Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy im Technik-Test

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is not currently in the cinema, but as a game the famous hero squad is making the universe unsafe once again. ComputerBase tests the PC version. The focus was on standards for many graphic cards and also ray tracing, which is constantly used in the adventure of superheroes.

In the cinema, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy takes a breather, on the PC, however, the sympathetic hero continues to fight for the freedom of the universe. Square Enix has big plans for the game of the same name, especially when you consider that Marvel’s Avengers have been so critically received. Unlike the color-blocking superhero squad, Guardians of the Galaxy does not play a multiplayer game, as this time the focus is on the single player experience including the story.

The graphics set the standards, but they have weaknesses

Both games have the same publisher. But most surprisingly, they came up with a different approach. While the Avengers use the Foundation Engine already used in the Tomb Raider parts, Guardians of the Galaxy is based on the Dawn Engine. The background is the various studios: Marvel’s Avengers was developed by Crystal Dynamics, and thus studio Tomb Raider trilogy (testing), Guardians of the Galaxy, on the other hand, by Eidos Montreal, who recently took care of a Deus Ex: Mankind split (test) that uses the Dawn engine . So both companies relied on technology they are familiar with.

Eidos Montreal has developed the engine further compared to its last use, which you can see from the title. Known only as DirectX 12, Guardians of the Galaxy (GotG) has become a truly impressive scorer with diverse and colorful worlds, detailed surfaces, and elegant animations. In terms of ray tracing and high resolution (at least WQHD, a bit higher), hardly any title can keep up with this look. Without rays or only in Full HD, GotG loses much of its graphic flair.

Refinement is weak

Even if the overall impression is very good, Guardians of the Galaxy has to deal with some weaknesses. Refinement, for example, isn’t exactly on the stronger side. Despite the time component of TAA, some objects continue to flash cheerfully even at high resolution. Plus, despite the detailed textures, the game doesn’t look too sharp. It doesn’t help that textures appear in the image every now and then when the camera changes direction quickly. With so many cut scenes, this is quite annoying in some places. And last but not least, LOD runs pretty aggressively, and transitions between different levels of detail can be seen easily. But in the end, none of that can spoil a very good overall impression.

Full “RTX On” software available on PC

Guardians of the Galaxy is advertised on consoles as well as on PCs with ray tracing, where ray technology is used exclusively for reflections. Ray tracing is only available on PC from the start, consoles will follow later via patch.

Since the PC version was developed with Nvidia, DLSS, available only on GeForce RTX, made it into the game, which is supposed to provide a better gaming experience – that is, more FPS – especially in terms of ray tracing. ComputerBase will deal with both technologies in detail in the next few pages.

Guardians of the Galaxy uses an initial launcher on PC that appears before the actual game starts. A few graphics options can actually be set there, but the full range is only available in the game itself. This is annoying because the player is smaller, but gives more detail to some of the options – which doesn’t make any sense.

Presets do not contain ray tracing

With Low, Medium, High, Ultra High, and Ultra, Guardians of the Galaxy offers five different presets, with Ultra combining maximum graphic details apart from ray tracing. Ray tracing is not included in the presets. An in-game upgrade allows the display resolution to be reduced by up to 50 percent. It can be set in 1 percent steps in the launcher, but only in 5 percent steps in the graphics menu.

It is also possible to improve graphics using AMD’s FidelityFX CAS. Also in this case, the degree of sharpness can be configured more precisely in the trigger than in the menu (a value of 20 percent is recommended).

In addition to ray tracing with two different options, DLSS is available including its own sharpness filter and there is also dynamic resolution that offers 30 fps, 60 fps, 90 fps and 120 fps as the target frame rate. The function is currently not doing anything, and there is clearly still an error.

144fps is the maximum without VSync

There is also an FPS limiter that can be configured between 30 and 144 FPS in 1-FPS steps. However, there is no way to turn it off directly, which should not be the case these days.

However, if VSync is activated, the selector will remain disabled in this game as well. If you have a screen with a refresh rate higher than 144Hz, you can do more than 144fps this way. However, some errors cannot be ruled out after that.

Additionally, the PC version offers its own benchmark that shows varying flight sequences. It is unreal. Sample screenshots of individual graphic options are included.

10 GB VRAM is enough for UHD in full detail and RT

When it comes to memory consumption, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy fall behind. From a 10 GB graphics card, there are no problems, even in Ultra HD with the highest settings including maximum ray tracing settings, the VRAM is large enough. Although graphics cards with larger memory have significantly more memory in places, this doesn’t seem necessary – at least the editors didn’t notice any flaws. Even with only 8 GB, the more detailed textures work well, and the test showed no problems with settings relevant to everyday use.

Next page: Ray tracing and Nvidia DLSS in detail