The end of last week saw Capcom launched Resident Evil 2 Remake on several platforms, but not all of it. They put just a small portion of the game on offer, a demo that lets players experience only 30 minutes of the game. It is expected to challenge the top-end attributes of the RE engine and also show the technical features developers make for the base version as well as the expansion packs. The PC version has a wide range of settings but according to the demo, for high-end features, you must have pretty competent equipment.
As for how this version challenges the game’s engine. Each version of the demo has realistic apparent streaking for each moving object, you may notice the subtle reflections on smooth surfaces, good lighting effect, and high-quality blur.
All of these elements combine to great effect making the game’s environment looks highly evocative. The way characters are modeled is also of the highest quality. You will be impressed when you see how the zombies respond when they are hit by bullets, or when you notice the movement of Leon’s hair when he plods down a random hall.
The game’s illustration might be of great quality but whether you can perceive it in full depends on the platform you run the game on. If what you have is PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, what you can expect is a 1080p resolution, but if the platform in question is Microsoft console, there is evidence showing that it cannot reach the level of quality of the former two. You can see this clearly by examining camera cuts, which are not under the effect of temporal anti-aliasing. For certain frames, the resolution looks noticeably lower than others.
For more competent hardware, you may enjoy the resolution of 1620p but reconstruction does happen. This can be tested by using a PC version where we can configure the resolution and examine scenes from different options.
Apart from what we have just analyzed, the only dissimilarity is the screen-space reflections and the field’s depth, which might come down to the different rendering resolution. An interesting fact here is the graphics on PS4 is more solid and bulkier than on Xbox One X, which might be the effect of being reconstructed from a low resolution.
However, there is a possibility that the demo we have right now does not reflect the graphics of the official version since the its focus is on the experience when you play the game. Some players who have been playing on this 30-minute demo said that its code may not be the same with the full game.
On the other hand, the game will be out in two weeks so there are reasons to assume that Capcom might want the demo to represent the real resolution. While PS4 and Xbox One X can cope with the 60 frames per second, Xbox One exceeds just a little bit the 30fps with some occasions it reaches the 40s and PS4 provides a resolution from 40 to 50fps.
The game is compatible with PC, which allows players to choose a higher frame-rate and resolution. In a test that involves two configurations, a Core i5 8400 goes with a GTX 1060 and RX 580, which are the best option currently for 1080p. The two can handle the 30-minute demo set at 1080p with ease. There are issues with the volumetric quality and post-processing but they are minor and acceptable. They can cope with the 1440p60 and if you increase the demand to non-reconstructed 1620p, the cards can handle that too.
However, if what you are after is the native 4K without any major problems, the RTX 2080 Ti might be the only option available but expect drops here and there even at this type of hardware.
VRAM meter of the demo is questionable as it is supposed to give you a clear idea of how much memory you need in order to run the game with the settings you choose. When players pick the 4K, the meter jumps to 15GB, but many think that this figure is incorrect.
The reason here is the demo does not perform as expected with a GTX 1060 6GB at 4K but the stutter does not involve texture swapping. With cards of 6GB, 8GB, and 11GB, it seems like the game stream in assets in accordance with the amount of VRAM left, reaching the upper limit of 9.5GB with an RTX 2080 Ti. But this is only for the demo; we still do not know whether this is the same in a wider environment or the official version.
The DX12 implementation also sees this problem, which is suffering from tough performance penalty on Nvidia and AMD hardware. With the current situation, the final product had better fix it.
Players also express the hope that they can remove the half-rate animations on PC. With 60Hz display, when players move farther, the animation rate falls to 30Hz while if they come closer, it gets back to 60Hz. However, this issue cannot be ignored as it shows up in all of the game’s versions and players simply cannot let it go. This technique is common in several titles to somehow spare the CPU of heavy load.
With the PC version, Resident Evil 2 Remake does not put much of a load on the CPU (we are talking about the demo here) so there is no need for half-rate animations. For the highest settings, the tweaks are still there. All we can do now is to hope that these problems will be solved in the official version.
Bottom line, many players have a positive attitude toward this 30-minute demo ever since it is out and say that it is worth a try. It definitely yields and an overall good result on both enhanced consoles and PC. Capcom has done a good job combining one of their ever famous gaming titles and the forefront rendering technology in this Resident Evil Remake. The demo has made fans longing for the final product more than ever before.
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