Ray tracing and DLSS/FSR 1440p performance:
Let’s take a look at the eight games we’ve selected that support ray tracing, DLSS, AMD’s FSR and Intel’s XeSS technology. As we’ve already reminded you, while DLSS remains the property of NVIDIA, FSR and XeSS can be used with any card from AMD, Intel or even NVIDIA. We’ve chosen to remove Watch Dogs: Legion since it’s the only game that supports only one technology, DLSS.
The eight DirectX 12 games we’ll be testing with ray tracing, if available, as well as DLSS, FSR or XeSS are :
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider (RT – DLSS – XeSS)
- Far Cry 6 (DXR – FSR)
- Cyberpunk 2077 (RT – DLSS 3 – FSR – XeSS)
- Hitman 3 (RT – DLSS 3 – XeSS – FSR)
- Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (DLSS – XeSS – FSR 3)
- Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3 (DLSS 3 – XeSS – FSR)
- Assassin’s Creed Mirage (DLSS – Xess – FSR)
- Forspoken (DLSS – XeSS – FSR 3)
No change for this new series of games, since we’re sticking with 1080p and 1440p definition, as for rasterization. Since these are entry-level cards, they may suffer from ray tracing in 1440p. Depending on the card, we’ll use either DLSS for NVIDIA or FSR or XeSS for AMD and Intel models. If FSR is not available in a game, then we’ll give our AMD card the benefit of XeSS technology.
DLSS 3: watch out for our results!
As you know, NVIDIA unveiled DLSS 3 with the arrival of the RTX 4000 graphics cards, and in particular with the launch of the RTX 4090 version. So why the warning? Because NVIDIA now offers DLSS 3 support on many games, but this is only supported by RTX 4000s. To put it simply, if we test a game that benefits from DLSS 3, our RTX 4060 Ti will take advantage of it, but an RTX 30xx will make do with DLSS 2, resulting in even greater discrepancies, especially thanks to frame generation. We currently have three games that support DLSS 3, and we’ll be increasing this number over the coming weeks.
But AMD has also reacted by offering its FSR 3, also combined with frame generation technology, which significantly increases the number of FPS. But now it’s time for the graphics, which will speak volumes in terms of performance.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider:
First, which we’re adding to this comparison and which supports Ray Tracing and DLSS 2.0. Three levels of Ray Tracing are offered in the game (medium – high – ultra) and the four levels of DLSS (performance – quality – balanced – ultra performance).
For our benchmarks, we opted for “very high” graphics quality, “ultra” Ray Tracing and “balanced” DLSS.
With Ray Tracing activated in ultra, an average of 89 FPS is achieved in 1080p, and 58 FPS in 1440p. Performance with FSR is far more interesting, even though NVIDIA cards dominate this benchmark.
Far Cry 6:
Far Cry 6 supports DXR and AMD’s FSR, but not DLSS.
For our benchmarks, we opted for Ultra graphics quality, activated both DRX options and FSR in “balanced” mode.
In Far Cry 6, FSR is the only choice available to boost FPS after activating Ray Tracing. So all our cards can benefit, regardless of manufacturer. Our ASUS TUF Gaming RX 7600 XT OC 16GB takes full advantage of this and we can see the very interesting gains obtained.
Cyberpunk 2077:
Cyberpunk 2077 features DLSS and FSR activation in its settings. Note that this was the first game to enable DLSS3 for RTX 40xx graphics cards, as well as frame generation. For our benchmarks, we opted for “ultra” graphics quality, “ultra” Ray Tracing and “balanced” DLSS/FSR.
This is one of our most demanding games, where our cards have a hard time keeping up. Even with FSR enabled to compensate for ray tracing, our card can’t reach 60 FPS in 1080p. As NVIDIA RTX 4000 cards benefit from DLSS3, this is a slap in the face for AMD models.
Hitman 3:
Hitman 3 now supports DLSS, FSR and XeSS technology. Depending on the model of card tested, we opt for one of these three technologies.
For our benchmarks, we opted for “high” graphics quality, “enabled” Ray Tracing and “balanced” DLSS/Xess.
The same applies to Cyberpunk 2077, as Hitman 3 also features DLSS3. Our ASUS TUF Gaming RX 7600 XT OC 16GB therefore lags behind.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora:
One of the three new games we’ve just included in our rasterization tests. It’s a recent game from 2023 that tends to put a strain on our graphics cards. For our benchmarks, we’ve opted for “ultra” graphics quality. This game will also feature in our DLSS/FSR/Xess tests, as it supports FSR 3. The idea is to balance games that benefit from DLSS 3 and FSR 3.
No ray tracing here, so we’ve taken rasterization performance and activated the technologies that enable FPS gains. No DLSS3 here, but FSR3, which boosts the performance of our ASUS TUF Gaming RX 7600 XT OC 16GB in both 1080p and 1440p.
Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3:
We couldn’t do without adding Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3 to our graphics card tests. For our benchmarks, we have opted for “extreme” graphics quality. This game will also feature in our DLSS/FSR/Xess tests, since it supports frame generation.
As with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, there’s no ray tracing here, so we’ll be activating each manufacturer’s own technology. And in that respect, it’s pretty much the same, FSR 3 is now supported in Call Of Duty Modern Warefare 3. We’ll be back in a few weeks with a DLSS3 and FSR3 feature.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage:
As we have a fairly recent integrated benchmark, we decided to add Assassin’s Creed Mirage to our tests.
Our sample of the day here is almost on a par with the RX 7600, and NVIDIA’s model, as in rasterization, stays ahead.
Forspoken:
This is the last game we’re adding, as it will also be used on the next page, with the presence of FSR3. It’s also a fairly recent game, and one that’s also taking its toll on our graphics cards.
It’s FSR3 and AMD’s frame generation that are the most brutal here, especially in 1080p, where the FPS gain takes it from 57 to 154 FPS. It will of course be very interesting to come back to these technologies to see what happens to image quality.
So, ray tracing with the ASUS TUF Gaming RX 7600 XT OC 16GB?
Out of the 8 games we tested, our ASUS TUF Gaming RX 7600 XT OC 16GB had great difficulty with ray tracing enabled. As we all know, it’s the greens that do best in this game. What “saves” our sample is the availability of FRS3 combined with frame generation in compatible titles, but unfortunately too few at present compared with the number of titles compatible with DLSS3.
However, we’ll soon be telling you about the arrival of AMD Fluid Motion Frames or AFMF, a frame generation integrated directly into the drivers. It will be compatible with RX 6000 and RX 7000 cards and can be activated for all games without the need for integration by the publisher. We’ll be back with more on performance in the weeks to come, as soon as the release news calms down a little.
