaming on Switch.

And I think The Witcher 3 looks and runs better on my 9 years old gaming laptop, than the Switch version runs on Switch... yet I am still interested in trying out the Switch version too, I just find it interesting they've crammed the game into such a low-power console. What next, Raspberry Pi4 and Android versions of Cyberpunk 2077? Sure, why not?

The current gen (PS5/ XSX/ XSX) of consoles is like almost every other gen and it´s unlike almost every other gen. Why?
Like every other gen, they are subventionated hardware. Therefore, they´ve got a good performance-price-ratio at hardware level at launch date. Buying physical first-hand-titles on them is the expensive stuff; second-hand is only okay; abo is very strong, but a bit weaker then humble bundle (this is more or less something that´s been rising in the last years; previously this buisiness were dealt with in rental shops). On top of that, they aren´t feasable for DRM-opponents at all. They physical copies are riddled with Disk-DRM and the eStores are riddled with modern age DRM.

Unlike other gens, they now feature games that are forward compatible. Having hardware that is backwards compatible is old stuff, but forward compatible games are another pair of boots: It results in the fact that a XSX is the one hand a new console, but on the other hand simply a better One, just a like a PC with a 3090 or 6900 XT is simply better than one with a 680 or 7970.
In the past, when consoles had access to older games they´ve emulated the old experience. This time, they try to elevate the old experience. That´s one key strength of PC-Platforms that now got on consoles too. It wipes away the no-games-at-launch-problem, it wipes away the big problem of a very bad performance-price-ratio, it wipes away the not-friendly-for-nostalgic-gamers-issue. That´s why buying a XSX or PS5 and ditching the last gen at the same date became ways more attractive this gen!

If you could see what i see, you'd be even more angry. I think the big picture is that while ray-tracing is nice, it's going to go down in history poorly, because development emphasis will go towards ray-tracing over other features. It's a fad that's going to die out, but the good news is that when it dies out, it'll still be used, just not at the forefront.
Fuck the new nomral. I'm still on an Accer Aspire One. Then again, i'm looking on the horizon and honestly i'm finding myself more and more interested in indies that don't have the "amazing graphics." I'll let the AAAs sit on consoles that i'll buy if there becomes enough AAAs that don't suck to justify the purchases. I'm not holding my breath, though. Alot of the new stuff just doesn't look fun enough to justify spending money on graphics when there's so many old and current games that are aging very well that actually are fun.

Not to say that this doesn't look fun, but why would it be more fun than the cheaper alternative, during a pandemic that is costing jobs and a silicoln crisis which is making hardware expansion expensive. At this point, we need to look at the "hardware cost of upgrades" as part of the cost of the game.

I think really the most important things w/ new graphics cards - like the RTX 3070 (and above) - is the DLSS stuff and improved performance. With a 3070, you're literally getting 2080 Ti performance, more or less.

I am literally getting at 1080p framerates in most games in the 60-200fps ballpark at that resolution - pick any games (other than Microsoft Flight Simulator new version, which I don't have) - it's running in that arena. RAGE 2, Witcher 3, Battlefield 5 - you name it, it's doing it.

While I am playing Metro Exodus EE on Steam there, they literally tossed out almost every other lighting graphics trick. Everything's ray-traced - and the performance is unreal. I'm still in shock here.

Metro Exodus EE is basically proving that - well, we really don't need all the old baked lighting tricks that would take developers ridiculous amounts of hours just to light one said room or area properly (or close to proper). They can just go w/ the RT stuff, so they don't even have to really light the scene at all; let the tech do the work and let them actually develop more game-content.

RT alone looks more natural and realistic, especially when in motion - and Metro Exodus EE proves this.

The old graphic tricks were all piled on top of each other...yet RT can do all that work for them' and Metro Exodus EE proved this. But, of course, this is provided the gamer actually has this card and can get their hands on one.

And even despite the RT Requirement here - this new version even performs better than the old version, for crying out. With DLSS 2.0 and even VRS, this can run in the 125-150 fps ranged, maxed-out at 1080p.

To look and also run this good w/ RT alone, I'm still in complete shock.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

That's me pressing F to doubt. I have too much experience in the field to blindly believe that they actually optimized the game with ray tracing. Given Wirth's law, i think i'm gonna go with Occam's Razor and say you're full of it unless you provide some evidence. I also smell some inherent bias by the fact you appear to have bought the game twice.

Played it (Metro Exodus: Old version) back when it first arrived in Xbox for PC Game Pass, when that was $1 for first month.

Bought it once, BTW. Got Metro Exodus (original version for Steam) from Humble in the $12 Humble Choice the other day (finally, after all these years); and then also received the EE version (from Steam) as a free upgrade with its brand-new release the other day.

DLSS 2.0 and VRS are major performance boosting techniques - so, I'm betting these features are what are causing the major performance improvements over the old version.

Also, DF has a big video on performance on Metro Exodus (original) vs. Metro Exodus EE :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbpZCSf4_Yk

Namely, check around 31m in, where they compare performance on new version EE v. old version - where new version's out-performing the old.

EDIT:
You also have to keep in mind - most games right now are using both the old techniques of lighting & shadowing AND also RT techniques together. Think Battlefield 5, Watch Dogs: Legion, Shadow of the TR, etc etc.

Metro Exodus EE is only-RTX'd, so they tossed all the old techniques out that were piled on top of each other in the old-version and are only using RT here.

I tested this version and it seems they fixed the washed gamma bug...

I play with a 1080p monitor with my RTX 2060 SUPER.
Solid 60 FPS on game, but less on Benchmark...

I'm curious.

Do you have DLSS on?

VRS off or on?
If VRS is on - 2x? 4x?

Also, what's your monitor? I have 1080p 240hz G-Sync Viewsonic monitor, BTW.

Global illumination is the developer equivalent of not having to care about anything that has to do with lighting. Which is nice. You put yer light sources and let them do their thing according to the laws of your simulated universe. Brahma approves.

It does look nice, but this depends a lot on how the devs bake it in. I guarantee you they had to adjust all the light sources in the game in order to get the updated visuals. You can no longer trick your way in creating a fake light effect as artistic license.

It also generally depends. If an untrained person can't tell the difference, it's probably not that dramatic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VGwHoSrIEU

That being said Metro Exodus EE seems to be one of the few exceptions where you can really tell which is which.

I do wonder if that's b/c Exodus EE tossed out a lot of the other piles of graphics tricks out here. They are literally...not here in EE.

Other games - you can still mix a lot of the old graphics techniques w/ also RTX On; such as Watch Dogs: Legion, BF5, Shadow of the TR.

Usually, in games, I have to crank gamma or brightness up, to see a bit more. Not with Metro Exodus EE; I can just leave it alone, as is.

Don't get me wrong - all of these games do look great, but there really is something here that feels much more next-gen & ahead of the rest of the pack here with Metro Exodus EE only really doing RTX-Only mostly here.

I do wonder when we'll see more games adopt RTX-Only.

Yes, that is exactly what they did in EE. Fully real-time ray-traced global illumination.