ranzware
GTA 5 last received a major graphics and gameplay upgrade for consoles, oooh, a million years ago—or at least it feels like it at this point. However, the PC version of GTA 5 Enhanced finally launched on March 4, and I’ve been busy performance testing it with two graphics cards you might actually own from the just-departed generation, the RTX 4070 and RX 7800 XT.
Two performant, mid-range cards, faced with the task of running a near 12-year-old game with a host of modern graphical upgrades sprinkled on top—including ray traced shadows and reflections, upgraded ambient occlusion and global illumination, and the addition of some DLSS 3 and FSR 3 upscaling help to keep those frame rates smooth.
For existing GTA 5 owners, the Enhanced edition update comes as a separate listing in your Steam library, Epic Games account, or goodness forbid, the Rockstar Games Launcher.
It’s a 92 GB install, and players are now greeted with a whole host of new graphics presets in the settings menu: Maximum RT, Very High RT and High RT.
To keep things simple, I’ve elected to test the shiny and enhanced, err, Enhanced edition at 1440p on each of these settings using the in-game benchmarking tool, in addition to some real world testing (read: driving around with my head out the window causing carnage wherever I go).
It’s a difficult job, but someone’s got to do it. Anyway, cruising around the streets of Los Santos, banging into traffic and occasionally causing the odd pedestrian incident reveals both some interesting performance quirks and some rather pretty scenes, so let’s get started.
Test PC specs
Image quality
Before I get into the figures, let’s take a look at a quick image quality comparison. It’s pretty obvious from the get go how much of a dramatic change has been made to GTA 5 with the addition of some fancy ray traced lighting, from much deeper, more realistic shadows to reflections bouncing off of cars as they careen past each other on the highway.
However, while the lighting is much upgraded, one thing that hasn’t changed is GTA 5’s propensity to ruin a photo shoot. I attempted to block off a street in order to create a repeatable environment for some comparison shots and, well, this happened:
Image 1 of 4
Still, I couldn’t have captured more car reflections if I tried, so let’s roll with it. Maximum RT gives the most dramatic result here—with deep shadows, super-shiny reflections, and a generally much-enhanced look. Pay attention to the trunk lid of the car directly in front of Franklin, and you’ll see marked differences between ray traced reflections depending on the settings.
What isn’t so easy to show in screenshots is ray tracing-induced noise. Maximum RT introduces a fair amount of it, particularly in motion, which can lead to the edges of shiny car roofs looking speckled as you drive at speed. You can see a little bit of it on the roof of the grey car behind Franklin in the Maximum RT screen, which appears slightly smoother at Very High RT.
In fact, I’d say Very High RT is nicer-looking in general, producing a much more pleasing effect in motion. More on that later.
What’s also worth noting is the Very High, non-ray traced setting still looks pretty darn good. While reflections inevitably become flat and lifeless, if your particular machine slows to a crawl with ray tracing enabled, I still think you’re going to be pleased with the image quality overall.
That being said, if you can enable ray tracing at any setting without tanking performance, then I’d advise it. You’ll likely be spending much of your time in Los Santos speeding around the streets in a shiny car, and ray tracing really does add something to the experience—not to mention those deep shadows casting ambient streaks across the roads as the faux-Californian sun sets.
Benchmarks
To the numbers, Batman. Both the RTX 4070 and the RX 7800 XT are best suited to 1440p, so that’s the resolution I’ve stuck with—and Pass 4 of the benchmarking tool is the most reflective of actual gameplay, starting you off in a fighter jet cruising over Los Santos before seamlessly zooming in to a car chase, finishing with a spectacular crash into a fuel tanker in the middle of a busy street.
I’ve elected not to add the minimum frame rates into the graphs here, as both cards reported a 10-12 fps minimum at every setting. This appears to be a quirk of the benchmark, as there was no noticeable stuttering in both the scene itself and in actual gameplay.
Well, darn. The RX 7800 XT is normally a good match for the RTX 4070, and often beats it by a considerable performance margin in many games at 1440p. Its ray tracing performance is hobbled in comparison to the Nvidia card, however, and that’s brought into sharp relief here. That being said, it’s worth noting that even with ray tracing disabled, the RTX 4070 maintains an 11 fps lead over its AMD competition.
One thing becomes very clear in both the native and upscaled results—Maximum RT is quite the performance hog
If I was to hazard a guess, I’d say either the game or Nvidia’s drivers have been keenly optimised here, as the AMD card lags behind considerably. I ran the RX 7800 XT’s numbers multiple times with fresh driver installs in an attempt to troubleshoot issues, but nope, it’s simply not a patch on the RTX 4070 in this particular game.
Still, both cards manage to stay way above the magic 60 fps marker at top settings in the most demanding benchmark pass without upscaling help.
Translating this to real world testing, however, yields different results. I noticed the AMD card experienced the odd drop into the mid 50 fps range at Maximum RT native in certain scenes, while the RTX 4070 stoutly refused to go below 60. Chalk up another ray tracing win for Nvidia, I guess.
Enabling FSR 3 at Quality for the AMD card results in a 20 fps jump at Maximum RT, with fairly significant gains throughout the rest of the settings, too. DLSS 3.7 also provides a comparable boost for the RTX 4070, and both upscalers deliver minimal quality losses combined with a decent jump in frames.
One thing becomes very clear in both the native and upscaled results, however—Maximum RT is quite the performance hog. While both cards are capable of smooth frame rates with GTA 5 Enhanced set to the very tippity-top, when combined with the extra noise introduced by the max setting and the minimal visual quality differences between Maximum RT and Very High RT, I know where I’ll be keeping my settings for the rest of my playthough.
I also attempted to test the game on the Asus ROG Ally X, but it flat out refused to offer a benchmark option for anything using an iGPU. Regardless, I did manage to squeeze in some real-world testing, which revealed crunchy, sub 30-fps performance with any form of ray tracing enabled.
Set it to Very High with ray tracing off, however, and it ranges between 40 to 70 fps with ease. Basically, forget ray tracing on the go, as the game still looks brilliant at 1080p Very High settings with everything running smoothly.
Best settings
In my opinion, the Maximum RT preset simply isn’t worth it on either of the cards I’ve tested here. While the RTX 4070 can maintain around 100-110 fps on average at this setting with upscaling on or off, the 35 fps buffer it gains from dropping down to Very High RT means you never have to watch the frame rate as you enjoy the game. And for the RX 7800 XT? It means those sub 60 fps drops completely disappear.
More than that, both of these mid-range, now-last-generation cards are very capable of delivering a superb experience with the provided presets, so much so that I don’t think there’s much value in spending too much time in the settings menu. I played around with the shadows, textures and more to see if I could find an obvious candidate for performance-sapping options, but the gains made from fiddling around with individual settings are marginal at best.
It’s also worth noting that GTA 5’s gameworld is remarkably varied, and it’s simply not possible to test out every single area to find sub-optimal performance. Franklin’s back yard, for example, resulted in significant drops in frame rate likely due to a dense build up of fencing and vegetation.
As a result, I’d hazard a guess there are other parts of this massive world that will cause comparable dips, although similar areas I tested didn’t appear to suffer quite so badly.
Still, sticking to Very High RT on both cards ensures that any frame rate drops have a significant buffer zone to play with, leading to not just a smooth experience, but slightly smoother image quality compared to Maximum, too.
It’s pleasing to see that GTA 5 Enhanced can deliver ray traced lighting at high frame rates on now last-generation hardware, so those of us with mid-range machines can forget about fiddling with the settings and get on with the business of causing some beautifully-lit havoc.
After all, that’s what GTA 5 has always been best at—and the Enhanced edition has served as a personal reminder as to just what a fantastic game it is, even all these years later. So, If you need me this weekend, you’ll find me in Los Santos—staring at reflections and causing traffic accidents wherever I go. I’d stay home, if I was you.
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Kurt Indovina
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