Redfall arrives on PC and consoles beginning Might 2 (or Might 1, relying in your time zone). We acquired early entry to the sport for testing and assessment functions, and since we’re Tom’s {Hardware}, that primarily means testing. We have benchmarked the sport on most of the finest graphics playing cards to see the way it performs and what settings are finest for numerous GPUs.
Redfall makes use of Unreal Engine, identical to Lifeless Island 2. It additionally offers with the undead, although right here it is vampires moderately than zombies. However that is about the place the similarities finish, no less than so far as the video games are involved. Redfall is being promoted by Nvidia, and it options DLSS 3. It additionally helps FSR 2.1 and XeSS, nevertheless, so non-Nvidia customers aren’t ignored.
It is an open world sport (with two completely different maps, although as soon as you permit the primary map there is not any going again). The sport comes from Arkane Austin, the studio behind the Dishonored collection in addition to Prey, Deathloop, and Wolfenstein: Youngblood. The Arkane heritage could be felt as properly, as there are many similarities to Deathloop (even when the tales are completely completely different and unrelated).
Redfall Settings
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Redfall makes use of Unreal Engine, with 4 graphics presets plus customized: Low, Medium, Excessive, and Epic. In contrast to Lifeless Island 2, there is a extra noticeable distinction between the varied settings, and Epic specifically supplies a reasonably substantial improve to the visuals. Actual-time shadows transfer throughout the atmosphere, and the lighting usually simply seems so much higher.
One of many noticeable adjustments between the varied presets is that Low and Medium have weak anti-aliasing (AA) — it is disabled on Low, and I feel it makes use of FXAA Low on Medium. There are many jaggies, regardless of the setting (which you’ll be able to’t see as all of the customized choices are hidden on the opposite presets). Excessive and Epic seem to make use of “TAA Low” as properly, moderately than “TAA Excessive,” although there’s not an enormous distinction.
Separate from the presets are the upscaling and (you probably have an Nvidia GPU) Reflex choices. The sport helps FSR2.1 on all GPUs, XeSS on all GPUs, and Nvidia DLSS on RTX playing cards. It additionally helps DLSS 3 Body Era you probably have an Nvidia Ada Lovelace graphics card (RTX 40-series).
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You possibly can flip by way of the above gallery to see three completely different units of picture high quality comparisons, utilizing the 4 presets. Shadows, lighting, and anti-aliasing are all clearly improved as you go from Low to Epic, although the ultimate step between Excessive and Epic is much less pronounced in some areas of the sport. The dearth of fine anti-aliasing is especially noticeable within the second set of pictures.
(Word additionally that the framerate counter within the first set of pictures is not notably helpful, since I used to be busy taking screenshots. We’ll get to efficiency in a second.)
In case you have the next finish graphics card, there’s sufficient of a visible improve going from Excessive to Epic settings to warrant the change. You may also tune your settings to stability out the calls for towards the visible improve supplied.
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Working rapidly by way of the person settings, the above pictures have been all captured on an RTX 3050 operating at 1080p with maxed out (Epic plus TAA Excessive) settings. We then turned every setting right down to minimal, let framerates stabilize, and grabbed a screenshot. The baseline efficiency was 67 fps, for reference.
Anti-Aliasing: Turning this off barely modified efficiency (68 fps) however the jaggies are very dangerous, particularly in movement, which the screenshot does not correctly convey.
Results High quality: Setting this to low improved efficiency by 6% (71 fps), with little distinction in picture constancy, no less than for the chosen scene.
Foliage High quality: Turning this to low removes a whole lot of the additional foliage (and particles), which may be very seen. It additionally improved efficiency by 12% (75 fps).
Put up-Processing High quality: This didn’t have an effect on efficiency in any respect, so you’ll be able to simply depart it on Epic.
Shading High quality: This additionally did not have an effect on efficiency.
Shadow High quality: Downgrades the shadow map decision and does not soften the shadow edges as a lot, however improves efficiency 12% (75 fps).
Texture High quality: Noticeably reduces the feel decision and solely improves efficiency by a small quantity (68 fps), assuming you are not operating out of VRAM.
View Distance High quality: Adjustments the cutoff distance for rendering sure objects, with a average affect on efficiency (71 fps).
Upscaling: High quality mode upscaling improved efficiency by round 20% (80 fps) on this specific case.
Redfall Take a look at Setup
We’re utilizing our customary 2023 GPU take a look at PC, with a Core i9-13900K and all the opposite bells and whistles. We have examined 20 completely different GPUs from the previous two generations of architectures in Redfall, utilizing the medium and epic presets.
We’re additionally testing at 1920×1080, 2560×1440, and 3840×2160, and we have additionally examined many of the playing cards at 4K with High quality upscaling enabled. We used FSR2 for AMD GPUs, XeSS for Intel GPUs, and DLSS for Nvidia RTX playing cards. Solely the RX 6500 XT and Arc A380 weren’t examined at 4K, resulting from a scarcity of efficiency. We additionally examined with Body Era enabled on RTX 40-series playing cards, which was a bit attention-grabbing, however extra on that in a bit.
We run the identical path every time, however as a result of day/evening cycle (properly, black solar/evening cycle), the atmosphere adjustments a bit. We ran the identical exams in the identical order on every GPU, nevertheless, which saved efficiency constant. Medium was all the time first (“daytime”), after which we might wait a minute for the sport to transition to nighttime for the epic testing.
Every GPU will get examined a minimal of two instances at every setting, and if the outcomes aren’t constant, we’ll run further exams. We additionally run across the map for a few minutes earlier than testing begins, clearing out any enemies (in order that they do not kill us whereas we’re benchmarking).
And with that out of the best way, let’s get to the benchmark outcomes.
Redfall GPU Efficiency
Practically each GPU in our take a look at suite breaks 60 fps at 1080p medium, with the Arc A380 being the only exception. Intel’s A770 and A750 do higher, however the A380 simply tends to be underpowered. For 1080p medium, every part from the RX 6750 XT and RTX 3070 up additionally finally ends up being CPU restricted. There are minor fluctuations, however in any other case we’re persistently at 161–164 for common fps, whereas the 1% lows (the typical of the underside 1% of frames) ranges from 110–112 fps on AMD, and 116–121 on Nvidia.
The sport feels fairly clean as properly, even at decrease fps, so you would play at 30-40 fps in a pinch. You would possibly get a little bit of stuttering on lower-end GPUs as you explorer, nevertheless, so in the event you’re bothered by such issues, strive to decide on settings that preserve your minimal fps above 60.
Shifting to the epic preset drops efficiency on the quickest Nvidia playing cards to round 140–142 fps, whereas AMD’s playing cards hit a barely greater restrict of ~144 fps on the RX 6000-series and ~152 fps on the RX 7900 playing cards. Whereas common fps is greater on AMD’s prime GPUs, minimal fps finally ends up being decrease, however the RX 6750 XT and above common 120 fps or extra, and the RTX 3050 and above break 60 fps.
On the backside of the charts, the RX 6500 XT and Arc A380 stay playable, although the A380 does often dip under 30 fps. There is a catch, nevertheless: The RX 6500 XT solely has 4GB of VRAM, and Redfall appears to auto-adjust texture high quality to be able to keep inside VRAM constraints. 6GB is sufficient for 1080p epic settings, however a 4GB card can exhibit texture popping.
Outdoors of the underside two GPUs, every part continues to be fairly playable at 1440p epic settings. Positive, we’re not operating a bunch of GTX 10-series or RX 500-series elements, however an RX 570 for example ought to ship the same end result to the A380.
We’re nonetheless hitting CPU limits on many of the caster playing cards, and minimal fps hasn’t dropped a lot both. However the playing cards usually are beginning to fall into their “regular” positions no less than, even when the RTX 4090 and 4080 stay tied.
Wanting on the RTX 3070/3050 versus the RTX 3060, it is also clear that Redfall does not require greater than 8GB for 1440p. Efficiency nonetheless scales with GPU compute and the minimums do not present a pointy drop-off like we might see if there was texture thrashing happening.
With 4K, we have added a couple of further exams, because of Nvidia’s DLSS 3 Body Era. Nevertheless, regardless that we’re attempting to do native decision comparisons right here, Redfall does not allow you to activate simply Body Era. You need to use DLSS or DLAA, and so we opted for DLAA right here. That will drop efficiency relative to non-DLAA, however then Body Era helps make up the distinction and so there is a web achieve.
There’s not a massive web achieve, nevertheless. The RTX 4090 improves by 20%, and the RTX 4080 sees a 13% enhance in frames to watch. The RTX 4070 Ti in the meantime solely will get 9% higher “fps” and the RTX 4070 will get 15% greater “fps” — we put fps in quotes as a result of Body Era has another issues happening that may really make it a worse expertise total.
Given what we have seen already, it is not too shocking to see a whole lot of GPUs nonetheless above 60 fps, even at native 4K with maxed out settings. The RTX 3070 and above common no less than 60 fps, however you will want an RTX 3090 or RX 7900 XT if you wish to preserve minimal fps above 60… no less than in the event you’re solely doing 4K native.
Redfall With High quality Upscaling
Our closing chart is at 4K, however this time we have enabled High quality mode upscaling — utilizing FSR2, DLSS, or XeSS as acceptable. There is a quick caveat about XeSS, nevertheless: shadows and another facets of the sport appear to render improperly with XeSS (shadows flip mainly black moderately than simply being darkish). We examined the A750 with FSR2 as properly simply to point out how efficiency differs.
That is the most effective upscaling mode in the event you’re after picture high quality. Most often, whether or not you employ DLSS or FSR2 (or XeSS, assuming the black shadows bug will get addressed), the sport mainly seems pretty much as good as native 4K. If you need extra efficiency, you would additionally allow greater upscaling components, however we did not try this testing.
Usually, DLSS upscaling improves efficiency by round 30–40 p.c, however the quickest playing cards begin to hit CPU limits once more. FSR2 upscaling improves efficiency by the same 25–35 p.c, once more with playing cards just like the 7900-series bumping into CPU bottlenecks. Assuming XeSS is not getting greater efficiency because of the rendering points famous already, fps is 33% quicker on the 2 Arc playing cards we examined.
The increase from upscaling finally ends up being sufficient to take marginal playing cards just like the RTX 3060 and make them fairly succesful at 4K. Even the underside card in our chart, the RTX 3050, delivers a playable end result.
However let’s pause to debate Body Era once more. This time, we get some actual oddities. The RTX 4090 will get an honest 41% increase over pure upscaling, however the RTX 4080 solely will get a ten% enchancment. Then issues get even worse, because the RTX 4070 Ti is simply 4% quicker, whereas the RTX 4070 is definitely 1% slower. Not proven within the charts is that latency can also be greater with Body Era, which is one thing we have talked about earlier than with DLSS 3.
It seems like there is a bug with the RTX 4070 and 4070 Ti playing cards and Body Era. Both that or the decrease reminiscence bandwidth is by some means an element. However proper now you would not wish to allow FG on the 4070-series elements.
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Redfall Closing Ideas
Redfall is not probably the most demanding sport round, and that is most likely good to see. After all of the hubbub over Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and its large VRAM points, having a sport that may ship persistently playable efficiency on a variety of GPUs is good. Nearly every part in our GPU benchmarks hierarchy ought to deal with the sport at 1080p medium.
We’ve not had an opportunity to essentially dive into the sport itself, however what we have skilled up to now appears good. The city of Redfall and the encompassing environs are darkish and moody, because of the black solar, and there is assist for multiplayer as properly — actual multiplayer, not the “break the loop / defend the loop” 1v1 multiplayer of Deathloop. Really, it is as much as 4-player cooperative, so in the event you’re in search of participant versus participant, this is not the correct sport for you.
We’re early within the marketing campaign, so we’ll omit deeper judgments of the sport high quality for now. In case you preferred Deathloop or the Dishonored video games, although, you will most likely take pleasure in Redfall.
Graphically, the sport seems good, even when it does not embrace all the newest fancy pants ray tracing results. No, you are not going to get totally path traced lighting, shadows, and reflections like in Cyberpunk 2077 with RT Overdrive, however you are additionally in a position to play the sport on GPUs from a number of years again with out an excessive amount of bother.
As for the Nvidia promotional facet, aside from considerably spotty assist for DLSS 3 (we’re nonetheless unsure why the 4070 and 4070 Ti did not profit), Redfall does not seem like closely tied to crew inexperienced {hardware}. You possibly can play it simply advantageous on AMD and Intel playing cards as properly. So in the event you’ve been ready for an opportunity to hunt vampires and their thralls, give Redfall a shot.