Rise of the Tomb Raider PC performance retested with new AMD drivers

Performance Impact – HBAO+

 

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a very mixed game, supporting both Nvidia and AMD made technologies. It is commonly discussed on the internet if AMD or Nvidia made technologies, such as TressFX or GameWorks specifically harm the other side, so this testing is to show exactly how much oif an impact both HBAO+ and TressFX/PureHair will have on each side. 

Below is a set of screenshots of the game at max settings at 4K with Ambient Occlusion (AO) Off, AO on and  HBAO+ on, showcasing how the graphical option affects the game. Please click on the images to see them in their full size and resolution. 

 

              

[No AO (Left), AO On (Right), HBAO+ (Bottom)]

 

In this test all other game settings will be turned to their maximum, with only Ambient Occlusion options changing between benchmarking runs. 

With this new driver the performance impact of HBAO+ and even the games standard AO option has been greatly reduced, so much so that AMD and Nvidia GPUs now have an almost identical performance impact when using the graphical effects.