CONTROL PC Performance Explored – All In On RTX

RTX Is On & Conclusion

Developer Remedy is back after quite some time since their launch of Quantum Break to deliver on their latest title Control.  Control is a third-person action-adventure game that is heavily story-driven as you make your way through and learn about the Oldest House as well as your powers as Jesse, the new director of the Federal Bureau of Control.  But if you're looking for a review of this game you're in the wrong place, we've got that covered in Alessio's game review.

Control brings back the Northlight Story Telling Engine that was used in the excellent Quantum Break game, but unfortunately due to a rocky start with a Windows Store exclusive and a DX12 only launch the game was met with much criticism around its performance which marred an otherwise fantastic game. Quantum Break later saw a launch on Steam along with a much smoother running DX11 version of the game.  This time around Control will be available on the Epic Games Store and be ready for DX11 or DX12 modes that must be selected when launching the game, although this is a bit of a hindrance to needing to do each time you launch the game. Remedy has spent an abundance of time working on DXR Ray Tracing for quite some time, even releasing a very interesting powerpoint from their GDC 2018 presentation showing regarding how DXR reflections and shadows would be implemented into their engine, so it only made sense when the RTX lineup from NVIDIA came along that this engine would be prime for showcasing.  But we'll get more into that on the last page, on to the testing.

Testing Methodology

Testing a game like Control presents its own set of issues since it's a non-linear game, but primarily indoors and does not have an in-game benchmarking utility we had to set up one for ourselves.  Just because the game takes place indoors doesn't mean there aren't large scale rooms, one being an insanely large furnace room for example, along with a plethora of geometry in each part of the Oldest House. We decided to go with a run from the Central Executive room through the Cafeteria and just into the Dead Letters room. Along this was we have plenty of varied light sources and surfaces to give an indicator of game performance, although we lack in combat sequences in this run the framerate doesn't appear to be too heavily impacted during fight scenes, that is something to take into consideration.  Due to the nature of the game having two different APIs that you can choose between and I had ample time before launch I was able to test with DX11 and DX12 for each card at each resolution allowing for more detailed results than typical. We'll discuss the RTX testing on that page. We tested the game at the High preset but disabled MSAA so that later one we would not have multiple forms of anti-aliasing layered on each other.

Test System

Components	Z370
CPU	Intel Core i9-9900k @ 5GHz
Memory	16GB G.Skill Trident Z DDR4 3200
Motherboard	EVGA Z370 Classified K
Storage	Kingston KC2000 1TB NVMe SSD
PSU	Cooler Master V1200 Platinum
Windows Version	1903 with latest security patches

Graphics Cards Tested

GPU	Architecture	Core Count	Clock Speed	Memory Capacity	Memory Speed
NVIDIA RTX 2080ti FE	Turing	4352	1350/1635	11GB GDDR6	14Gbps
NVIDIA RTX 2080 SUPER FE	Turing	3072	1650/1815	8GB GDDR6	15.5Gbps
NVIDIA RTX 2070 SUPER FE	Turing	2560	1605/1770	8GB GDDR6	14Gbps
NVIDIA RTX 2060 SUPER	Turing	2176	1470/1650	8GB GDDR6	14Gbps
NVIDIA RTX 2060 FE	Turing	1904	1365/168	6GB GDDR6	14Gbps
ZOTAC Gaming GTX 1660	Turing	1408	1530/1785	6GB GDDR5	8Gbps
NVIDIA GTX 1080 FE	Pascal	2560	1607/1733	8GB GDDR5X	10Gbps
NVIDIA GTX 1070 FE	Pascal	1920	1506/1683	8GB GDDR5	8Gbps
NVIDIA GTX 1060 FE 6GB	Pascal	1280	1506/1708	6GB GDDR5	8Gbps
AMD Radeon RX 5700XT	Navi	2560	1605/1755/1905	8GB GDDR6	14Gbps
AMD Radeon RX 5700	Navi	2304	1465/1625/1725	8GB GDDR6	14Gbps
AMD RX Vega 64	Vega 10	4096	1247/1546	8GB HBM2	945Mbps
AMD RX Vega 56	Vega 10	3584	1156/1471	8GB HBM2	800Mbs
MSI RX 580 Armor 8GB	Polaris 20	2304	1366	8GB GDDR5	8Gbps
Sapphire Nitro+ RX 570 4GB	Polaris 20	2048	1340	4GB GDDR5	7Gbps

Drivers Used

Drivers
GeForce	436.02
Radeon Settings	19.8.2

Preset Scaling At 4K

Testing presets at 4K gives us a couple of quick metrics before diving into the game too deeply.  First off it shows us how the game looks at various presets as well as how performance scales with those settings. Control was unique in this one since it allowed for DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) to be enabled without engaging the other ray-trace based RTX features so we wanted to add it into the mix with the High preset along with DLSS (2560x1440 Render) enabled. Remedy has crafted a beautiful world in Control and even on the Low preset it still looks good and gives a very good performance, but we can see that with the High preset paired with DLSS we can near resolution quality while hitting Low preset performance numbers but maintain all the niceties that the High resolution allows for. We used the DX12 API for this test so that we would have access to DLSS.

Intel Core Scaling Performance

While this test won’t tell just how many cores and threads the game can and will use, it does show how the game performs as you move up in cores and threads available. These were tested at the 1080p settings that we tested the rest of the results while pairing the CPU with the RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition we used the DX11 API for this test.

In Control we see that bringing more to the table doesn't necessarily mean more frames. Once you hit 4 cores and 8 threads the improvement is modest at best and shows the game leans very heavily on the GPU for its performance, take it how you will but it shows why the system requirements were lowered some time ago and after the stutterfest that Quantum Break was when it launched I'm happy to see this. And I'm also happy to say that dual cores, albiet only those without multi-threading, need not apply.

Graphics Card Results

This page will be bringing over the testing methodology from the first page and incorporating it to each of the graphics cards that we tested. Each card results are compiled of a three run average using FRAPS to gather the results for DX11 and for DX12 we used FrameView to capture the results and our tool that was built for OCAT to extract the 1% and .1% Lows. For those wondering why we didn't use OCAT this time around the answer is simple, the latest builds have been removed from Github and FrameView is built on the same underlying Presentmon technology.

1080p

Ultrawide 1080p

1440p

Ultrawide 1440p

UHD 4K

Control is going to be a game that really puts the hurt on previous generations of graphics cards whether that be Pascal or GCN based cards. It also continues the trend of showing the strengths of Turing over Pascal and further separating the architectures more than what was seen when Turing first launched. Turing isn't the only one to see a breakaway here, the RDNA based Navi cards from AMD, while suffering on the 1% and .1% lows compared to their competition, prove to be leagues faster than even the Vega based cards with less on board stream processors.

Remedy's Northlight Storytelling Engine has been updated specifically with DXR in mind and it shows in this game. Not only does Control have support for RTX functions it's one of the first games to put more than one feature along with DLSS to the task. Remedy and NVIDIA have several on the move here that all meet up to have a very worthwhile improvement on the game.

Opaque Reflections, Transparent Reflections, Contact Shadows, and Indirect Diffuse all combine in a way that makes the world come to life and look more like a movie than what a video game traditionally looks like. And thanks to the almost grainy look of the game we're able to implement the use of NVIDIA's DLSS and the image stays intact without much scrutiny while bringing the performance back up to a very smooth level across the board. The options go beyond an RT On/Off toggle and have two presets: 1) Medium, which enables RT Reflections and Transparent reflections. 2) High, which enables those two along with RT Indirect Diffused Lighting, RT Contact Shadows, and RT Debris.

The Opaque and Transparent Reflections make the office windows pop with the world around you reflecting, but you can still see through them rather than just making every reflective surface a mirror. This is an especially welcome aesthetic in areas where there are fluids spilled on the floor as it just looks natural. The Indirect Diffused Lighting and Contact Shadows soften the shadow areas and allow for colors to glow off of things in the game world and while it isn't as striking of a change as the reflections while you're playing it helps the mood and atmosphere more than I expected. The last two were very noticeable to the gameplay experience when you turned them off as artifacts from using screen space methods started becoming apparent in areas.

Below is a listing of the settings for Ray Tracing Details along with a listing of the DLSS options as this game allows for some control of the DLSS Render Resolution so that you can target higher fidelity or greater performance. For all of the testing below, we used the same settings as with all the other tests and performed them in the required DX12 mode to have access to the DXR functions.

Ray Tracing Details

Ray Tracing Preset	Medium	High
Ray Tracing Reflections	X	X
Ray Traced Transparent Reflections	X	X
Ray Traced Indirect Diffuse Lighting		X
Ray Traced Contact Shadows		X
Ray Trace Debris		X

DLSS Options

Resolution	DLSS Render Resolution
1920x1080	960x540
	1280x720
2560x1440	1280x720
	1706x960
3840x2160	1920x1080
	2560x1440

Full resolution.  In this scene, you can see just how stark of a difference the reflections make as with nothing in the scene for something like Screen Space Reflections to work with you're left with a blank window while the RT Reflections show all the pieces of the environment not seen that are in the room. But the chair and the phone serve as great examples of the diffused lighting and contact shadows that are in this game.

Full resolution. This scene is a bit more on the subtle side with showing the benefits of the RT Contact Shadows and diffused lighting restricting the visibility of objects that have very little or no light going to them along with shadows around the piping in the bright area appearing more accurate and what you would expect to see.

Full resolution. This scene showcases a good mixture of all the features and how the opaque reflections on the ground can make the wet parts of the ground more obvious as well as the shadows around the equipment and floor grates appearing more accurate. If you look across the way in the background you can even see the reflectivity of the pipes running along the ceiling adding to the scene.

RTX 2060

RTX 2060 SUPER

RTX 2070 SUPER

RTX 2080 SUPER

RTX 2080Ti

Conclusion

This conclusion is going to be split into two parts; one for the traditional rasterized performance and the other for the RTX enhanced versions.

Wrapping this one up with the traditional rasterized version.  Is it easy to run? Not when cranked up, if you're running a mainstream GPU then you're going to want to turn some settings down and possibly work with the rendered resolution. The inclusion of the render resolution along with the screen resolution was a very smart move by the team at Remedy, as this game has a very unique style to it to where that the game actually has a bit of a grainy look to it, to begin with, and it's not impacted negatively by dropping down a resolution class to get the performance back up. That said, this is a game that plays very smooth at 45 FPS or higher and if you've got a wide range variable refresh rate monitor then you'll likely be in for a treat, as this is a very fun and beautiful game. If the way the game presents itself with its already soft appearance bothers you, then I would recommend dropping the game to the Low preset and applying MSAA 4x as that will make the game look like a well, more traditional sharp-edged game but it will lose some of its character.

Now on to the real star of the visual of this game, RTX. In the past, I've seen the arguments that the RTX functions, whether it be shadows or reflections, didn't impact the game that much. The best-received implementation so far has been in Metro Exodus and for good reason as the Ray Traced Global Illumination changed the way the game felt from an atmospheric standpoint. Well, I firmly believe that Control has snatched that title and ran away with it as this game is best played and enjoyed with all of the RTX features enabled. And if you've paid attention to the performance graphs you'll see that even those running the entry to the RTX lineup with the RTX 2060 non-SUPER will not be left out on this one if they're willing to turn on DLSS then at 1440p they can comfortably play with RT set to Medium and if they're at 1080p they can crank everything and get around 60FPS. Without the help of DLSS, there is a pretty significant performance impact but most people can easily get away with RT set to Medium without using DLSS and enjoy the benefits of the reflections that make this game pop. From my experience the use of RT at Medium is a must, and if you have the horsepower or have a hard time telling that DLSS is enabled then crank it to RT High and have the icing on the cake and eat it too. I've been playing it at 1440p on my Ryzen 9 3900X with an RTX 2080 and everything cranked to High along with RT on High and DLSS, I have enjoyed every minute of this game and there's just something that you can't capture in screenshots and comparisons and that is sense of atmosphere this game brings when it is in motion.

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