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[GymWolf]

It does on mine, even in motion. Use DLDSR guys it truly is important for CD as the engine is very dependant of the native rez.

And no DLAA, it's broken.

My 4080 is not powerfull enough for dldsr, already tried.

An engine should not need stuff like that to look good, i never had to do that with ue5 titles or ubisoft titles, this engine is promising but still young and broken, never played a game that made me question the health of my gpu in the same way crimson does it.

 

[SlimySnake]

Downgraded

Dont go by previews right before launch.....

 

[SlimySnake]

My 4080 is not powerfull enough for dldsr, already tried.

An engine should not need stuff like that to look good, i never had to do that with ue5 titles or ubisoft titles, this engine is promising but still young and broken, never played a game that made me question the health of my gpu in the same way crimson does it.

the new DLSS4.0 and 4.5 make DLSS 4k performance (1080p internal resolution) look almost as good as 4k dlss 3.0 quality (1440p internal resolution). Crimson is using 4.0 and 4.5 and yet it cannot handle these visuals all that well adding a soft and artifact heavy look in most scenes. It feels like im playing a 1080p game with good AA. Decent, but not 4k or anything even remotely close to it.

It does work sometimes when the sun sets and there are no flickering shadows and indoors is gorgeous, but there is definitely something wrong with this engine.

 

[SlimySnake]

This one looks good.

this looks phenomenal. it would be hilarious if this racing game has stutters while driving like samson does even after the 4th patch that released yesterday.

but these visuals, my god. I love the look of the game and the sense of speed reminds me of pacific rift and driveclub. it may not be pushing photorealistic visuals or top tier graphics, but its still stunning.

 

[Bojji]

Dont go by previews right before launch.....

Yeah, I know that final judgment is on my screen with zero youtube compression etc. But game doesn't really look current gen on those previews.

 

[Msamy]

this looks phenomenal. it would be hilarious if this racing game has stutters while driving like samson does even after the 4th patch that released yesterday.

but these visuals, my god. I love the look of the game and the sense of speed reminds me of pacific rift and driveclub. it may not be pushing photorealistic visuals or top tier graphics, but its still stunning.

Yes looks really good

 

[Represent.]

I am buying that racing game day 1.

Finally an ARCADE RACER with Real track design, no open world nonsense, high-end visuals, we need more games like this. Reminds me of the PS360 glory days

This year is actually insane for gaming, banger after banger after banger..

And we close out the year with GTA6, and an Infinity Ward developed Modern Warfare 4 on a completely overhauled engine with rumors of destruction.

FUCK

Not even mentioning, 007, Wolverine, Saros, Phantom Blade Zero, Black Flag Resynced

 

[KyoZz]

I only have a 5080 and i can barely run it at 4k dlss performance with RR on. its 60 most of the time with slight drops to mid 50s at times but i dont notice them thanks to vrr.

if i downsample, wouldnt it have an impact on the GPU?

how can you downsample from 1440p to 2160p? i thought it was the other way around. Is there a guide i can use to try and see if it actually runs well on my 5080?

Im happy with the way the game looks on my tv. its stunning. just not as pristine as it is in your screenshots.

Edit: Just some them on my desktop monitors and yeah, they look fairly close to what im seeing on my pc. Saw them last night on my oled iphone and they looked cg quality lol

My 4080 is not powerfull enough for dldsr, already tried.

An engine should not need stuff like that to look good, i never had to do that with ue5 titles or ubisoft titles, this engine is promising but still young and broken, never played a game that made me question the health of my gpu in the same way crimson does it.

Ah yes I'm using a 4090. What you can try is set a custom rez in "C:\Users\XXX\AppData\Local\Pearl Abyss\CD\save" then open "user_engine_option_save.xml".

Here:

You can see I'm using 3960x1657 from a base of 3440x1440, because DLDSR by himself was too demanding with RR on (DLDSR was 5160x2160, way too high and pointless). For me 3960x1657 was the sweet spot with good IQ, DLSS quality and everything maxed out. With this I have 85/100 FPS, FGX2.
I'd say it's still worth a shot as it really help the game in the IQ even with RR off. I agree it's shitty to have to do this but it is what it is.

SlimySnake with a 5080 RR off you can probably push the game easily and win some IQ/clarity. RR on your perf are tanking much more than mine (thanks to 4K, that's why I went with an ultrawide ^^) so not sure there is a way to do RR on at that rez.
GymWolf with a 4080 I think it's gonna be hard to do RR on. But like Slimy I'd say it's worth a shot to try RR off but push the rez a bit.

Some screens (but you've seen most of them already, just keep in mind that they have a higher rez than my screen which mean it's looking way better in gameplay, as it's downsampling to 1440p)

Spoiler

 

[SlimySnake]

Holy fuck.

Sony studios looking at this like:

 

[Gonzito]

Holy fuck.

Sony studios looking at this like:

Looks great, I just wish there was less noise and flickering in motion. The game can look great in screenshots but in motion it breaks somtimes

 

[KyoZz]

Looks great, I just wish there was less noise and flickering in motion. The game can look great in screenshots but in motion it breaks somtimes

I might do a video to show that it's not flickering (at least with how I set up the game). I swear for real it's pretty much flawless now, 99% of the time.

 

[Abysse]

Looks great, I just wish there was less noise and flickering in motion. The game can look great in screenshots but in motion it breaks somtimes

In theory, restir v2 should solve these problems.

 

[SlimySnake]

Ah yes I'm using a 4090. What you can try is set a custom rez in "C:\Users\XXX\AppData\Local\Pearl Abyss\CD\save" then open "user_engine_option_save.xml".

Here:

You can see I'm using 3960x1657 from a base of 3440x1440, because DLDSR by himself was too demanding with RR on (DLDSR was 5160x2160, way too high and pointless). For me 3960x1657 was the sweet spot with good IQ, DLSS quality and everything maxed out. With this I have 85/100 FPS, FGX2.
I'd say it's still worth a shot as it really help the game in the IQ even with RR off. I agree it's shitty to have to do this but it is what it is.

SlimySnake with a 5080 RR off you can probably push the game easily and win some IQ/clarity. RR on your perf are tanking much more than mine (thanks to 4K, that's why I went with an ultrawide ^^) so not sure there is a way to do RR on at that rez.
GymWolf with a 4080 I think it's gonna be hard to do RR on. But like Slimy I'd say it's worth a shot to try RR off but push the rez a bit.

Some screens (but you've seen most of them already, just keep in mind that they have a higher rez than my screen which mean it's looking way better in gameplay, as it's downsampling to 1440p)

Spoiler

do you have a 21:9 monitor or are you just playing with black bars? thats how i played Death stranding 1's ps5 remaster and Star Wars outlaws so i dont mind switching to ultra widescreen if this game allows it. will definitely reduce the internal resolution and may let me play if i turn on Framegen. it worked really well in samson which was maxing out at 44 fps on 4k DLAA so i might try it in crimson desert.

 

[Gonzito]

In theory, restir v2 should solve these problems.

What's that?

 

[KyoZz]

do you have a 21:9 monitor or are you just playing with black bars? thats how i played Death stranding 1's ps5 remaster and Star Wars outlaws so i dont mind switching to ultra widescreen if this game allows it. will definitely reduce the internal resolution and may let me play if i turn on Framegen. it worked really well in samson which was maxing out at 44 fps on 4k DLAA so i might try it in crimson desert.

Yeah it's a 21:9. Black bars can be a solution if it doesn't bother you, game is glorious in ultrawide honestly
And keep in mind that DLAA is fucked in CD, DLSS quality is way better when you can push the rez a bit.

 

[Bojji]

What's that?

That's what nvidia is testing for path tracing, they removed a lot of artifacts and speed it up 2x or 3x.

But Crimson Desert doesn't use path tracing so...

 

[amigastar]

That's what nvidia is testing for path tracing, they removed a lot of artifacts and speed it up 2x or 3x.

But Crimson Desert doesn't use path tracing so...

Wow, that sounds exciting. But i think it will be only for the new RTX6000 series.

 

[Bojji]

Wow, that sounds exciting. But i think it will be only for the new RTX6000 series.

It's hardware compatible with 4xxx series, in theory it should be even platform agnostic (and RDNA5 should have HW acceleration for it).

Hardware Platform  Thread 'Full path tracing might not be such a GPU hog in the future, as Nvidia claims over 2x performance improvements in new research'

Apr 21, 2026

Nvidia researchers have found how to make path tracing much easier on the GPU

I feel the ReSTIRrings of excitement.

www.pcgamer.com

Ray tracing is one of those technologies that's mighty impressive but also seems to take a mighty amount of time to get right. We saw the first proper go at it with the RTX 20-series, and we're now three generations on and still relying on workarounds to achieve global illumination. One technique to help make path traced lighting more efficient is ReSTIR, and now Nvidia researchers claim to have improved its performance...

• IbizaPocholo
• Replies: 41
• Forum: Gaming Discussion

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[amigastar]

It's hardware compatible with 4xxx series, in theory it should be even platform agnostic (and RDNA5 should have HW acceleration for it).

Wow, that sounds even more exciting.

 

[Bojji]

Wow, that sounds even more exciting.

Yep. Despite naming scheme, this GPU is Ada.

 

[Bojji]

So I played BF4 a bit... and yeah. This game reminds me that people may have some points when they say developers completely dropped the ball when it comes to raster games and things like AO and shadows.

Game uses basic HBAO, but look how well grounded objects are

Compare those cars (AO) to pragmata (those shadows are baked BTW):

Or shadows quality:

Or this scene with RE9

We are regressing...

 

[coachmcguirk91]

Dont go by previews right before launch.....

I am just glad the game isn't running like shit. Those initial gameplay videos were rough. Unsurprising that it got a downgrade

 

[KyoZz]

So I played BF4 a bit... and yeah. This game reminds me that people may have some points when they say developers completely dropped the ball when it comes to raster games and things like AO and shadows.

Game uses basic HBAO, but look how well grounded objects are

Compare those cars (AO) to pragmata (those shadows are baked BTW):

Or shadows quality:

Or this scene with RE9

We are regressing...

While games like RE9/Pragmata are a perfect example of what you are pointing, I'd also note that it's harder to do properly in an open world game, if not impossible.

RDRII is a good example of that: amazing lighting and vistas, volumetric fog, impressive draw distance etc... but then when you look at the inside of a house it clearly lack some AO to make everything grounded (because of different TODs and no backed sources). And even then R* used many tricks to keep a somehow consistent look. On these cases RT can really help.

But it is true that devs have become lazy, or don't know how to properly optimize so we get shitty shadows and such, or don't bother because "RT will fix it". They have no excuses for some of these screenshots.

Plenty of examples exist like Arkham Knight, BF as you pointed out, ME Shadow of War etc... Personally I love Just Cause 3 from 12 (!!) years ago, I think it isn't THAT big of a downgrade compared to some of today's games. And it's running at 300+ FPS on a modern PC



Slap some modern animations, a few shaders, 4K textures and we're pretty good.

 

[Bojji]

While games like RE9/Pragmata are a perfect example of what you are pointing, I'd also note that it's harder to do properly in an open world game, if not impossible.

RDRII is a good example of that: amazing lighting and vistas, volumetric fog, impressive draw distance etc... but then when you look at the inside of a house it clearly lack some AO to make everything grounded (because of different TODs and no backed sources). And even then R* used many tricks to keep a somehow consistent look. On these cases RT can really help.

But it is true that devs have become lazy, or don't know how to properly optimize so we get shitty shadows and such, or don't bother because "RT will fix it". They have no excuses for some of these screenshots.

Plenty of examples exist like Arkham Knight, BF as you pointed out, ME Shadow of War etc... Personally I love Just Cause 3 from 12 (!!) years ago, I think it isn't THAT big of a downgrade compared to some of today's games. And it's running at 300+ FPS on a modern PC



Slap some modern animations, a few shaders, 4K textures and we're pretty good.

Yeah, BF4 campaign had a lot of baked lighting and AO, and end results are quite good.

But this obviously won't work for open world games with dynamic TOD. Path tracing is the ultimate goal, but it's still sad that devs are dropping the ball so much even in linear games...

 

[Bitstream]

Yeah, BF4 campaign had a lot of baked lighting and AO, and end results are quite good.

LOL 2013 game has better raster lighting than 2026. Not sure how we ended up here...

 

[SlimySnake]

So I played BF4 a bit... and yeah. This game reminds me that people may have some points when they say developers completely dropped the ball when it comes to raster games and things like AO and shadows.

Game uses basic HBAO, but look how well grounded objects are

Compare those cars (AO) to pragmata (those shadows are baked BTW):

Or shadows quality:

Or this scene with RE9

We are regressing...

I think its the 60 fps target for base consoles. they ran out of GPU and couldnt even offer FSR2 scaling and settled for spatial upscaling.

We've seen this before in games that are absolutely stunning in some areas, and look like garbage in others. I have posted so much about TLOU2's interiors just looking like garbage even though in the uncharted 4 prologue they had graphics that looked ps5 quality. Look at how the tv is just hovering over there. You go outside that room and the visuals look perfect. If there are poor shadows or AO, i didnt see them. Go inside and its a mess. You would think baking in these effects would result in better visuals but it didnt. And now ray tracing is fixing it in realtime. Go figure.

 

[SlimySnake]

LOL 2013 game has better raster lighting than 2026. Not sure how we ended up here...

its capcom. its RE engine. its their insane desire to make everything 60 fps. the visuals NEED ray tracing. the engine supports it, but they cant add it because its too heavy and they dont bother going back meticulously adding correct shadows and AO everywhere. Ive played other raster games this gen that dont have this issue. Hell, callisto smartly only used RT reflections and rt shadows on consoles (i believe PC got RTAO as well) and it didnt have any of these issues despite having baked GI. But it could only do it in the 30 fps mode which capcom is allergic to unless the game is open world and they have no choice.

This is what RT Shadows and RTAO do for foliage in the Witcher 3 remaster. Look at the how the tree goes from being that ugly light green to finally looking green again.

I remember bitching so much about those light green plants, foliage and trees at launch. I just didnt know they werent getting proper shadowing.

TLDR; baked lighting can work if devs just go with rt shadows and rtao. they are cheap too. but they do have a hit on the cpu and maybe thats why capcom didnt include them on base consoles since they need that locked 60 fps target.

 

[Vick]

RDRII is a good example of that: amazing lighting and vistas, volumetric fog, impressive draw distance etc... but then when you look at the inside of a house it clearly lack some AO to make everything grounded (because of different TODs and no backed sources). And even then R* used many tricks to keep a somehow consistent look. On these cases RT can really help.

RDR2 is also a tricky example because, although certainly the case now, its situation was different at launch.
Before they replaced their insane, artifact free (undisclosed) Ambient Occlusion solution with SSAO, the game interiors and all instances of indirect lighting looked often just as impeccable as everything else.

There might have been some limitations with very small objects, like plates and glasses in the below shots:

But overall when it comes to lighting I feel the game never really felt off in version 1.00. All gameplay shots, most in first person, on PS4 Pro. Worth noting some were only possible thanks to glitches as you were never supposed to freely enter some of these interiors, making them even more impressive imo.

It's funny because at times SSAO is clearly more aggressive:

But it just obviously lacks the realism their heavier original solution had, even aside from the ugly disocclusion artifacts that were completely absent before.
Along with the shading around the eyes and faces in general, or hats no longer shading foreheads, little objects were also pretty impacted by this:

Check the bottom left corner, or the chair.
I almost wish I never spent thousands of hours on version 1.00 because every other version feels instantly gamey in a very annoying way, even aside from the LOD downgrades. I mean this is same exact time of day and wheather:

Check the foliage occlusion behind Arthur:

Or Dutch chest, ear, and his shoulder no longer shaded from his vest:

RDR2 only hope is a current gen version (along with PC update) implementing RT AO, because there's just no way I can see them going back restoring this original solution when they didn't bother porting it to PC.

 

[Bojji]

 

[SlimySnake]

Holy shit. Crimson Desert in DLSS 4k quality looks absolutely insane. It's super clean now. No more flickering. Shadows dont look like they have parkinsons. Everything looks stable. I even started noticing high res textures on distant mountains. Crimson Desert itself looks so much better now. There is so much more detail on the foliage here that DLSS 4k performance was completely butchering. The biggest test was wind in the forest. Trees look so much better now because shadows are not completely going beserk.

I am using Frame Generation to double the framerate. it typically sits around 100-110 fps which means the base game is around 50-55 fps but ive noticed some hitching. There is more pop-in for some reason but its mostly NPCs. Aside from some hitching, the menus dont feel as smooth, but man the game looks absolutely jaw dropping now. I cant even imagine how good it must look downsampled. I might try that tomorrow. Right now, its Soros time.

 

[ChiefDada]

Saros Biome 4 Boss battle is Next Gen AF. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

 

[SlimySnake]

Ok the Saros Prologue/intro level is simply gorgeous. Great lighting. Very Demon souls like. Both in terms of lighting and asset quality. The real show starts when the enemies start shooting and you shoot back,

Sadly, the first real level looks kinda bland. Its not bad or dated like other levels in returnal, but i think lumen or nanite would've helped a bit here. Its outdoors and way bigger than any returnal level though.

I also liked it when the eclipse happened and the level switched to a more of a dusk look.

 

[Msamy]

Ok the Saros Prologue/intro level is simply gorgeous. Great lighting. Very Demon souls like. Both in terms of lighting and asset quality. The real show starts when the enemies start shooting and you shoot back,

Sadly, the first real level looks kinda bland. Its not bad or dated like other levels in returnal, but i think lumen or nanite would've helped a bit here. Its outdoors and way bigger than any returnal level though.

I also liked it when the eclipse happened and the level switched to a more of a dusk look.

I must admit I was slightly harsh on it even no lumen and nanite it's currently the best looking playstation first party title and not even close, that said on this point on generation and no any implmented rt tech is a big let down

 

[BlownUpRich]

Man I am blown away by this game's visuals and art design. It is breathtaking! I took some screenshots.

Spoiler: Here!

 

[GymWolf]

After 3 hours i can safely say that saros look exactly like i expected, a decent upgrade over returnal but still nowhere near the big boys, art design is doing all the heavy lifting, geometry is pretty poor sometimes, another ue5 title that doesnt use nanite, what a waste.

Even without nanite the game still has those brief ue5 traversal hiccups every now and then, but far less than returnal where the hiccups were during combat.

Overall, not super impressed but at least the game itself is fire.

 

[mrMUR_96]

RDR2 is also a tricky example because, although certainly the case now, its situation was different at launch.
Before they replaced their insane, artifact free (undisclosed) Ambient Occlusion solution with SSAO, the game interiors and all instances of indirect lighting looked often just as impeccable as everything else.

There might have been some limitations with very small objects, like plates and glasses in the below shots:

But overall when it comes to lighting I feel the game never really felt off in version 1.00. All gameplay shots, most in first person, on PS4 Pro. Worth noting some were only possible thanks to glitches as you were never supposed to freely enter some of these interiors, making them even more impressive imo.

It's funny because at times SSAO is clearly more aggressive:

But it just obviously lacks the realism their heavier original solution had, even aside from the ugly disocclusion artifacts that were completely absent before.
Along with the shading around the eyes and faces in general, or hats no longer shading foreheads, little objects were also pretty impacted by this:

Check the bottom left corner, or the chair.
I almost wish I never spent thousands of hours on version 1.00 because every other version feels instantly gamey in a very annoying way, even aside from the LOD downgrades. I mean this is same exact time of day and wheather:

Check the foliage occlusion behind Arthur:

Or Dutch chest, ear, and his shoulder no longer shaded from his vest:

RDR2 only hope is a current gen version (along with PC update) implementing RT AO, because there's just no way I can see them going back restoring this original solution when they didn't bother porting it to PC.

I still remember when DF covered this and basically said there was no downgrade and the newer patches look better. I really lose trust in them when they do shit like that, it's objectively way better in 1.00, I remember noticing the difference myself when I was playing it.

 

[mrMUR_96]

That opening looks like uncharted 4 prison - it has similar GFX quality as well (with ugly shadow maps)

What version is this?

PC version was apparently used for the previews. Hopefully it's optimised settings or something because yeah it looks kinda ass.

 

[GymWolf]

Do you people have your black range on tv\ps5 set to limited or full?

 

[Bojji]

Do you people have your black range on tv\ps5 set to limited or full?

The best is to set it to automatic or manually match limited/full set in console/pc.

In the end you should see all images:

And PS5 is switching from RGB to limited YCrCb so with manual limited/full you can end up with fucked up image in 120hz mode (automatic solve this).

 

[GymWolf]

The best is to set it to automatic or manually match limited/full set in console/pc.

In the end you should see all images:

And PS5 is switching from RGB to limited YCrCb so with manual limited/full you can end up with fucked up image in 120hz mode (automatic solve this).

I have both in automatic but the hdr in saros looks wrong, desaturated and too bright.

I swear i can count in one hand with a couple of missing fingers the amount of games with perfectly contrasted hdr that i played in my life, i have a new top of the line oled so the tv is clearly not the problem, i can understand hdr looking shit on pc because between nvidia and windows you have 590589659457698475657 different settings that can fuck up stuff, but ps5 is just an initial hdr setup that is the same for everyone and done, the game hdr should look the same for everyone...

I also found this

 

[Bojji]

I have both in automatic but the hdr in saros looks wrong, desaturated and too bright.

I swear i can count in one hand with a couple of missing fingers the amount of games with perfectly contrasted hdr that i played in my life, i have a new top of the line oled so the tv is clearly not the problem, i can understand hdr looking shit on pc because between nvidia and windows you have 590589659457698475657 different settings that can fuck up stuff, but ps5 is just an initial hdr setup that is the same for everyone and done, the game hdr should look the same for everyone...

I also found this

Many HDR games have washed out image, developers are dumb fucks that "master" their games on cheap LCD screens.

If you can see all images correctly on that image from pure black to white, then at least from HDMI BL perspective your set up is correct (but how to view it on PS5?).

 

[GymWolf]

Some of the models are pretty great in cutscenes, i guess they are at least using metahumans.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

I'm starting to think that Nvidia saved Capcom's ass with path tracing.

(Well not really games are more than just graphics but you get my point).

 

[Myuni]

Holy shit. Crimson Desert in DLSS 4k quality looks absolutely insane. It's super clean now. No more flickering. Shadows dont look like they have parkinsons. Everything looks stable. I even started noticing high res textures on distant mountains. Crimson Desert itself looks so much better now. There is so much more detail on the foliage here that DLSS 4k performance was completely butchering. The biggest test was wind in the forest. Trees look so much better now because shadows are not completely going beserk.

I am using Frame Generation to double the framerate. it typically sits around 100-110 fps which means the base game is around 50-55 fps but ive noticed some hitching. There is more pop-in for some reason but its mostly NPCs. Aside from some hitching, the menus dont feel as smooth, but man the game looks absolutely jaw dropping now. I cant even imagine how good it must look downsampled. I might try that tomorrow. Right now, its Soros time.

Since I've fallen in the ReShade rabbit hole, I've found that using 'Lilium's RCAS sharpening filter' within the RenoDX ReShade addon reduces foliage and grass flickering a lot also. The vanilla sharpener is too harsh. It has kind of a flickering strobe effect.

Crimson Desert really has to be tinkered with a lot to shine truly, hehe.

 

[Gonzito]

Since I've fallen in the ReShade rabbit hole, I've found that using 'Lilium's RCAS sharpening filter' within the RenoDX ReShade addon reduces foliage and grass flickering a lot also. The vanilla sharpener is too harsh. It has kind of a flickering strobe effect.

Crimson Desert really has to be tinkered with a lot to shine truly, hehe.

Its the best form of sharpening available on pc

Lilium's RCAS sharpening filter

 

[GymWolf]

Holy shit. Crimson Desert in DLSS 4k quality looks absolutely insane. It's super clean now. No more flickering. Shadows dont look like they have parkinsons. Everything looks stable. I even started noticing high res textures on distant mountains. Crimson Desert itself looks so much better now. There is so much more detail on the foliage here that DLSS 4k performance was completely butchering. The biggest test was wind in the forest. Trees look so much better now because shadows are not completely going beserk.

I am using Frame Generation to double the framerate. it typically sits around 100-110 fps which means the base game is around 50-55 fps but ive noticed some hitching. There is more pop-in for some reason but its mostly NPCs. Aside from some hitching, the menus dont feel as smooth, but man the game looks absolutely jaw dropping now. I cant even imagine how good it must look downsampled. I might try that tomorrow. Right now, its Soros time.

Did they released a new patch?

 

[sertopico]

Did they released a new patch?

He got the VIP access patch I guess

 

[pepeno]

Did they released a new patch?

No, that's just how graphics work in this game. For some reason a lot of effects/textures/shadows etc. scale of resolution. So the higher resolution the shit looks much better not just because resolution bump.

It's same thing with Ray Reconstruction option in it. RR is supposed to be just extra addition to DLSS. But somehow this setting turns on Global Illumination which has nothing to do with RR, moreover it forces lighting on "max" which also doesn't have anything to do with either RR or GI.

 

[darthkarki]

Ok the Saros Prologue/intro level is simply gorgeous. Great lighting. Very Demon souls like. Both in terms of lighting and asset quality. The real show starts when the enemies start shooting and you shoot back,

Sadly, the first real level looks kinda bland. Its not bad or dated like other levels in returnal, but i think lumen or nanite would've helped a bit here. Its outdoors and way bigger than any returnal level though.

I also liked it when the eclipse happened and the level switched to a more of a dusk look.

Interesting - I found biome 1 stunning. I LOVE the architecture and the rocky terrain, and the lighting is stunning. Honestly I'm not sure what benefits lumen or nanite would bring here - I haven't noticed any issues with low poly objects and not too much pop-in, and the TOD isn't dynamic and the baked lighting is phenomenal. I don't think it would be worth the performance hit - I think Housemarque correctly determined that performance and image quality are the most important factors here.

Biome 2 though - that's where it gets really impressive

 

[Vick]

it's objectively way better in 1.00, I remember noticing the difference myself when I was playing it.

It is, but it's also much, much more demanding. While running version 1.00 PS4 Pro literally sounds like a hair dryer. I recall it was hard to even hear dialogue while wearing headphones ffs.
AO being just one among many other downgrades they had to make for RDR Online, but LOD changes are just as noticeable and annoying.

Of course the noise is a non-issue on PS5, but unless you've got a jailbroken one the game is still capped at 30fps, and has its very questionable checkerboard implementation (which is actually noticeably better in 1.00 as well). On Series X 1.00 at native 4K, the game is still an unmatched spectacle.