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.