Lighting is what sets the DX10/11 mode apart and it creates tons of atmosphere.
You might expect a set of metro tunnels to be repetitive, once you've seen one station, you've seen them all. Yet Metro 2033 avoids this trap and the locations vary surprisingly much - there is a lot to see, even if majority of the game does take place underground, it isn't just copy-pasted tunnels. There is plenty of variety and just as you grow tired of it, the story tosses you topside so you can be reminded by the mutant population as to why the survivors prefer to hide underground.
Metro 2033 is a true multiplatform game - the PC version goes visually way beyond the console counterparts. The engine supports DX9, DX10 and even DX11. Sure, the DX11 support does feel like a last minute quick hack, but it is a true DX11 mode with added features. Visuals start from the "Xbox 360" level at low/medium settings and the engine adds better lighting and other additional shader effects as you bump up the settings. Interestingly, you can only switch between four presets (Low, Medium, High, Very High) and while the menu carefully details what individual settings are in use at each preset, you can't tweak the individual settings to your liking. There is also no direct way to enable/disable antialiasing - you either get Analytical AA or MSAA. However, Analytical AA is turned off if you set the game to anything except Very High, so choosing Analytical AA and High, or any setting lower than that, and you get no antialiasing. Very confusing.
Options menu details the different rendering switches used, but you can only tweak the general level of detail.
Texture resolution is generally good, but there are some horrendous exceptions.
DX10 mode improves the lighting of the game a lot, but it all comes at a hefty performance cost. The DX11 mode adds two special features on top of the DX10 visuals - Tessellation and Advanced DoF, which can be individually enabled/disabled. DX11, even with Tessellation enabled, is consistently faster than DX10 at otherwise same settings, so I guess the party line that the DX11 API is considerably more efficient is true. It is not a huge difference, but it is easily noticeable even in normal play.
DX11, Tessellation in use.
DX11, Tessellation disabled.
Tessellation is limited to characters and while it does add more polygons to make things less blocky, working as advertised, the visual difference is very minor. Mostly characters and their equipment get "puffed up" a bit. Anyway, since the performance hit is insignificant, by all means, on DX11 hardware Tessellation does improve things ever so slightly. Advanced DoF, the other DX11 exclusive feature, is pretty much useless on current-generation DX11 hardware. The compute shader based Depth of Field effect is impressive in action but the 30-40% performance hit is an unacceptable trade-off - it just isn't playable on anything short of a Radeon HD 5970 unless you dial the resolution way down.
DX11, Very High settings - playable on the YouGamers recommended setup.
DX9, Very High settings.
DX11, High settings.
DX9, High settings.
DX11, Medium settings.
DX9, Medium settings - playable on the YouGamers minimum setup.
DX11, Low settings.
DX9, Low settings.
The minimum listed requirements are quite realistic - the game looks acceptable and plays well on a GeForce 8800 series card at low settings. The practical requirements ramp up fast once you go past Medium in DX10/11 mode. High in DX10 requires a Geforce GTX 285 or Radeon HD 4890 and you'll still get framerate dips at times. Very High at 1920x1200 effectively requires the latest and greatest - a HD 5850, GTX 470 or better - and even with those you won't be running with the DX11 Advanced Depth of Field enabled for anything beyond sightseeing. Still, don't let the massive system requirements put you off - even Low mode looks very good and actually I'd relabel Metro 2033 graphics options with "High", "Very High", "Ridiculously High" and "You Are Joking, Right?" - sure, the maximum settings demand serious hardware, but that is to be expected - all that high tech shader wizardry won't run smoothly with toy video cards.
For further differentiation, PC version also includes Advanced PhysX option and no, it won't require a NVIDIA GPU. It can be enabled no matter what GPU you have. In advanced mode, you get far more realistic smoke, extra debris and more detailed explosion effects. These goodies do add extra load to your CPU, causing a performance hit on dual core setups, but any modern quad can easily take care of the extra work. According to reports, you can also use NVIDIA GPU PhysX for these effects, but just like with Shattered Horizon, all you really do is move work from the underutilized CPU to the maxed-out GPU, paying the price in frames per second. Setups with dedicated PhysX GPUs (or multiple NVIDIA GPUs in SLI) can probably manage better without slowdowns, but on any single GPU configuration with a quad core CPU, Advanced PhysX of Metro 2033 is best done on the CPU.
Games: Metro 2033
