MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries – RTX Beta Analysis
Conclusion – There’s a lot of room for improvement
If there is one thing to say about MechWarrior 5’s raytracing supports, it’s that it is a work in progress. There’s a reason why the game’s RTX support was listed as a “beta” feature and why Nvidia has used it as an example of why raytracing is the next big thing for gamers. It just doesn’t deliver satisfying results yet.
While the game’s raytraced shadows and reflections can look great in some cases, in others it is a setting which comes with a high performance cost and doesn’t have a large enough impact on the game to be worth it. This makes MechWarrior 5’s RTX support useless in combat, at least in its current implementation.
When DLSS 2.0 came to MechWarrior 5, it was a showstopping feature. It delivered higher performance levels than before and did so without major graphical consequences. For every area where it looked marginally worse, there was another where it looked better. Turning on DLSS 2.0 is a no-brainer in this game (assuming you own compatible hardware), but in the case of DXR raytracing (in its beta form) the opposite is true.
The major benefits of DXR raytracing can be seen in MechWarrior 5’s hangar hub area, not in the actual meat of the game. Perhaps Perhana games should have invested in a different form of raytracing, like Metro Exodus’s Raytraced Global Illumination, or at least implement raytraced reflections onto the game’s water, As it stands, DXR raytracing in MechWarrior 5 is a disappointment, but it has plenty of potential.
When looking through our screenshots for MechWarrior 5, we can see many areas where raytracing delivers better graphical results than what MechWarrior offered previously. Our hope is that we will see this in more areas in the future, and see the performance cost of these features get lower as they progress through their beta testing.
Right now, MechWarrior 5’s raytracing implementation needs work, but we commend Perhana Games for adopting this new feature into its engine, and wish them the best as they move towards improving their raytracing features.
You can join the discussion on MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries’ DXR raytracing support on the OC3D Forums.
