Watch Dogs Legion Ray Tracing and DLSS RTX 30 Performance

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Ray Tracing and DLSS Together

One of the advantages of DLSS is the performance increase.  This can certainly help when Ray Tracing is being used.  Since we know Ray Tracing in this game takes a big toll on performance, let’s add DLSS into the mix and see if that makes it more playable.

GeForce RTX 3080 FE

Watch Dogs Legion GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition Ray Tracing and DLSS Resolution Comparison Performance Graph

On the GeForce RTX 3080 FE above, we are testing “Ultra” Ray Tracing plus “Quality” DLSS mode at each resolution.  We can see that at 1080p and 1440p it very much is playable.  However, at 4K that becomes iffy.  It’s a lot better than it was without DLSS, but at 50FPS average the minimums did drop into the 30’s.

GeForce RTX 3070 FE

Watch Dogs Legion GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition Ray Tracing and DLSS Resolution Comparison Performance Graph

On the GeForce RTX 3070 FE 1080p and 1440p are playable.  DLSS allows us to get 60FPS at 1440p with Ultra Ray Tracing.  However, 4K is not playable, even with DLSS.  The only way to get up to 60FPS at 4K on the RTX 3070 FE with Ray Tracing is to use the Ultra Performance DLSS mode, but then image quality does suffer.


Conclusion

Watch Dogs: Legion looks to be a graphically demanding game.  Even without Ray Tracing enabled the GeForce RTX 3070 FE is not playable at 4K at “Ultra” settings.  It is only playable at 1440p and 1080p at “Ultra” game settings.  On the GeForce RTX 3080 FE 4K is playable, but it’s on that borderline because the minimums do drop into the ’30s at 4K even without Ray Tracing.

Enabling Ray Tracing on either card takes a big hit to performance.  The GeForce RTX 3070 FE is playable at 1080p with Ray Tracing, but it is not playable at 1440p with Ray Tracing, and 4K is a big no.  The GeForce RTX 3080 FE is playable at 1440p with Ray Tracing, but just barely with Ultra Ray Tracing.  4K is also a no.

The only way to make these non-playable situations is to use DLSS, in fact, it’s required to get playable performance in some instances.  The only way to get RTX 3070 FE playable performance at 4K in “Ultra” settings is to use DLSS.  DLSS also makes the RTX 3080 FE play much better at 4K as well.

Turning on Ray Tracing with DLSS is the optimal way to go.  It will allow you to play at 1440p with Ray Tracing on the GeForce RTX 3070 FE.  It will also allow you to play at 4K with Ray Tracing on the GeForce RTX 3080 FE, in the performance mode.

VRAM

Keep in mind, that all of this performance does not include the burden of the HD Texture pack, or enabling other graphics features like the Extra Details slider or the Headlights Shadow option.  These things will bring down performance even more.

They will also add to the VRAM this game demands.  Already we can see that just enabling 4K at “Ultra” on the RTX 3070 FE exceeds the 8GB of VRAM according to the game.  Turning on any level of Ray Tracing, even at 1080p also exceeds the VRAM counter on the RTX 3070 FE.  To add HD Textures on top of that will only make the VRAM situation worse.  Let’s face it, 8GB of VRAM is simply not enough to maximize the game’s graphics.  It seems 8GB is a limitation, and video cards with 10GB+ will benefit.

Image Quality

Ray Traced Reflections look quite good in this game. It actually adds a lot to the image quality of the game because they have developed so many things that are shiny and reflect. Textures and objects you wouldn’t even think benefit from Ray Tracing, do. While Ray Traced Reflections look good in this game, we would have also wished or suggested that Ray Tracing did more in the game, like Global Illumination or Shadows.

DLSS 2.0 looks good in this game, when using the Quality DLSS mode it makes everything very crisp, and looks perfect at 4K. We can noticeably see degradation in image quality when the other DLSS modes are used, especially Ultra Performance.  We recommend keeping to the highest quality DLSS mode in the game.  What does it matter if you enable Ray Tracing only to have DLSS hurt image quality, so “Quality” DLSS is going to be recommended by us, and it does give you a performance boost with Ray Tracing. 

Final Points

Stay tuned as we will certainly follow-up with more testing and comparisons.  Right now, the thing to take away is that this game is graphically demanding.  Even the latest Ampere architecture has weak spots when it comes to performance and Ray Tracing in this game.  Luckily there are quality options and DLSS, cause you are going to need them to customize a good playing experience without sacrificing too much image quality.

We also see potential issues with VRAM limited video cards, 8GB of VRAM may actually be a bottleneck in this game if you want to use the highest game quality settings and Ray Tracing. Don’t forget there is also an HD Texture pack, and other detail options in the game that can be manually enabled and turned up, making it even more demanding. The game looks great, but it is going to benefit from the latest GPUs to make it look good and perform well.

UPDATE EDIT – 11/1/2020
A new patch for the game has been released on October 30th, after this review, check out the update notes. We went ahead and applied this new patch, and did some re-checking on performance on the RTX 3080 FE and RTX 3070 FE. None of the benchmark data changed for us post-patch with or without Ray Tracing or DLSS. Therefore we do not need to do an updated article at the moment. We will be on the lookout for further updates in the game, and do plan a future video card comparison article using this game in the future. Perhaps by that time, more patches will come out, or driver improvements, to change performance.

Discussion

Brent Justicehttps://www.thefpsreview.com
Former managing editor of GPUs at HardOCP for 18 years, Brent Justice has been reviewing computer components since the late 90s, educated in the art and method of the computer hardware review, he brings experience, knowledge, and hands-on testing with a gamer-oriented and hardware enthusiast perspective. You can follow him on Twitter - @Brent_Justice You can sub to his YouTube channel - Justice Gaming https://www.youtube.com/c/JusticeGamingChannel You can check out his computer builds on KIT - @BrentJustice https://kit.co/BrentJustice

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