Enhanced with RT On/Off and Legacy Comparisons

[Chris Winters]

Just some sliders comparing both Enhanced (RT On and Off) and the Legacy edition of GTA V. Personally I don't think Raytracing makes enough of a difference to justify the performance hit, even though it seems to be a rather minimal hit here. As far as graphics settings go, in both versions I maxed out all graphics settings and in Enhanced I turned off upscaling to use native 1440p rendering. No DLSS or FSR here.

There are 3 images for each slider, but only 2 can be displayed at once. You can change the left or right image by using the drop down menus at the top. Enjoy!

GTA V A - https://imgsli.com/MzU1MjIz/2/1
GTA V B - https://imgsli.com/MzU1MjI2/0/1
GTA V B (Night) - https://imgsli.com/MzU1MjI4

EDIT: Adding some extra context here. On my 12700KF/RTX 3070Ti system, the framerate difference between RT On and Off is like 10 FPS. Which is quite minimal compared to other games with RT. With RT Off, I can get a solid 120 FPS, while RT On only brings my framerate down to ~110. This is honestly the most impressive part of the Enhanced Edition for me. The optimisation here seems much better than what I've come to expect from Rockstar's PC ports.

Although the reflections are really nice on certain surfaces (cars and windows mostly, though there are others) I'd personally rather hit a solid 120 FPS since I run both my monitors at 120Hz.

I find the prebaked shadows (and overall shading) better looking in the Legacy edition, but the prebaked cubemap reflections (with RT Off) are better in the Enhanced edition.

Ultimately, however, all of this is rather subjective. It really depends on what you value more. I like eye candy, but I'm willing to turn some of it down to hit minimum performance targets. For action orientated games, 120 FPS has become the minimum for me. Some games, like RPGs, are fine at 60 if the eye candy makes up for the lower framerate, but 120 FPS in action games is a game (no pun) changer.

[Medusa]

Originally posted by Chris Winters:

Originally posted by Medusa:

oh i missed that, but regardless it seems like you picked spots in the game world where the difference would at least be small just to justify your opinion.

No, I picked spots that were easy enough to get to from a fresh start because I don't intend to replay GTA V for the 37th time. I picked an area with water to showcase Raytraced reflections vs baked cubemaps, and the area outside of Franklin's ghetto house because it's right there.

Besides, I didn't really specify much of an opinion in the original post anyways. Just that the difference seems rather minimal, but also mentioned that the performance impact also seems relatively small compared to other games with RT.

I don't exactly know what you're trying to argue here.

"Personally I don't think Raytracing makes enough of a difference to justify the performance hit" this is an opinion, not a fact.
And then come the screenshots where the impact is not going to be the biggest anyway, so...

[Chris Winters]

Originally posted by Medusa:

Originally posted by Chris Winters:

No, I picked spots that were easy enough to get to from a fresh start because I don't intend to replay GTA V for the 37th time. I picked an area with water to showcase Raytraced reflections vs baked cubemaps, and the area outside of Franklin's ghetto house because it's right there.

Besides, I didn't really specify much of an opinion in the original post anyways. Just that the difference seems rather minimal, but also mentioned that the performance impact also seems relatively small compared to other games with RT.

I don't exactly know what you're trying to argue here.

"Personally I don't think Raytracing makes enough of a difference to justify the performance hit" this is an opinion, not a fact.
And then come the screenshots where the impact is not going to be the biggest anyway, so...

Jesus... at no point did I ever claim it was a "fact". I just said it "wasn't much of an opinion". I still don't know what you're trying to argue.

Like, is this your attempt at trolling? Cause I gotta say I've witnessed better trolling attempts on Reddit.

Or did you skip your meds today, is that it? You seem to be rather aggro on this for some unknown reason, and not in any kind of healthy way.

Or are you the braindead consumer who will buy a bag of flaming dog crap just because it has the Rockstar logo printed on it? Is that it? Are you the corpo white knight that can't stand by while someone else expresses an opinion about your fairest Rockstar that doesn't completely glaze them?

Seriously, the level of intelligence you've displayed thus far tells me you might not even be old enough to play this game. How many more times are you going to put words into my mouth, or shift the goal post? Just go away.

[chrcoluk]

How are you switching between legacy and enhanced? I see no instructions for it.

[V I D A L]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3wd9iiLLLI

0:32 shows how much of a different RT GI does.

[Chris Winters]

Originally posted by chrcoluk:

How are you switching between legacy and enhanced? I see no instructions for it.

I just installed both editions. They are separate games in your Steam library. I just launched Legacy, went to those spots and took screenshots. Then I opened Enhanced, went to those same spots, tried to line up the screenshots as best as I could and simply turned RT On then Off.

[chrcoluk]

Originally posted by ÆŁ⚡:

Shadows look more natural and better with Enhanced not much difference otherwise.

Does it actually run as fast as legacy?

[chrcoluk]

Originally posted by Chris Winters:

Originally posted by chrcoluk:

How are you switching between legacy and enhanced? I see no instructions for it.

I just installed both editions. They are separate games in your Steam library. I just launched Legacy, went to those spots and took screenshots. Then I opened Enhanced, went to those same spots, tried to line up the screenshots as best as I could and simply turned RT On then Off.

Thanks, seems I had to restart the steam client, originally it wasnt in my library hence the confusion.

[Chris Winters]

Originally posted by V I D A L:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3wd9iiLLLI

0:32 shows how much of a different RT GI does.

There is a difference, particularly with reflections on some surfaces. But other than reflections the differences are rather small and hard to notice unless you're stationary and looking for them. While playing, let's say driving around LS, those differences are much harder to spot.

[Gay Lord]

Good to see I'm not the only one who didn't notice a difference. I was (surprisingly) able to turn all RT on at high and max every other setting out on my 3060ti and have a smooth 1080p@60fps (props to R* for the optimization) but I didn't notice a difference at all that was worth the gpu usage. I wandered around for like an hour with RT on and off and nothing looked different to me. Like in that video, it looks like very specific cases where RT looks better.

Another case of RT not being worth turning on.

[V I D A L]

Another good comparison.

Whoever doesn't notice a difference, doesn't know what they are looking for. It's not transformative or anything, but it is a good enhancement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNKqmHt-NHI

[IFearSnowman]

Originally posted by TOMMY F34R WOLF:

where HDR Rockstar ?

I was quite suprised to see nothing about HDR yeah

[Gay Lord]

Originally posted by V I D A L:

Another good comparison.

Whoever doesn't notice a difference, doesn't know what they are looking for. It's not transformative or anything, but it is a good enhancement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNKqmHt-NHI

Ok, I do admit those reflections are really cool. Guess i'll turn it on and just turn on reflections.

[chrcoluk]

Checked the comparisons, legacy looks better, this is perhaps the first game where we can compare high quality legacy lighting to Rt, as usually RT games have low quality legacy systems. Thank you for posting them.

[Chris Winters]

Edited the original post to include the following:

EDIT: Adding some extra context here. On my 12700KF/RTX 3070Ti system, the framerate difference between RT On and Off is like 10 FPS. Which is quite minimal compared to other games with RT. With RT Off, I can get a solid 120 FPS, while RT On only brings my framerate down to ~110. This is honestly the most impressive part of the Enhanced Edition for me. The optimisation here seems much better than what I've come to expect from Rockstar's PC ports.

Although the reflections are really nice on certain surfaces (cars and windows mostly, though there are others) I'd personally rather hit a solid 120 FPS since I run both my monitors at 120Hz.

I find the prebaked shadows (and overall shading) better looking in the Legacy edition, but the prebaked cubemap reflections (with RT Off) are better in the Enhanced edition.

Ultimately, however, all of this is rather subjective. It really depends on what you value more. I like eye candy, but I'm willing to turn some of it down to hit minimum performance targets. For action orientated games, 120 FPS has become the minimum for me. Some games, like RPGs, are fine at 60 if the eye candy makes up for the lower framerate, but 120 FPS in action games is a game (no pun) changer.

[Medusa]

Originally posted by Chris Winters:

Edited the original post to include the following:

EDIT: Adding some extra context here. On my 12700KF/RTX 3070Ti system, the framerate difference between RT On and Off is like 10 FPS. Which is quite minimal compared to other games with RT. With RT Off, I can get a solid 120 FPS, while RT On only brings my framerate down to ~110. This is honestly the most impressive part of the Enhanced Edition for me. The optimisation here seems much better than what I've come to expect from Rockstar's PC ports.

Although the reflections are really nice on certain surfaces (cars and windows mostly, though there are others) I'd personally rather hit a solid 120 FPS since I run both my monitors at 120Hz.

I find the prebaked shadows (and overall shading) better looking in the Legacy edition, but the prebaked cubemap reflections (with RT Off) are better in the Enhanced edition.

Ultimately, however, all of this is rather subjective. It really depends on what you value more. I like eye candy, but I'm willing to turn some of it down to hit minimum performance targets. For action orientated games, 120 FPS has become the minimum for me. Some games, like RPGs, are fine at 60 if the eye candy makes up for the lower framerate, but 120 FPS in action games is a game (no pun) changer.

Here i am again....
The performance difference is only that small because the framerate is capped at 120 fps regardless of your settings.
I am just the annoying man here to notify that you don't know what you are talking about.
Sure, if all you care about is the snappiest gameplay 120 fps is better than 90, but honestly if 90 vs 120 matters to you in a game like GTA you must be half braindead.
Anyway, i have just been playing the story mode for a few hours with everything maxed out 4kDLSSquality and get well over 60 fps.
Aside from that i have seen alot of spots where RT adds alot to the atmosphere or technical impression of the game.
Like the guy above me said, if you think the difference is minimal you just don't know what you are looking for.