Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Ray Tracing Performance Tested

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is here at last, or should I say, again. I bloody hate Call of Duty, it's one of the most worn-out and under-innovative series out there in my opinion. However, back in 2007, it was quite possibly one of the greatest gaming experiences I ever had. A fantastic single-player campaign that I don't think the series has ever managed to top. When they revealed that it would be getting remastered, I finally found myself giving half a crap about the franchise for the first time in a decade. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Of course, this being a remaster, it has had its fair share of improvements along the way. Completely overhauled graphics and textures bring it up to the standards of modern PC gamers. Unlocked refresh rates, HDR, higher resolutions, multi-monitor support, 21:9 support, Ansel and much more. What's more, Nvidia really put the muscle into implementing Ray Traced Shadows into the game, helping boost the realism even further. Of course, since RTX cards are the only ray traced accelerator cards out there right now, they're the ones we'll be putting to the test. PC Launch Trailer 60 FPS From RTX Cards? Nvidia says gamers will be able to hit 60 FPS with the RTX 2060 at 1080p, and their top-dog, the RTX 2080 Ti will do the same at 4K, even at max settings! We'll test out the RTX 2060, RTX 2070, RTX 2080, and RTX 2080 Ti today to see just how true that is. Each card will be tested at 1080p, 1440p, 2160p (4K), and again at 4K with resolutions scaling set to 70%. This game doesn't feature DLSS, but it does allow resolution scaling. Drop the scaling, turn on Ansel Sharpening, and honestly, you get pretty damn similar results. Of course, ray tracing does tend to impact the frame rate, which is why we're benchmarking it for you! However, the game only features ray traced shadows, which is a lot less demanding than the more complex ray tracing featured in games like Control. What Nvidia Had to Say "GeForce RTX gamers will be able to achieve 60+ FPS with ray tracing enabled across our entire line of GeForce RTX GPUs, ranging from 1080p to 4K, depending on your card. The GeForce RTX 2060 will enable gamers to play at 60 FPS, max settings, at 1080p with ray tracing enabled; our GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER will enable gamers to play at 60 FPS, max settings, at 1440p with ray tracing enabled; and our GeForce RTX 2080 Ti will allow gamers to play at 60 FPS, max settings, at 4K with ray tracing enabled." - Nvidia Ray Tracing Availability Ray tracing is available now in the single-player campaign, as well as all of the core multiplayer modes. However, ray tracing will not be enabled in the Ground War multiplayer and Special Ops co-op modes Coming Soon And in an upcoming patch, Nvidia will add NVIDIA Adaptive Shading for GeForce RTX 20-Series and GTX 16-Series Turing-architecture GPUs. This cunning tech adjusts the shading rate of pixels on the fly, and is particularly beneficial in dark areas, of which there are many in Modern Warfare’s campaign and multiplayer modes. By doing this, we can improve performance without affecting image quality, giving GeForce gamers even faster frame rates. About the Game Take on the role of lethal Tier One operators in a heart-racing saga that will affect the global balance of power. One narrative connects Campaign, Multiplayer, and Special Ops. Crossplay brings players and the community together. Free maps and modes arrive on all platforms at the same time. The new game engine enables the most photo-realistic environments ever seen in this franchise. And Modern Warfare delivers the largest technical leap in Call of Duty history. System Requirements & Recommended Settings As you can see, the game is configured to run on some pretty modest hardware. Albeit, still higher specification than what we saw from the game 12 years ago, but it has had quite a facelift since then. What does please me is that they say you can hit 4K60 on the RTX 2080 SUPER, without having to just blindly say the RTX 2080 Ti, which is a heck of a lot more expensive. Additional Features NVIDIA Ansel: In the single-player campaign, press Alt+F2 to capture unique NVIDIA Ansel screenshots, from custom angles, and with filters and other tweaks applied. Snap, upload to ShotWithGeForce and other sites, and share with just a few clicks.NVIDIA Highlights: In multiplayer, let NVIDIA Highlights capture your best moments. Multi-kills, kill trades, kill streaks, equipment impact kills, and more will automatically be recorded and saved for post-match editing and sharing via YouTube, social media, and other sites. Our Settings As usual, the game will be set to fullscreen mode, with V-Sync disabled. We tend to keep all our benchmark games set to "high" rather than "ultra" in our GPU reviews, and will do so with this game too with some exceptions listed below. Texture Resolution: HighTexture Filter Anisotropic: HighParticle Quality: HighBullet Impacts: EnabledTessellation: NearShadows Map Res: ExtraSpot Shadows: EnabledSun Shadows: EnabledParticle Lighting: UltraAmbient Occlusion: BothSSR: HighAnti-Aliasing: Filmic SMAA T2XDoF: EnabledFilmic Strength: 1World Motion Blur: DisabledWeapon Motion Blur: EnabledFilm Grain: 0.25Ray Tracing: On/Off (as required) Hardware Used: Intel Core i9-9900K (stock clocks)Noctua NH-D15SGigabyte AORUS Master Z390OCZ 512GB SSDbe quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1000WGraphics CardsGigabyte RTX 2080 TiGigabyte RTX 2080Aorus RTX 2070ASUS RTX 2060 Performance Straight away, we can see that the RTX cards make easy work of Modern Warfare. The RTX 2060 was able to hit 120FPS at 1080p using high settings, so it seems Nvidia claiming amazing performance even at Ultra is bang on the money. The performance dropped off to just 30 FPS at 4K, but the limited VRAM is clearly a factor here. What was amazing is how small the impact of using ray traced shadows was. Typically, the impact was 20 FPS, but there was more than enough to spare. What I do love is that it was possible to hit 72 FPS at 1440p with ray tracing on, which is plenty! Things continue to improve as you increase the GPU power, what a shocker! This card was able to deliver HUGE frame rates even with ray tracing on. 46 FPS at 4K was impressive, but maybe that's a little below what people would want. However, it managed 58 FPS at 4K with RTX off, which is pretty fantastic. The RTX 2080 made light work of the game at any setting also. Hitting 130 FPS at 1080p and 87 FPS at 1440p with RTX on is great for those with high refresh rate monitors. 50 FPS at 4K is pretty decent, and only 15 FPS below RTX off. However, turning on 70% scaling gave us a huge boost, so even just dropping to 80-90% scaling would be all that is required. Well, you get what you pay for I guess. Big frame rates even with RTX on and a pretty empty wallet. However, if you want native 4K60+ without graphics settings compromises, the RTX 2080 Ti is going to get the job done. Where to Buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is available now on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Of course, the ray tracing features are PC exclusive, so don't expect these performance figures on consoles... because, obviously. It's priced at £49.99 for the Standard Edition, £69.99 for the Operator Edition, and £84.99 for the Operator Enhanced Edition. Check out the official site for more details. Overview Honestly, there's not much of a conclusion to draw here, as the numbers really speak for themselves. In a few RTX compatible games, we've seen some pretty hefty system requirements. Enabling ray tracing is extremely demanding, or at least, it can be. Fortunately, the ray-traced shadows aren't the most demanding, but for Modern Warfare, they deliver a fantastic visual impact. The game looks superb even without the ray tracing, but in heavily shadowed scenes, the difference is night and day. Performance What I love is that the performance impact of turning on the ray tracing is just 15-20 FPS on pretty much any card. Hitting big FPS with ray tracing off is easily done even on the more affordable RTX 2060 too. Honestly, I think we've finally found the game where it's not a case of if you should turn RTX on, but more a case of why would you want to turn it off! Great performance, and a way to make an already staggeringly good looking game look even better. What do You Think? What's your take on the implementation of ray tracing in Modern Warfare? Do you think they should have added even more advanced features? Honestly, I think less is more in this case. High frame rates are super important in FPS gaming, especially multiplayer. Keeping it simple and keeping the FPS as high as possible was the right move. Plus, Modern Warfare has never looked so good, with our without its fancy shadows. A fitting match for a game that has one of the most loved campaign stories in FPS gaming history!