In 2016, the new adventures of a climber, Komsomol members and the first lady of the action-adventure genre not only successfully moved away from borrowing from their main competitor in recent years, but also set a new bar for the beauty of graphics among multiplatform projects. In the PC version of Rise of the Tomb Raider, many exclusive special effects are implemented, and Lara herself has acquired a luxurious physically correct hairstyle.

Rise of the Tomb Raider Minimum System Requirements

CPU: Intel Core i3-2100 @ 3.1 GHz or AMD FX-4100 @ 3.6 GHz.

RAM: 6 GB.

Video card:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 2 GB or AMD Radeon HD 7770 2 GB.

A configuration similar in power to the one above should allow you to comfortably play Rise of the Tomb Raider on medium-low graphics settings at 1920x1080 or medium-high graphics settings at 1280x720.

If your PC does not matchminimalsystem requirements, then you should not start the game, otherwise the video card or processor can easily burn out.

Rise of the Tomb Raider Recommended System Requirements

CPU:Intel Core i7-3770K @ 3.2 GHz or AMD FX-8120 @ 3.9 GHz.

RAM: 8 GB.

Video card:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4 GB or AMD Radeon RX 480 8 GB.

If your gaming computer is close to or even exceeds the requirements above, then, at first glance, you may not read further. However, it is always useful to find out what and where can be adjusted without much damage to beauty, so that the frame rate below 60 units never sags at all.

And, of course, for those who are between the minimum and recommended requirements, this article will be most useful. That is, those who have a processor more powerful than the AMD FX-4100, but weaker than the Intel Core i7-3770K, and a graphics card more powerful than the AMD Radeon HD 7770, but weaker than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970, and so on.

Rise of the Tomb Raider graphics settings

Texture Quality

low (1-2 FPS).

Video memory consumption: 1 GB (low), 1-2 GB (medium), 2-4 GB (high), 4-8 GB (very high).

Manual adjustment of texture quality in recent years is a rather strange undertaking. This parameter has practically no effect on performance, but it occupies part of the video memory. On any video card with less than two gigabytes of RAM, Rise of the Tomb Raider will still not work. And on a two-gigabyte one, it’s better not to set it above average quality, otherwise lags are inevitable. Why is this parameter still not set automatically in games?

In short, if your graphics card has only two gigabytes of memory, then set average texture quality, if three or four - high if six or more - you can try very high.

Anisotropic Filter

Performance impact: low (1-2 FPS).

Usually those textures on the surfaces of objects that are located at an angle to the observer look slightly blurry. Anisotropic filtering is used to get rid of this effect.

And this is another parameter, which does not make much sense in self-tuning: if you set trilinear filtering, then “soap” will appear, and if anisotropic 16x, a frame and a half will disappear. If each unit of FPS is expensive, the optimal value for Full HD resolution will be 4x.

Shadow Quality

Performance impact: very high (up to 26 FPS).

The name of this setting speaks for itself - it changes the resolution and detail of the shadows. In any 3D game at all times, it was the shadows that were one of the most "gluttonous" graphic effects. And the more realistic they become from blockbuster to blockbuster, the higher their appetites grow.

Usually for gaming computers, barely reaching the minimum system requirements of the game, the best option is the average quality of the shadows. Rise of the Tomb Raider is no exception. "High" can be set to owners of medium-power systems, and "Very high" - to owners of top-end ones.

Soft shadows from the Sun (Sun Soft Shadows)

Performance impact: low (1-2 FPS).

Additional shadow processing. Their edges are softened with lighting. Mainly affects foliage shadows.

Surprisingly, "Soft Shadows" has little effect on performance, taking only a couple of frames even at the "Very high" setting. Therefore, for most systems it is recommended to install it.

Ambient Occlusion

Performance impact: medium (3-6 FPS).

Under such a mysterious name, an old friend Ambient Occlusion hid. Its main effect is to darken various angles, depressions and cracks in surfaces. All this gives the picture more depth and contrast. In addition, Ambient Light Blocking allows nearby objects to cast shadows on each other.

This parameter consumes FPS quite reasonably - from three to six frames, depending on the game situation. But on appearance affects very seriously. Therefore, turning it off is not recommended. On weak PCs, you can set the standard value ("On"), and on medium and powerful PCs - "HBAO +".

Depth of Field

Performance impact: average (3-7 FPS).

This is a well-known cinematic effect that, on the one hand, can hide the low detail of distant objects, and on the other hand, focuses the player's attention on the foreground during cutscenes, blurring the background. In most modern games, it consumes almost nothing. However, in the case of Rise of the Tomb Raider, from three to seven FPS are lost (depending on the dynamics of the scene).

Therefore, on budget and outdated configurations, “Depth of field” can be sacrificed or set to the standard value “On” instead of “Very high”.

Detailing (Level of Detail)

Performance impact: average (5-7 FPS).

Previously in games, "Detail" was responsible for the quality of the geometry of all three-dimensional objects. Now, in order not to drastically worsen the picture, when the setting is lowered, only what is in the distance is simplified. In addition, the amount of vegetation is reduced.

This parameter has quite moderate appetites, so setting a value below “Medium” here is worth it only if your video card barely pulls the game at a stable 30 frames per second.

Tessellation

Performance impact: low (3-4 FPS) on 2015 and newer graphics cards, high (10-12 FPS) on 2014 and older graphics cards.

Half of the game Rise of the Tomb Raider takes place in the mountains in the middle of the snow. Thanks to tessellation, Lara naturally sinks into deep snowdrifts and leaves footprints. At its core, this technology gives visual depth to the surfaces of objects through a cunning system of special effects.

Among other things, tessellation, like many modern graphic effects, works fast only on the latest generations of GeForce or Radeon. If you own an R7/R9 200 series, GTX 700 or older models, then tessellation can significantly slow down the gameplay - as much as 12 frames. Therefore, you should not delay too long with updating the video card (even the top one). By the way, we are talking about this.toldin one of the recent articles.

What to do with it? Owners of brand new video cameras with a good power reserve can easily turn on this setting. For everyone else, it's best to turn it off.

Screen Space Reflections

Performance impact: low (1-2 FPS).

Many elements of the environment in the game are able to reflect the space around them. Normally the graphical setting that controls reflections seriously degrades the smoothness of the gameplay, but in the new adventures of Miss Croft, a great job of optimization has been done. As a result, only a couple of FPS units are lost.

Reflection Quality

Performance impact: low (2-3 FPS).

This option further improves the detail of reflections. Game slows down not strongly - just for a couple of frames - however, the effect is noticeable n weakly. Therefore, on a PC closer to the minimum system requirements, it is better to turn off this "stray" after all.

Dynamic Foliage

Performance impact: average (7-8 FPS).

"Dynamic foliage" affects the amount and density of vegetation in the game. The name of the parameter contains the word “Dynamic” for a reason - Lara touches grass, bushes and the like, forcing them to bend beautifully and then return to their previous position.

The denser the vegetation, the more frames per second are taken away from the frame rate. However, the difference between the average quality and the maximum is not so significant. Based on this, we can recommend that those who play on weak PCs set exactly the “Average” value.

Bloom effect (Bloom)

Performance impact: extremely low (0-1 FPS).

Bloom is also called "Glow" in another way, and this name speaks for itself. It amplifies light sources, and also highlights objects with which you can interact with a special bright border.

In general, the picture in Rise of the Tomb Raider, thanks to the “Bloom effect”, becomes more picturesque, and only one FPS unit is consumed. So this effect is desirable for everyone to include.

Blur around the edges of the screen (Vignette Blur)

Performance impact: extremely low (0-1 FPS).

The name of this setting gives an exhaustive idea about it. "Blur around the edges of the screen" is used during especially dramatic moments of the gameplay, such as a serious injury to the main character or a fire in the room.

Like most other post-processing effects, Vignette Blur spends no more than one frame per second. Feel free to turn it on!

Smoothing (Anti-Aliasing)

Performance impact: FXAA - extremely low (0-1 FPS), SMAA - low (2-3 FPS), SSAA - high (11-12 FPS).

Antialiasing, also known as anti-aliasing, is probably one of the most familiar and favorite options for most video game fans. Initially, the edges of 3D objects look slightly jagged due to pixels, but thanks to anti-aliasing, these “ladders” are smoothed out.

Rise of the Tomb Raider has three anti-aliasing technologies to choose from: FXAA, SMAA and SSAA. The least resource-intensive - the first. It is it that is recommended to be used on weak machines, on medium-performance ones - SMAA (it spoils textures less), and SSAA - only if you have something no worse than the GeForce GTX 980 or GTX 1070 "under the hood".

PureHair

Performance impact: standard camera- medium (4-8 FPS), close-up - high (10-12 FPS), intros - extremely high (14-20 FPS).

Whereas 2013's Tomb Raider used AMD's exclusive technology to render Lara's realistic hair, the sequel was replaced by Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix's joint development called PureHair. It works roughly on the same principle as NVIDIA HairWorks, modeling a character's hairstyle from several tens of thousands of individual strands.

The player is given three values ​​for this parameter to choose from: "Off", "On" and "Very High" (additional hair density). purely visual difference between the two latest options not very noticeable, and in the screensavers, the parameter always switches to the maximum quality on its own. Based on this, on low-powered PCs, it is better to turn off the realistic hairstyle completely (unless you are an aesthete stylist), and leave the standard “On” value on all the rest.

Motion Blur

Performance impact: missing.

This is a purely cinematic effect that blurs the background as the camera pans around the protagonist, creating a sense of speed. Motion Blur does not affect performance, so anyone who likes it can turn it on.

Lens Flares

Performance impact: low (2-3 FPS).

Another post-processing effect. Creates glare from the sun and other light sources when the camera is facing them. It does not greatly affect performance, but on weak computers it is better to turn it off.

Screen Effects and Film Grain

Performance impact: extremely low (0-1 FPS).

The first parameter is responsible for the graininess of the screen, slight glare and dirty camera effects during cutscenes, and the second - for the graininess during the gameplay. They consume practically nothing, so we leave their activation to your discretion.

The specifics of PC gaming is such that before proceeding with the passage, you must first familiarize yourself with its system requirements and correlate it with the existing configuration.

To do this simple action, you do not need to know the exact specifications each model of processors, video cards, motherboards and other components of any personal computer. The usual comparison of the main lines of components is quite enough.

For example, if the minimum system requirements for a game include a processor at least Intel Core i5, then you should not expect it to run on i3. However, to compare processors from different manufacturers more difficult, which is why developers often indicate names from two main companies - Intel and AMD (processors), Nvidia and AMD (video cards).

Above are system requirements. It is worth noting that the division into minimum and recommended configurations is done for a reason. It is believed that the performance minimum requirements enough to get the game up and running from start to finish. However, to achieve the best performance, you usually have to lower the graphic settings.

Tomorrow (01/28/2016) fans of Tomb Raider will be able to continue their adventures with the main character of the cult series. The minimum system requirements for playing Rise of the Tomb Raider were announced a long time ago and, I must say, they are quite acceptable, but for a comfortable game with maximum graphics quality, you need a productive game system. Let's check the configurations.

Minimum system requirements

Processor: Intel Core i3-2100 (3.1 GHz) or equivalent from AMD

RAM: 6 GB

Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 2 GB or Radeon HD 7700 2 GB

Storage: 25 GB

OS and API: Windows 7 (64 bit), DirectX 11

Processor: Intel Core i7-3770 (3.4/3.9 GHz) or AMD FX-8350 (4.0 GHz)

RAM: 8 GB

Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 or Radeon R9 290X

Storage: 30 GB

Representatives of NVIDIA also expressed their opinion on the performance requirements of the video card.

After conducting preliminary tests, the engineers came to the conclusion that to get 60 frames / s with high quality settings, you will need a GeForce GTX 970 if you use a resolution of 1920 × 1080, while for 2560 × 1440 a GeForce GTX 980 Ti is already desirable. It is easy to guess what resources will be needed for a comfortable game in 4K mode. However, we will allow for the fact that these are the evaluative conclusions of the interested party, which we will be able to confirm or refute very soon in practice.





Recall that the PC version of Rise of the Tomb Raider will be available on January 28. The game is already available for pre-order, for example, on Steam. Those who want to restore order in wild Siberia for free, this time may not be lucky. For the game will be used to hack which has not yet been possible.


Square Enix published Tomb Raider system requirements. Windows XP users will be happy to hear that their operating system satisfies the system requirements and they will be able to play tomb raider on their computers.

PC version tomb raider uses Steamworks to create online matches, cloud storage for storing game records, and a system of rewards and achievements. tomb raider supports the mode big picture» on Steam and a gamepad, but you can also play with a mouse and keyboard.

If you have a powerful gaming PC, then you can enjoy higher quality textures than the owners game consoles. AT tomb raider supported AMD Eyefinity and NVIDIA Surround, which will allow you to use the capabilities of the system with multiple monitors. If your computer does not fit the description of high-end gaming systems, but does fit the system requirements, then you can still enjoy the game, but with more modest graphic settings. Crystal Dynamics and Nixxes tried to make tomb raider scalable game and compatible with older systems, so the game can function properly on Windows XP with DirectX 9.

« We felt it was important that all fans of Tomb Raider could play this version of the game and tried to make support for operating systems as wide as possible.”, according to the official Tomb Raider blog. " Thus, unlike some other latest games we still support Windows XP, and our game also works on Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. Although it is not certified for Windows 8, but after numerous tests with Windows 8 systems, we can confidently state that Windows users 8 will be able to enjoy playing Tomb Raider.»

Tomb Raider Minimum System Requirements

Operating system: Windows XP (Service Pack 3)\Vista\7\8 (32 and 64 bit)
video card: DirectX 9 capable with 512 MB VRAM (AMD Radeon HD 2600 XT or higher, nVidia 8600 or higher)
CPU: Dual-core AMD Athlon64 X2*2.1GHz (4050+) or higher, Intel Core2 Duo 1.86GHz (E6300) or higher
RAM: 1 GB (2 GB for Windows Vista) Operating system: Windows Vista\7\8 (32 and 64 bit)
video card: DirectX 11 compatible with 1 GB VRAM (AMD Radeon HD 5870 or higher, nVidia GTX 480 or higher)
CPU: Quad nuclear AMD Phenom II X2*565 or higher, Intel Core i5-750 or higher
RAM: 4GB

Tomb Raider system requirements announced on Steam

Operating system: Windows XP, Vista, 7
CPU: 2GHz Dual Core (Intel Core 2 Duo or better, AMD Athlon X2 or better)
RAM: 1 GB (Windows XP), 2 GB (Windows Vista\7)
video card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800/AMD Radeon HD 2900 or better

Improvements over the console version of Tomb Raider

General Improvements

  • Full integration with Steamworks for cloud storage of records, creation of a network game, achievements, as well as automatic updates and downloadable content
  • Steam mode support big picture»
  • Customizable mouse and keyboard
  • Gamepad support

High-quality graphics for high-end PC

  • High resolution textures
  • Detailed tessellation to improve the quality of surface detail in the game
  • High quality shadows
  • High quality bokeh
  • Using tessellation algorithms to smooth geometry
  • SSOA and post-effects filters
  • LOD quality control on high-end computers

Low quality graphics for lo-end PC

  • Crystal Dynamics has taken care of non-high-end PC fans of Tomb Raider and has gone to great lengths to ensure that the game runs on older PCs under Windows control XP SP3.
  • The ability to scale performance and graphics settings to accommodate a large number of different PC configurations.

Questions and answers

A few common technical questions regarding tomb raider to which the director of Nixxes, Jüren Katzman, replied.

Will Tomb Raider support Steam offline mode?

"Yes, of course the game will work offline, but you will not be able to participate in multiplayer games in this mode"

If I buy the boxed version of Tomb Raider, can I play it on Steam?
"Each copy of Tomb Raider is integrated with Steam and uses the power of Steamworks no matter where you bought it."

Does the game require a disc or can it be downloaded via Steam using a cd-key?
“When you buy a game from the store, you get a cd-key for Steam. Just activate the key through your Steam account and you don't need a disc. The disk is needed so that you do not have to download the entire game. Just install the game from it and download updates.

Will Tomb Raider have DRM?
"We don't believe in anti-consumer DRM practices, so aside from Steamworks and the need for authentication from your Steam account there is no DRM.

Does Tomb Raider support 120Hz?
“Hardware that supports 120Hz will definitely run 120Hz. We do not limit the refresh rate and frame rate in the game. Tomb Raider will run at any refresh rate and frame rate your hardware can support."

What are the big screen plans for Tomb Raider?
"We support AMD Eyefinity and NVIDIA Surround, which allow you to connect multiple monitors and create very wide screens."

Buy
  • Release date: January 28, 2016
  • Genre: action-adventure third person view
  • Publisher: Square Enix
  • Developer: Crystal Dynamics and Nixxes Software

Rise of the Tomb Raider is another game from the popular Tomb Raider series for many years, which is a continuation of the 2013 game of the same name, which we remember, among other things, because it used a physically realistic imitation of the main character's hair. The continuation of the series was announced back in June 2014 at E3 2014 in Los Angeles, and was originally announced for a release date of late 2015.

As a result, the game was indeed released on November 10, 2015, but only in the version for Xbox 360 and Xbox One from Microsoft. But the PC version of Rise of the Tomb Raider, according to Square Enix's plans, was pushed back to January 28, 2016, when it came out. The developer of the tenth game in this series was Crystal Dynamics, but it was also helped by Nixxes Software, which usually ported games from consoles to PC.

The developers wanted to continue the adventures of Lara Croft in a place that is significantly different from the landscapes of the previous part. And so, in a nutshell, the plot of the new game is that Lara went in search of the secret of immortality all the way to Russia. And not just anywhere, but to Siberia, where she fights both with members of the secret Trinity organization and with aggressive living creatures, like bears (well, where without them in Siberia?). The game is about the mythical city of Kitezh, where only those who are pure in heart and soul can supposedly find a way.

We do not touch on the issues of historical accuracy and geographical accuracy, we are more interested in games with Lara Croft ... no, not only what you immediately thought, but exciting adventures, deadly traps and complex puzzles. Well, excellent graphics that help to achieve greater realism and deep immersion of the player in the virtual world. The novelty is distinguished by the fact that Rise of the Tomb Raider consists of several rather large and diverse locations, significantly larger than the levels of the previous game.

Rise of the Tomb Raider was released as part of Nvidia's The Way It's Meant To Be Played program, which is expressed in technical and marketing cooperation between Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics on the one hand, and Nvidia on the other. In addition to adding some rendering techniques to the game, which we will talk about later, this also translates into optimizing the game for GPUs the GeForce GTX family right from its release.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is based on the Foundation engine already known from the previous game, which has been thoroughly improved. It uses the technique of physically correct rendering (Physically Based Rendering), which gives a realistic look to all materials in different lighting conditions, uses HDR rendering and adaptive tone mapping, deferred lighting (deferred lighting) with simulated global illumination (Global Illumination) - all this is just enhances the realism of the picture.

The game also uses volumetric lighting with God Rays, advanced post-processing effects, dynamic waves and reflections on the surface of the water, particle systems with correct lighting rendering, and subsurface scattering effect for more realistic rendering of the skin of the characters. Some of these effects are shown in a special graphics technology video:

In particular, the developers from Crystal Dynamics, in partnership with Nvidia, have implemented an advanced HBAO + global shading calculation algorithm into the game, which is of better quality and reduced the number of artifacts compared to other global shading techniques and provides greater detail for shaded areas. At the same time, HBAO+ runs quite efficiently on modern GPUs, compared to other common Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) algorithms of similar quality. We will dwell on the most interesting graphics technologies and effects in the game in more detail, but first we will consider the system requirements of the game.

System requirements

Minimum system requirements:

  • cpu level Intel Core i3-2100 or similar to AMD;
  • RAM of at least 6 GB;
  • graphics card model GeForce GTX 650 2 GB or Radeon HD 7770 2 GB;
  • free space on the drive 25 GB;
  • quad-level processor Intel Core i7-3770 or octa-core AMD FX-8350;
  • RAM from 8 GB;
  • graphics card model GeForce GTX 970 or Radeon R9 290X and higher;
  • free space on the drive 30 GB;
  • 64-bit operating system Microsoft Windows 7/8/10 with DirectX 11 or 12.

For Rise of the Tomb Raider, Nvidia recommends using GeForce video cards GTX 970 and above. Moreover, if a GeForce GTX 970 video card is enough for a Full HD resolution at 60 FPS, then a game at a resolution of 2560 × 1440 pixels with high settings and the same 60 FPS will be comfortable only with the top GeForce GTX 980 Ti.

And although the official minimum system requirements of the game are set at the level of the GeForce GTX 650, Nvidia advises using at least the GeForce GTX 750 Ti, but even in this case, setting the game quality settings will most likely only be possible at a low level (Low), and the average frame rate will be about 45 FPS. So we can recommend Lara Croft fans to get hold of a more powerful graphics processor.

Test configuration and testing methodology

Nvidia released a special version of the driver - 361.75 for the announcement of the game on the PC, which can be downloaded from their website or updated using the GeForce Experience utility. The difference in performance between versions 361.75 WHQL and 361.43 WHQL is small, but it is - about 5-7%.

Alas, but AMD didn't yet respond with its Rise of the Tomb Raider optimized driver at the time of our testing, so we just used the latest version available - Radeon Software Crimson 16.1 Hot fixes. But you can be sure that AMD is already working on improving the performance of its GPUs in new game, and the optimized version of the driver will be released.

As a test scene from the game, we chose The Acropolis level in the Score Attack game mode - the load on the GPU in this scene is quite high and reflects the overall 3D performance in the game. Although at some levels and in other conditions it may differ - for example, at the beginning of the game there are smaller locations, but they use other effects, such as a snow storm.

The level we have chosen does without snow, but it is quite large in terms of the size of the location, and is distinguished by a large amount of vegetation, characters and applied graphic effects. Which we will now describe in detail - along with determining the impact of changing the main graphic settings on the final performance in the game.

Graphic settings and effects

Graphic settings in Rise of the Tomb Raider can be changed both in a separate configurator called from the game launcher (see screenshots) and in the game itself. Moreover, changing any settings is immediately activated - without the need to restart the game or level. Only changing the quality of the textures makes it necessary to wait additional time to reload resources of the required quality, and all other settings are applied immediately.

On the first tab, you can change the screen resolution (the same as the rendering resolution if supersampling anti-aliasing is not selected), the screen refresh rate, select the synchronization method and the full screen anti-aliasing method from the list: Off, FXAA, SMAA, SSAA 2x, SMAA 4x - their quality and performance we will definitely consider.

Additional tab Graphics allows you to change many of the game's graphical settings, including texture quality and filtering, geometric detail level, shadow quality and post-processing effects, there you can turn on and off tessellation and the use of advanced PureHair hair rendering, as well as select the global shading method: SSAO (On) or HBAO+.

Let's start with the last one. The Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) effect allows you to render a scene with more realistic shadows around objects. This algorithm does not work like typical schemes for rendering dynamic shadows using shadow maps, but creates additional soft shadows on all objects in the scene using post-processing of an already finished frame.

To further improve SSAO, Nvidia has developed a more advanced algorithm Horizontal-Based Ambient Occlusion (HBAO) back in 2008, and later it received additional modifications to improve quality and performance and became known as HBAO+. Recent improvements have been made to increase the efficiency of the algorithm on DirectX 11-compatible graphics cores by optimizing the sampling from the depth buffer.

The game Rise of the Tomb Raider has an option ambient occlusion, which allows you to choose from two methods of rendering global shading: the SSAO technique created by Microsoft and Crystal Dynamics, called Broad Temporal Ambient Obscurance (BTAO) and the HBAO + technique from Nvidia. Interestingly, the BTAO technique was further improved in the PC version compared to the Xbox One variant, and they turned out to be a very good option in terms of performance and quality ratio, exceeding other techniques in these indicators. But HBAO+ allows for even better shading.

A simple HBAO algorithm is most often rendered at half resolution, as in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3, which reduces the quality of the effect in general and can cause some areas to flicker, which you have to hide in Battlefield 3 with additional filtering, but the problem is not solved fully. To fix this, Nvidia has completely redesigned the Screen Space Ambient Occlusion effect, creating the HBAO+ algorithm, which doubles the detail of the global occlusion rendering, but is faster than regular HBAO, as it uses the new DirectX 11 capabilities.

In addition, the result of HBAO+ looks better than the image processed with HBAO, especially in scenes with a lot of small objects such as grass and leaves, which is one of the drawbacks of the original algorithm. As a result, applying HBAO+ produces more accurate global shading with quality shadows, while rendering this effect 30% faster than regular HBAO.

Let's see what the application of these effects gives in practice. Below are frame fragments that show the difference between different shading methods, and clicking on the image fragment opens the full frame obtained using the indicated Ambient Occlusion technique.

Ambient Occlusion Off

Ambient Occlusion On (SSAO)

HBAO+ On

As you can see in the screenshots, compared to the SSAO algorithm already familiar to us, the HBAO + post-processing effect gives even deeper and more realistic shadows in many cases, although with a slightly larger negative impact on overall performance, which we will consider below:

The impact of enabling Ambient Occlusion on performance in Rise of the Tomb Raider differs depending on specific levels and scenes. Enabling SSAO (more precisely, BTAO - the setting is called On in the game) affects performance very little, but forcing HBAO + causes a more significant drop in speed. Accordingly, for powerful systems with top GPUs, we recommend using HBAO + as the highest quality method, and for the rest, the SSAO method will be preferable, as an excellent compromise between quality and rendering speed. We do not recommend disabling global shading even on medium power systems, you will lose too much in quality.

Selecting a full screen anti-aliasing method ( Anti-aliasing in the game settings) in Rise of the Tomb Raider for most systems is unambiguous - FXAA, since the most common method of multisampling (Multisample Anti-Aliasing - MSAA) is not supported by the game. FXAA is a very fast post-processing filter that smoothes the edges of polygons and textures, although not perfectly, but with a certain quality. As a side effect of the method, there is a strong blurring of textures and the appearance of temporal aliasing artifacts in the form of "jumping" pixels, which are clearly visible in dynamics.

Another post-processing method, SMAA, can be used as an alternative method, but it also has disadvantages, albeit to a lesser extent. The highest quality anti-aliasing method in the game is Supersampling Anti-Aliasing (SSAA). Supersampling works similar to technology Nvidia Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR), which increases the rendering resolution and then reduces the result to a lower resolution using a special filter.

So, for a Full HD resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, the SSAA 2x method will render the game at a resolution of 2688x1512 pixels and then downscale the image to Full HD, and SSAA 4x will do the same, but at a rendering resolution of 3840x2160 pixels. Not surprisingly, the result is very high level detail and a perfectly smoothed picture - this applies to everything in general: both polygon faces and textures. You can see for yourself:

Antialiasing Off

FXAA

SSAA 2x

And SSAA 4x will give even better anti-aliasing. Alas, the high quality of SSAA has a logical drawback in the form of a noticeable decrease in performance, similar to an increase in screen resolution. For video cards of the GeForce GTX 960 and Radeon R9 380 level, this method cannot be called practical, since the inclusion of even SSAA 2x leads to an almost 1.5-fold drop in rendering speed - up to 32 FPS on average, with drops in the minimum frequency to 24-25 FPS. The use of SSAA in such cases can only be recommended to fans of high-quality pictures and unhurried gameplay. Well, and owners of more powerful video cards (or better - dual-chip systems), of course.

Compared to the console versions, we should also note the support for anisotropic texture filtering for all surfaces in the scene. Actually, this is a plus for Rise of the Tomb Raider only in comparison with the console versions of the game, because anisotropic filtering has been common in PC games for more than a year.

Setting Anisotropic Filter allows you to change the level of anisotropic filtering for textures in the game, which affects the clarity of textures visible at a distance from the camera for surfaces at sharp corners. Without enabling anisotropic filtering, many of the surfaces will be heavily blurred, which significantly reduces image quality.

On the modern systems there is no point in choosing trilinear filtering, since turning on anisotropic reduces the speed not so much as it worsens the quality of the textures in the game. The difference in rendering speed between levels 2x and 16x does not exceed 1-2 frames per second, so on modern GPUs we strongly recommend using high values ​​of this setting.

effects Bloom and Depth of field we have repeatedly considered in our earlier materials. The first of them enhances the glow of bright areas of the frame, adding brightness and a halo effect to them, and the second is used to make cinematic, mainly in engine scenes, blurring the background in a similar way to cinema lenses. Also, the DoF effect is used in a snowstorm and under water, and in some cases when triggering game scripts. Such effects do not take too much performance and it is recommended to leave them enabled if you have enough performance and you like a soft "cinema" picture.

Setting Dynamic Foliage responsible for the richness and behavior of vegetation. New to the games in this series is dynamic vegetation: trees and grass in Rise of the Tomb Raider are not just static objects, but realistically interact with the wind, the player and other objects, bending and deviating from them in a physically believable way.

If in the console version Lara's movements only affected rare plant objects, then in the PC version the vegetation has become more dense and all of it is now subject to physical influence from the character and weather conditions - grass and trees are in constant motion, which adds realism. When set to High, vegetation sways under the influence of the wind, deviates from the bodies of moving characters and animals.

The High level setting has a serious impact on performance, the frame rate drop can reach 5-10 frames per second on average, depending on the richness of the level with bushes, grass and trees. In case of a lack of performance, and as a good compromise, you can turn on the setting to the average value, which does not reduce plant density too much, but is less expensive in terms of GPU resources.

Parameter Level of Detail, as its name implies, is responsible for the geometric detailing of the scene. More precisely, not only for the level of detail, but also for the distance of drawing objects at medium and long distances. This setting allows you to find the right balance between scene detail and rendering performance, which is especially important on weak systems Oh.

Enabling the technology does not have a huge impact on performance, even with the setting set to Very High. But this influence is most noticeable at levels with a large number of objects, light sources and various effects, where the difference between the minimum and maximum level of detail can reach up to 5-7 frames on average.

Option PureHair is responsible for enabling character hair rendering technology developed by Crystal Dynamics and similar to Nvidia HairWorks and AMD TressFX - all of which add physically-based interaction of tens of thousands of hairs to character models. Such hair realistically interacts with other objects, clothing, and physically correctly sways when moving and under the influence of wind and water. They are also more realistically lit and shadowed than more conventional hair rendering methods.

The PureHair technology is likely based on AMD's TressFX, but it has clearly been improved in terms of how hair interacts with environment with a reduced number of artifacts. The technology is enabled in the game's graphics settings and can be set to two levels: On and Very High.

In Rise of the Tomb Raider, up to 30,000 hairs can be used for Lara's head, but their behavior is not calculated for everyone individually, but by bunches, which reduces the resource requirements. When the technology is disabled (Option Off), traditional hair is drawn in the old style, when PureHair is enabled, the average level of hair detail is turned on, and the “Very High” setting significantly increases the number of calculated hairs.

Pure Hair Off

Pure Hair On

PureHair Very High

The impact of the enabled effect on average performance during typical gameplay goes up to 3-4 frames per second on average for a high value, but in scenes on a close-up engine, it can reach 15-20 FPS.

But during a normal game, the difference between the two PureHair modes is almost impossible to catch - you most often see Lara in the distance, where individual hairs are not visible, and in cinematic scenes on the engine, a higher level of detail is used anyway. Therefore, for most players the best choice the value will be On, since you simply won’t notice the difference, and the extra 1-2 frames per second will not hurt.

The inclusion of PureHair adds realism to Lara, especially when she is actively moving: running, jumping, fighting enemies. And we would advise you to enable the setting even if you have a mid-range graphics card. Although normal hair looks good, some may even like it more - besides, some kind of movement is also calculated for them.

Setting shadow quality affects the quality of shadows in Rise of the Tomb Raider, which is not surprising. The parameter affects only the resolution of shadow maps and their detail. Unlike the highest setting, when set to High, some fine shadow detail is lost, at Medium, the loss is even greater, and shadow flickering artifacts begin to appear when moving.

And yet shadows are the most important component of the picture, directly affecting realism. At complete shutdown shadows (Off), all dynamic shadows and most static ones are removed. The effect of this parameter on the picture is huge, and turning off shadows is recommended only for the weakest systems. Actually, this setting noticeably affects the performance of the game, the difference between the extreme values ​​is approximately one and a half times.

The quality of the shadows includes additional setting Sun Soft Shadows, which controls how soft the edges of shadows cast by sunlight are. The effect is best seen in vegetation shadows, but the blurring of character shadows also changes. But this setting has little effect on performance, turning on shadow blur even at the highest quality causes FPS drops by only a couple of frames, so it is recommended to keep it at a high level.

One of the most interesting settings of the game in question is the tessellation setting - Tessellation. In Rise of the Tomb Raider, hardware tessellation is used for many surfaces: walls, earth, rocks, and other similar objects. This greatly increases the level of detail and volume of the scene, adding a lot of realism. For example, you can mark levels with a lot of snow, where tessellation is used to render snow cover and footprints from Lara and other characters. This effect is generally similar to the Nvidia technology used in Batman: Arkham Origins:

The snow cover reacts to the actions of the player and dynamically changes its shape, crushing when walking - for this effect, apply extra layer snow, the height of which is specified in a special texture - a height map. And when the characters move, the heights of specific texels dynamically change so that fingerprints remain on the snow. As a result, it looks very good and realistic - in this case, the tracks in the snow are voluminous and look like real ones. Without tessellation enabled in the game, snow deformation is calculated only in selected scenes, and in other places volumetric traces are replaced by texture spots from the last century.

Also in almost every level from the PC version of Rise of the Tomb Raider, tessellation is also used to increase the level of detail of many objects: walls, stones, earth, tree bark and other surfaces. Moreover, all this additional geometric detail is involved in the calculation of the global shading SSAO or HBAO +, which only adds to the realism of the picture.

Tessellation Off

Tessellation On

The performance impact of the setting is not so big - 7-9%, especially for Nvidia graphics cards based on top-end GPUs that have simply huge geometric performance. Yes, and on other video cards, we recommend leaving tessellation enabled, as it significantly adds detail and realism to the picture, and it “costs” relatively inexpensively even on mid-range GPUs, as we used.

The high geometric performance of modern graphics processors on PC makes it possible to use a greater draw distance compared to console versions, as well as to increase the level of geometric detail for objects in the scene, which positively affects the realism of large open spaces and helps the player with orientation on the ground.

The next parameter to consider is texture quality, this is the texture resolution setting used throughout Rise of the Tomb Raider. Texture quality is pretty important for our comparison, as this setting could bring the 2GB version of the GeForce GTX 960 we use to its knees, while the Radeon R9 380 4GB could gain some edge.

From the point of view of the impact on the final quality, in normal gameplay it will be very difficult to find a significant difference between the High and Very High values ​​\u200b\u200b- it is noticeable only on some objects that are close to the camera, and on characters when big plans. But below the High level, texture detail becomes noticeable almost always and on all surfaces. You can see for yourself:

Texture Quality Low

Texture Quality Medium

Texture Quality High

Texture Quality Very High

If in the first three modes the performance of a pair of test video cards is comparable, then with the setting set to Very High, textures can reach a resolution of 4096 × 4096 texels, and the requirements for video memory in this option increase sharply to 3-4 GB, depending on the resolution rendering, and here already our GeForce GTX 960 with its couple of gigabytes of local video memory copes poorly with the task:

And even for 3 GB video cards, we can recommend using the High setting, otherwise performance drops below the comfortable frame rate can be observed, especially in the moments between the game process and scenes on the engine, which are also present in our test fragment.

If textures, buffers and other resources are included in the local memory of the video card, the impact of the settings on performance is quite insignificant - in the region of 1-2 FPS. But even the 4 GB variant of the Radeon R9 380 lost quite a lot when the Very High option was enabled, not to mention the 2 GB GeForce. So for maximum quality textures, preferably more than 4 GB of local video memory - something like 6-8 GB, especially if the rendering resolution is also high and / or supersampling is used.

Setting Screen Space Reflections is responsible for enabling realistic reflections on many surfaces in Rise of the Tomb Raider. The most obvious effect of this setting is noticeable in the reflection of the surrounding world on water surfaces, which significantly improves the perception of the game world. The performance difference between enabling and disabling the effect in this game is negligible - a couple of frames per second (it depends on the level and scene).

Options like lens flares, Screen Effects, Vignette Blur and motion blur are also post-processing filters used in some scenes. Most often, their inclusion has little effect on overall performance - less than 1 FPS, and some of them also need to be bothered to notice on the screen. In general, we can recommend leaving them enabled, as they contribute a lot to the cinematic realism of the picture, especially in cutscenes based on the game engine.

Among the Nvidia technologies supported by the game, we can mention a few more. Since we used the monitor in the tests Asus ROG Swift PG278Q technology-enabled Nvidia G-Sync, then we could not bypass this possibility. In Rise of the Tomb Raider, when G-Sync is enabled on the GeForce GTX 960 at high settings at 1920x1080, the performance level is quite high, and even in cases where the frame rate is approximately 40 FPS, a G-enabled gaming system -Sync shows a very smooth video sequence without problems with jerks and tearing of the image.

For another Nvidia proprietary technology - Dynamic Super Resolution and its competitor counterpart, our test cards are simply too underpowered. They will not have enough video memory to render in even more high resolution, yes and computing power clearly not enough. But DSR will be useful for those players who, for some reason, have a Full HD monitor and a GeForce GTX 980 or higher video card installed - in such conditions, you can enable DSR, getting 2560 × 1440 resolution details on a Full HD monitor.

And the utility offered by Nvidia GeForce Experience, which is included with the drivers, allows you to help find the optimal settings for a particular system with just a couple of mouse clicks. To set Rise of the Tomb Raider to run smoothly at 60 FPS on average, all you need to do is launch the GeForce Experience utility and press a button that applies the optimized settings automatically obtained from the company's server.

Depending on the GPU and CPU available in the user's system, as well as other factors, the GeForce Experience utility selects settings that will be optimal for most users who do not want to spend time selecting them on their own, but simply plan to immediately play with maximum comfort.

For example, for the test GeForce GTX 960 2 GB, the utility has selected, on the whole, quite sane settings, at which the performance will be quite comfortable, and the picture quality will be close to optimal. Although, in our opinion, you can change a couple of settings to a higher level, getting, if not 60 FPS on average, but 45 FPS with best quality- for the game of this genre is quite enough.

In addition to the task of optimizing game settings, the GeForce Experience utility is also responsible for automatic update drivers and game profiles, it is she who manages the recording and streaming of the video stream from games using the technology Nvidia ShadowPlay , and can also transmit video stream from PC to mobile devices Nvidia Shield series - so that they can play PC games, including Rise of the Tomb Raider, by the way.

Performance Testing

As part of our study, we tested the performance of two graphics cards based on Nvidia and AMD GPUs at the two most common screen resolutions: 1920x1080 and 2560x1440, as well as at three different levels of settings that the game itself sets when choosing the appropriate presets. profiles: Medium, High and Very High.

The Low and lower settings just don't make sense on mid-range graphics cards, and a very high profile is something we've traditionally tested as it's the most common setting for PC gaming enthusiasts. Consider first the most popular Full HD resolution.

Resolution 1920×1080 (Full HD)

At medium rendering quality settings, both video cards show a high level of performance, approaching the average 60 FPS, which is even more than necessary for a game of this genre. But while the Radeon R9 380 shows a big maximum frequency frames, but a much lower minimum compared to the competing GeForce GTX 960. The lack of optimization of video drivers is affecting - it seems that Nvidia has done a good job on this, but AMD has not yet had time. And 30 minimum frames per second is already at the limit. Let's see what changes with high quality.

Curiously, there are fewer changes than one might expect. The average frame rate dropped to 45 FPS on both cards, but the Radeon still delivers a noticeably lower minimum frame rate, which this time has already dropped below the comfortable minimum of 30 FPS. However, it may be that such a frame rate is observed in scenes on the engine or when switching from gameplay to cutscenes on the engine, which has little effect on the comfort of the game itself. In any case, for now we state a slight advantage for the GeForce GTX 960, but this may change with increasing settings...

And so it happened! At the Very High settings level, textures of maximum quality with a resolution up to 4K are loaded, and they already clearly lack a couple of gigabytes of memory, especially if they need to be shared with the frame buffer and other resources. In this mode, the GeForce GTX 960 2 GB does not cope with the work and it is impossible to call 10.5 FPS on average playable. However, the Radeon R9 380, even with 4 GB, did not go far - with a minimum frame rate of 13 FPS, you can't play much, and their average number of 32.7 will not save the situation. Both video cards in this mode do not provide comfortable performance.

To understand how often video cards do not provide a sufficient level of frame rate, let's look at the graph of the frame rate averaged per second in the optimal mode for both video cards - with the High presets.

Judging by this graph, it turns out that both video cards are almost on par, providing similar performance down to the details - you can see where the Radeon R9 380 shows a higher maximum frame rate, and where it sags below the GeForce in minimum FPS - the latter occurs in fact heavy segment of the test fragment - at its end, when the videos on the engine are replaced by the gameplay. Let's see what changes when the resolution is increased.

Resolution 2560×1440 (WQHD)

First we consider the mode of medium rendering quality settings - alas, but with a rendering resolution of 2560 × 1440 pixels, test video card The GeForce GTX 960, which has only 2 GB of local memory, has already fallen significantly even at medium graphics settings. We draw two conclusions from this fact: firstly, the game Rise of the Tomb Raider in WQHD resolution definitely needs 4 GB of video memory, and secondly, we need to look for a replacement for the test GeForce GTX 960 with a 4 GB version.

As for the playability on the Radeon R9 380 at medium settings at this resolution, with certain discounts, this performance can be called the minimum acceptable, although in even more massive scenes with a large number of characters and additional effects, the performance may drop below a comfortable level.

It is not at all surprising that at high quality settings, approximately the same alignment was obtained, but with lower numbers. Although the GeForce GTX 960 fell even lower, the Radeon R9 380 has already been added to it - the language will not turn around to call 32.4 FPS on average a comfortable performance. So starting at high settings, at 2560x1440, middle class video cards can be considered unplayable. And the highest settings could not even be tested.

Purely for the sake of show, we still did it, getting even lower numbers with huge dips in frame rates on both video cards. While the Radeon R9 380 4GB, with twice the amount of memory, has more than a twofold advantage in all respects, it also delivers sub-par rendering speed. It looks like Nvidia is right and these settings will only be playable on a GeForce GTX 980 Ti level graphics card.

To see how much the effect of twice the amount of video memory in the GeForce GTX 960 is, let's turn our attention to the frame rate graph in the same settings profile - High in a higher resolution.

It is clearly seen that the inability to load all textures of the required resolution into the 2 GB local memory available in the test GeForce GTX 960 causes not only one-time frame rate drops and rare drops, but also an average lower frame rate, although somewhere in the middle During the test segment, the performance of Radeon and GeForce is almost equal. But with the appearance of scripted videos on the engine at the end of the test, GeForce is again unable to show a stable frame rate due to lack of video memory.

Visual video test

As a bonus, here are some videos where you can see how Rise of the Tomb Raider behaves with different graphics presets on a system with a GeForce GTX 960 2 GB graphics card at 1920x1080 pixels. These videos were recorded using the GeForce Experience utility, thanks to the built-in near-performance-free video recording feature called ShadowPlay.

Lowest quality (Lowest profile)

Low quality (Low profile)

Medium quality (Medium profile)

High quality (High profile)

Very high quality (Very High profile)

It is clearly seen that rendering at the lowest quality looks very bad and is suitable only for owners of integrated graphics, while everyone else can be advised to choose other profiles and settings, depending on the power of the system.

For the Very High profile in the test system with the GeForce GTX 960 2 GB, there was simply not enough video memory, which is why the last video shows constant jerks and slowdowns. On the same video card with 4 GB of memory, everything would be much better - do not spare money, buy a video card with at least 4 gigabytes of memory! Yes, and we will try to find a replacement for our further gaming tests.

Conclusion

Summing up the results of the study, I would like to note that in the game Rise of the Tomb Raider we saw very decent graphics, which are technologically performed at the most modern level. The game uses all the currently fashionable effects and algorithms: physically correct HDR rendering, deferred lighting, global shading using Nvidia's HBAO + method, volumetric lighting, advanced post-processing effects, dynamic reflections, tessellation is actively used to increase the detail of the scene, there are particle systems, the effect of subsurface scattering, etc.

There are also original technologies in the game, such as the physically correct imitation of PureHair hair. Well, in addition to the effects mentioned, we do not forget about the usual advantages of PC versions, such as significantly higher texture resolution and rendering, at a higher frame rate (in the case of powerful enough GPUs).

In the article, we tried to determine the optimal settings for video cards different levels. For example, the FXAA anti-aliasing method can be called optimal for most systems, but for some it may seem too blurry. In addition, FXAA does not take into account the temporal component, which has practically become a standard in modern game projects. And in the game Rise of the Tomb Raider, a more advanced Temporal Anti-Aliasing filter would be very useful. Of course, there is the option of supersampling using SSAA 2x and SSAA 4x methods, but they are too demanding on GPU power even at Full HD resolution.

Perhaps in the future, the graphics in the game Rise of the Tomb Raider will improve further if Crystal Dynamics implements support for DirectX 12 features with subsequent patches. It would be nice if the owners of powerful modern video cards could enable an even more advanced method for calculating global shading - Voxel Based Ambient Occlusion (VXAO), which the developer mentioned earlier.

In our materials from the GPU Technology Conference 2015, we talked about a similar Nvidia VXGI (Voxel Global Illumination) technique, and it would be very interesting if such an opportunity appeared in the game. The use of VXAO could bring an advantage to Nvidia's Maxwell GPUs, as this algorithm is actively used new opportunity DirectX 12 as Rasterized Ordered Views (ROV), included in Feature Level 12_1 functionality.

But even in current form the game Rise of the Tomb Raider turned out to be quite demanding on the power of graphics processors. As for the amount of video memory, by the way - for high settings, even in Full HD resolution, a video card with 3 gigabytes of memory is desirable, and in higher settings - 4 GB or more. That is why the GeForce GTX 960 2 GB we have was at an initial disadvantage relative to its competitor in the form of the Radeon R9 380 4 GB. That's why graphics cards like the Radeon R9 280(X) have some advantage with 3GB of memory, which can be enough for high settings at least in Full HD resolution.

And on systems with 2 GB video cards, in some places of the game, there are obvious slowdowns and drops in frame rate below a comfortable value, when textures, buffers and other resources do not fit into this amount of memory. The performance loss on GeForce at high and very high settings in this game was mainly due to lack of memory, and this is solved by choosing the GeForce GTX 960 with 4 GB of memory, which are sold on the market.

But if you do not take the difference in the amount of video memory, then under the conditions we tested, approximately the same level of 3D performance is confirmed for the GeForce GTX 960 and Radeon R9 380 video cards, presented in our material by video cards manufactured by Palit and Sapphire. These solutions turned out to be close to each other in Rise of the Tomb Raider, although AMD has not yet optimized the drivers properly and the Radeon R9 380 is inferior to its competitor from the Nvidia camp in terms of the minimum frame rate.

The mid-range graphics cards in our comparison handled Full HD gaming at high settings, and both are adequate for gaming in these conditions and provide comfortable performance. But at a higher resolution of 2560 × 1440 pixels, the GeForce clearly lacks the amount of video memory, and the Radeon power is enough only for medium quality settings, and even then with reservations. So owners of monitors with this resolution will have to lower the settings or upgrade their video systems.

Finally, we note that Nvidia offers customers who choose GeForce GTX 970 and higher video cards, as well as computers and laptops based on these solutions (laptops require a GeForce GTX 970M and higher video core) until February 16, a bonus in the form of a digital copy of the game Rise of the Tomb Raider. You can read more about this at, you have two weeks to think.