PC Performance Clips from all maps and CPU bound scenario. Season 2.

Hi,

Near the start of S1 i made two posts with ~5min video clips presenting Marathon's PC performance and its heavy CPU reliance (gpu often doesn't reach 100% usage despite not maxing out frames):

Here's the original post with Perimeter, Dire and Outpost from S1.

And here's one for Cryo. Most likely i will not be doing the same post for S2 Cryo.

I made these posts after Bungie's claim that they've optimized the game for low and mid tier PCs.

My computer:
Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Geforce RTX4070 (regular, bland non TI)
32GB DDR4 RAM (3200MHz)

The game is installed on an NVME SSD.

For Season 2, patch notes claim that they have "Implemented a round of CPU performance improvements". So i wanted to see how the game runs.

I play at 3440x1440 resolution (which does not matter as the 4th clip will show). Nvidia Reflex is On on all the clips, capping fps to 138 (144hz monitor) with Gsync on. Graphics Card driver version is 596.49.

On all clips there is an RTSS overlay in the top left where you can see Processor and Graphics Card usage, temps and power draw along with the frametime graph.

Disclaimer - it's difficult to get the same weather and situations in Marathon to do a 1:1 benchmark run. I did run through the same locations though and tried to get fog density as close as i could to the original videos. All graphics settings are the same.

Perimeter S2 (Season 1 here)

Dire Marsh S2 (Season 1 here)

Outpost S2 (Season 1 here)

Processor bound scenario (Season 1 here) I only changed uspcaling in S2 video, i forgot about the other settings so you can dismiss it. Although, that wouldn't change the performance too much.

A few comparison screenshots (all on the same settings, DLSS Quality, they're just snips from the above videos):

Dire Marsh, between Algae and AI.

Dire Marsh, Algae, in front of the blue terrace.

Dire Marsh, overlooking AI.

Dire Marsh, looking at AI's underground entrance.

Perimeter, overflow.

Perimeter, hauler's northern entrance.

Outpost, looking at Flight Control.

Outpost, overlooking destroyed wing form dorms.

Outpost, looking at the sky with 25% render scale (no DLSS), CPU BOUND SCENARIO.

Conclusion - The game runs the same in some situations and worse in others. The cases where the game runs worse are unfortunately places where it really needed an improvement. Algae, entire Dire Marsh to be honest, Overflow. I'm surprised Outpost runs about the same. The game often seems to utilize GPU more in some spots, but you'll still find your GPU chilling while not maxing out your refresh rate or even getting anywhere near it. The worst part is that frametimes are still all over the place. I'd be fine with low fps if frametime graph was smooth. Currently the game, at about ~80fps and lower, feels very choppy, not smooth.

Night Marsh - i tried running the same path as i did on regular Marsh, but it ran about the same so i didn't bother uploading. The frames do drop significantly when it is raining and the fog rises. The distant volumetrics (beams from various lamps) get very artifacty/pixelated the lower your internal res (the lower the upscaling setting). In general i don't think it runs well.

Frame gen - i very much like FG in general. If you use it correctly you'll barely notice the increased input latency, especially in an already well optimized game. I have played through entire Doom The Dark Ages on the highest difficulty with FG on and through S1 and 2 of BF6. Instantly dismissing this feature is a mistake and everyone should test it on their own to see if they're ok with its performance. I recommend checking it in Marathon too on a couple of free kit runs. It is not, however, a fix to the game's issues.