Shadow Of The Tomb Raider Steam
Wan Cabiness
Brought to the PC by famed specialists Nixxes Software, Shadow of the Tomb Raider features several PC-exclusive graphical enhancements, as well as support for higher detail levels, framerates and resolutions. And in a future game update, NVIDIA, Square Enix, Eidos Montreal, Crystal Dynamics, and Nixxes Software will introduce NVIDIA RTX Ray-Traced Shadows to the game, taking visual fidelity and realism to even greater heights.
In this guide, we'll delve into Shadow of the Tomb Raider's PC settings and enhancements, examining each of the game's 18 adjustable settings with interactive comparison screenshots, performance charts, and written explainers, giving you all the info you need to tweak and tailor your graphics and performance.
At a later date, via a game update, NVIDIA RTX Ray-Traced Shadows will be introduced to Shadow of the Tomb Raider, adding for the very first time hyper-realistic representations of the shadows we see in real-life, with support for large, complex interactions, self-shadowing, translucent shadowing, and a litany of other techniques, at a level of detail far beyond that has previously been seen.
This massive leap forward is made possible by GeForce RTX graphics cards, which are the world's first gaming GPUs to include dedicated hardware for ray tracing, artificial intelligence, and other features, enabling us to raise the bar for graphical fidelity in ways that were previously impossible.
Ambient Occlusion (AO) adds contact shadows where two surfaces or objects meet, and where an object blocks light from reaching another nearby game element. The AO technique used and the quality of the implementation affects the shadowing's accuracy, and whether new shadows are formed when the level of occlusion is low. Without Ambient Occlusion scenes look flat and unrealistic, and objects appear as if they are floating.
In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, both BTAO and HBAO+ return from Rise of the Tomb Raider, and as last time, HBAO+ adds more accurate, more realistic ambient occlusion shadows that further bolster visual fidelity.
Performance: With HBAO+, AO shadowing is improved, entirely new shadows are rendered, and detail has even-greater depth and realism, with the smallest of scene elements being accurately shadowed, making it a must-have effect for only 2.3 more FPS than BTAO.
Anti-Aliasing reduces the visibility of jagged edges, while the very best techniques remove all jaggies and tackle Temporal Aliasing, the shimmering and crawling seen on anti-aliased edges when they move or the camera moves.
Pros: Lower impact on texture clarity than TAA; removes virtually all temporal anti-aliasing; good hair anti-aliasing
Cons: Slightly less effective at edge anti-aliasing than SMAA; slightly less effective at hair anti-aliasing than TAA
All options offer acceptable anti-aliasing on edges, though SMAAT2x takes the lead when you factor in its temporal anti-aliasing component that stops those anti-aliased edges from shimmering, crawling and flickering.
Regardless of the resolution, TAA and SMAA4x blur to such a high degree --in an effort to reduce aliasing-- that the dimples on Lara's shirt, and grooves on her belt are impossible to perceive. Similarly, detail is lost throughout the scene, with the clarity of literally every other game element greatly reduced.
With the data, opinions and examples presented above, which anti-aliasing option would you select? We vote for SMAAT2x. It has good edge anti-aliasing, good temporal anti-aliasing, good hair anti-aliasing, a comparatively low performance cost, and acceptable texture clarity.
Bloom takes a backseat to the Volumetric Lighting option in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, adding only a smidge of brightness to exterior lighting, and a glow around particularly bright fires, as demonstrated below.
Performance: At most, the minimally-used Bloom option will set you back a couple of frames per second, and could be turned off without noticeably harming image quality if you're struggling for performance and need to claw back FPS wherever you can find it.
As demonstrated above, and explained by the in-game tooltip, there is zero difference in fidelity between High or Normal in the cinematics and cutscenes used throughout the game, which advance the narrative and highlight cool moments.
With superior performance throughout the game, and graphical parity with DirectX 11, DirectX 12 is recommended for all modern DX12-capable GeForce GTX and GeForce RTX systems. And even if you don't have an eight-core CPU, you'll likely still receive improved performance, which you can easily check by using the game's built-in benchmark.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is launching with support for G-SYNC HDR monitors and other HDR displays, enabling a more natural picture with brighter sunlight, darker caves and tombs, and improved fidelity throughout.
With Volumetric Lighting taking over from most of the prior game's lighting effects, Lens Flares is now typically only seen on flashlights and other man-made lighting in dark environments, as exemplified by the following screenshot:
As its name suggests, the Level of Detail setting adjusts the quality and visibility of game elements to improve performance on slower systems. In practice, that means objects, foliage and geometry will be simplified as the setting is dialed down, before finally being removed at the lowest detail levels.
Performance: On a fast, modern system, Ultra Level of Detail will only set you back 7-10 FPS. On older systems, however, with slower CPUs and fewer cores and/or threads, the cost will be higher, so if you encounter FPS issues try turning the setting down, though we wouldn't recommend going below Normal.
PureHair is Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix's hair rendering technology, which like our own HairWorks technique adds tens of thousands of hair strands to a character model. These hairs move realistically, can be affected by wind and water, and are lit and shaded in real-time by the scene.
In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the 'Normal' setting is recommended for just about everyone, as 'Low' strips back the number of hairs for min-spec users who need to disable and turn down as many settings as possible.
In the normal gameplay position, with Lara away from the camera, the difference between detail levels is far less noticeable, though as Lara walks, runs and jumps, the degree of hair movement and its realism are still affected.
In cinematic, story-driven cutscenes, however, the differences between detail levels are immediately apparent, as Lara almost-always takes key billing, with lots of close-ups and action moves highlighting the immersion-damaging loss of hairs.
Performance: As with other hair rendering technologies, dynamic level of detail scaling adjusts the visual quality and performance of hair on the fly. During gameplay, in the default zoomed-out view, expect a minimal performance cost of just 2-3 frames per second, versus Low, though that number raises to 5 or 6 frames per second when you zoom in for precision sniping or shooting.
If you're playing in Windowed Mode, Resolution Modifier is activated, enabling you to further decrease the game's rendering resolution via a slider. Performance will greatly improve as the slider is dragged down, but at the cost of fidelity.
Performance: If you've got a keen eye, you'll have failed to find any differences between Normal and High in our screenshots, which was the case in every area we examined. However, we did note an additional dip in performance each time we selected High, suggesting it is doing something.
Screen Space Contact Shadows is extremely subtle, is used only in select scenes, and isn't noticeable when you're playing. And at 6 FPS even for Normal, it's something we recommend you only enable at the very end of your tweaking process, when you're already running at your desired framerate and have oodles of performance to spare for an experience with absolutely everything maxed out.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is filled with wet jungle environments, and open bodies of water. In many instances, their appearance is enhanced by enabling the Screen Space Reflections setting, which adds some basic reflective detail, and more importantly, prevents the rendering of inaccurate lighting:
Unchanged from Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow Quality adjusts the resolution and detail of shadows, adding definition, and reducing aliasing, temporal instability and flickering as the quality preset is raised.
Performance: On a fast, modern system the performance between detail levels was surprisingly low in all locations tested. On older or slower systems, however, the deltas may be higher, so if you run into trouble try dropping Shadows down a notch or two.
With Tessellation enabled, floors, walls, wadeable mud, statues, trees, destructible barriers, climbable surfaces, and other game elements gain extra geometric detail that improves their level of detail. Moreover, the added geometric detail is realistically shadowed by your selected Ambient Occlusion technique, and bends shadows cast upon them, subtly enhancing the appearance of innumerable scenes and surfaces for the duration of your time with Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider's Tessellation is a subtle enhancement that may go unnoticed as you dash through the game's environments. As such, if you're in need of extra performance you can safely disable it without noticeably harming image quality.
Texture Filtering, Anisotropic Filtering, and other similarly named options affect the sharpness of textures, especially those seen in the distance, on oblique angles, or on the sides of the screen. Without Texture Filtering surfaces appear blurry, and image quality is significantly degraded.
As in Rise of the Tomb Raider, the best detail level (now called "Ultra"), has a barely-perceivable affect on texture detail and clarity during general gameplay, with only a few objects and surfaces benefiting. Below is an example of a typical scenario, exemplifying the minimal differences between the Ultra, High and Normal detail levels.
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