Avowed is a first-person RPG title set in the fantasy world of Eora. The game is built in Unreal Engine 5 and features absolutely gorgeous visuals. Obsidian Entertainment used key UE5 technologies, such as Lumen Global Illumination (GI), Lumen Reflections, and Nanite, to achieve such spectacular graphical fidelity.
Avowed also used the hardware ray tracing (RT) technique to achieve even greater visual fidelity. However, RT usually has a big performance impact and often reduces framerates in the game.
In this article, we will analyze the world of Avowed with ray tracing On vs. Off and its impact on visual fidelity and performance.
Note: Some aspects of this article are subjective and reflect the writer's opinions.
Avowed Ray Tracing On vs Off: Detailed comparison
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Avowed uses Lumen for both lighting and reflections for the world of Eora. Technically, Lumen is a form of ray tracing, but it has both software and hardware versions.
The software-based Lumen doesn't require ray tracing hardware and can run on most GPUs, including the older Nvidia GTX 1080, which doesn't support RT. The software Lumen achieves a visual quality close to the hardware-based ray tracing without degrading performance too much.
On the other hand, hardware-based Lumen uses more accurate ray tracing for even better and higher quality GI and reflections. However, this level of graphical fidelity comes at the cost of performance. When you enable ray tracing in the game, it uses hardware-based Lumen.
When it's turned off, Avowed falls back to software-based Lumen. Therefore, the game always uses some form of ray tracing. Here's what happens when you turn ray tracing on and off in Avowed:
Visual comparison
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Since Avowed uses some form of RT, the visual experience is quite good. The software-based Lumen does a great job of creating realistic lighting and reflection. Therefore, turning on ray tracing doesn't dramatically change the visual presentation. With RT turned on, the game uses hardware-based Lumen, which is more accurate but is not visible at first glance.
Most of the graphical elements in the world of Avowed look the same with RT on. The reflections are slightly sharper, softer shadows, and there are a few bounce lights in some places, but these changes are so minute that everything appears the same. Non-tech-savvy users would have to really squint their eyes to see the difference.
Performance Impact
YouTuber RIZECEK tested Avowed with ray tracing on their Nvidia RTX 3080 system and found an average 10 - 12 FPS dip in performance depending on the scene. It was tested at 1440p, and framerates went down from the 70s to the 60s when ray tracing was turned on.
The FPS dip is not as bad as we have seen in other games, and that's because the game was already using RT in the form of software-based Lumen. Also, while the framerate drop may not seem that concerning, it would be even worse at a higher resolution like 4K.
Also, the 10 - 12 FPS dip was on a high-end RTX 3080. Budget GPUs like RTX 3060 or 4060 would have it even worse. The same goes for the users who own AMD Radeon graphics cards.
Avowed Ray Tracing On vs Off: Final thoughts
The ray tracing doesn't seem to impact the visuals all that much. While you can see some differences in bounce lighting, shadows, and specular lighting if you stare at it for a few seconds, it won't be directly visible at a fight glance for most users.
Besides, there's a significant impact on gaming performance from turning on ray tracing. Many users may not like the idea of getting lower framerates, especially if you are playing on a low-end system.
The question you have to ask yourself is this: Is it worth losing some performance for a minute change in visual fidelity? The game looks fantastic, even with the hardware RT turned off, so we wouldn't recommend it. However, you can turn it on if you don't mind the dip in FPS.
Also read: Best Steam Deck settings for Avowed