VR Wars: The Red Devil RTX 6900 XT versus the RTX 3090 Founders Edition (Part 2)

Fallout 4

Fallout 4 uses the Creation Engine, and Bethesda has dropped all support for it so it remains unoptimized although there are mods that may be helpful. It’s difficult to use the Index controllers with it, so we use the Vive wands instead for this game. We benchmark at its highest settings and with TAA. All Fade settings are set to their maximums.

Fallout 4 had some issues on both cards as it is still an unoptimized mess abandoned by its publisher – but it is playable and an amazing full-game experience.

Here is the frametime plot for Fallout 4.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:The Red Devil RX 6900 XT delivered 161.28 unconstrained FPS with 25 Warp Misses and 25 dropped frames, and 8% (445) of its frames had to be synthesized.

The RTX 3080 delivered 167.24 unconstrained FPS with 3 Warp Misses and 3 dropped frames, and it required 158 (3%) synthetic frames.

Dropped frames are more noticeable than synthetic frames and the RTX 3090 delivers a smoother VR experience than the RX 6900 XT for Fallout 4 although it also suffered several warp misses.

Next we look at Half Life: Alyx:

Half Life: Alyx

Half Life: Alyx uses an adaptive/dynamic scaling algorithm which uses a card’s performance headroom to subsample in demanding scenes and to supersample in less demanding scenes. We used its console commands to lock the SteamVR resolution to 200% so that it did not supersample or subsample.

Here is the frametime plot for Half Life Alyx.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 6900 XT delivered 149.82 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames nor any warp misses but with 15 synthetic frames.

The RTX 3090 delivered 184.07 unconstrained FPS and with 3 dropped and 3 synthetic frames with 3 warp misses. Half Life Alyx isn’t particularly demanding until the Super Resolution increased to beyond 150% in SteamVR settings, and the game will subsample or supersample as needed.

Next, we look at Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a visually impressive game using the Unreal 4 engine. It is a dark and disturbing game that is far more intense in VR than the pancake version. We benchmark at its very highest settings and with TAA, and we also increased the resolution to 170% in-game.

Here is the frametime plot for Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RX 6900 XT delivered 108.49 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp Misses, but with 8 synthetic frames.

The RTX 3090 delivered 132.01 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped and 10 synthetic frames. It also suffered a Warp miss.

Hellblade only becomes demanding after the in-game resolution is set to above 150% and it looks great .

Next we look at Into the Radius.

Into the Radius

Next, we will check out another demanding VR game, No Man’s Sky.

No Man’s Sky

No Man’s Sky is an action-adventure survival single and multiplayer game that emphasizes survival, exploration, fighting, and trading. It is set in a procedurally generated deterministic open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion unique planets using its own custom game engine.

The player takes the role of a Traveller in an uncharted universe by starting on a random planet with a damaged spacecraft equipped with only a jetpack-equipped exosuit and a versatile multi-tool that can also be used for defense. The player is encouraged to find resources to repair his spacecraft allowing for intra- and inter-planetary travel, and to interact with other players.

Here is the No Man’s Sky Frametime plot. We set the settings to High which is above Enhanced but below Ultra, and we also set the anisotropic filtering to 16X and upgraded to FXAA+TAA.

Here are the FCAT-VR details of our comparative runs.

The RX 6900 XT delivered 116.19 unconstrained FPS with no warp misses or dropped frames, and 849 of its frames (13%) had to be synthesized.

The RTX 3090 delivered 135.09 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss, and it required 13 synthetic frames.

The RTX 3090 doesn’t need nearly as many synthetic frames, and it also edges out the RX 6800 XT although we do not recommend using Ultra settings for either card.

Next, we will check out another VR game, Obduction.

Obduction

Obduction is considered to be the spiritual successor to Myst and Riven. It is an adventure game developed by Cyan Worlds using the Unreal 4 engine and it has very good visuals. There is an emphasis on puzzle solving which get more and more difficult as a player progresses.

Here is Obduction’s frametime plot.

Here are the details.The Red Devil RX 6900 XT delivered 126.2 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or warp misses, but with 20 synthetic frames.

The RTX 309 0 delivered 153.22 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses, but with 4 synthetic frames. The experience playing Obduction is similar on both cards although the GeForce has about 20% more performanceheadroom.

Next we will check out another demanding VR game, Project CARS 2 that we like better than its successor.

Project CARS 2

There is a real sense immersion that comes from playing Project CARS 2 in VR using a wheel and pedals. It uses its in-house Madness engine, and the physics implementation is outstanding. We are disappointed with Project CARS 3, and will continue to use the older game instead for VR benching.

Project CARS 2 offers many performance options and settings and we prefer playing with SMAA Ultra.

We used maximum settings including for Motion Blur although it looks best to us with on Low or Medium. For lesser cards, we would also recommend lowering grass and reflections to maximize framerate delivery as motion smoothing or reprojection tends to cause visible artifacting.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The Red Devil RX 6900 XT delivered 136.22 unconstrained FPS, with 24 dropped frames, 24 warp misses and 347 of its frames (4%) had to be synthesized.

The RTX 3080 delivered 136.06 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames, 2 warp misses, but it only required 2 synthetic frames. The performance headroom playing Project CARS 2 on our maximum settings is similar for both cards although the RX 6900 XT requires more frames to be synthesized and it had many more Warp misses.

Let’s benchmark Skyrim VR.

Skyrim VR

Skyrim VR is an older game that is no longer supported by Bethesda, but fortunately the modding community has adopted it. It is not as demanding as many of the newer VR ports so its performance is still very good on maxed-out settings using its Creation engine.

We benchmarked Skyrim VR using its highest settings, and we also increased the resolution to its in-game maximum.

Here are the frametime results.

Here are the details of our comparative runs as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 6900 XT delivered 148.84 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames, no synthetic frames, and no warp misses.

The RTX 3090 delivered 190.7 unconstrained FPS with 7 dropped frames, 6 synthetic frames, and 7 warp misses for slightly imperfect playing experience. Of course, many players would prefer adding more mods to the game rather than increasing the resolution, and the RTX 3090 gives approximately 30% performance headroom more than the RX 6800 XT.

Let’s check out Subnautica next.

Subnautica

Subnautica uses the Unity engine. As the sole survivor of a crash landing, the player ventures into the depths of a visually impressive alien underwater world. Here you can explore, craft equipment and build bases, pilot underwater craft, and solve mysteries all while attempting to survive a hostile environment. It is an unoptimized mess, but the VR experience is well worth it.

We benchmarked Subnautica using its highest settings plus TAA, but we left its resolution at 100%, and here are the frametime results.

Here are the details.

The RX 6900 XT delivered 120.6 unconstrained FPS with 28 Warp Misses and 28 dropped frames, and it required 1958 synthetic frames (31%).

The RTX 3090 delivered 117.5 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames, 2 warp misses, and 29% (1838) of its frames had to be synthesized.

The experience playing Subnautica using its highest settings is not ideal as it doesn’t appear to be very well optimized and there are obvious stutters at times which may also be driver related. However, the experience using the RX 3090 is smoother than the RX 6900 XT.

Next up, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is an older game which is built on the Unreal 4 engine and it still boasts amazing visuals although it is not demanding. Although it is considered by some to be a walking simulator, it is also an excellent detective game with great puzzles. But be aware that its style of locomotion tends to make some of its players VR sick.

There are just a few in-game graphics options available, so we set 100% resolution in-game with TAA and then set SteamVR’s resolution to 200%.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RX 6900 XT delivered 289.82 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames, no warp misses and 1 synthetic frame.

The RTX 3090 delivered 287.01 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames, 2 warp misses, and 2 synthetic frames.

Although it is a beautiful game visually, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter isn’t particularly demanding even after the Super Resolution is increased to 200% using SteamVR. The experience playing on both cards is similar.

Last up, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinner is the last of BTR’s 15 VR game benching suite. It is a first person survival horror adventure RPG with a strong emphasis on crafting. Its visuals using the Unreal 4 engine are outstanding and it makes good use of physics for interactions.

We benchmarked Saints and Sinners using its highest settings, but this time we increased the Pixel Density to 150% in game. Here is the frametime chart.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR. The Red Devil RX 6900 XT delivered 130.43 unconstrained FPS with 5 dropped frames and 5 warp misses, and 15 of its frames had to be synthesized.

The RTX 3090 delivered 145.21 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames and 2 Warp Misses, and it required 2 synthetic frames.

The experience playing The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners using the in-game maximum settings and highest Pixel Density is similar between both video cards although the RTX 3090 has about a 20% performance headroom over the Radeon.

Let’s look at our overall Unconstrained Framerates Chart.

Unconstrained Framerates & Synthetic Benches

Synthetic benchmarks are only useful for ranking cards. They don’t predict how any game will actually play in VR on any particular video card.

The following chart summarizes the overall Unconstrained Framerates (the performance headroom) of our two cards using fifteen test games and four synthetic benches: Superposition, VRMark’s Cyan and Blue Rooms, and the OpenVR benchmark. Higher is better. In addition, AMD’s other Big Navi 2 cards are compared with the rest of NVIDIA’s Ampere line-up.

The RX 3090 FE delivers higher unconstrained frames in 13 out of 15 games over the Red Devil RX 6900 XT in this one important performance metric. However, the RX 6900 XT is a significantly stronger VR card compared with the RTX 3080.

We don’t give percentages of change or percentages of increase between competing cards since unconstrained framerates are just one metric of performance headroom that is useless without the accompanying frametime charts.

Let’s check out our conclusion.

Conclusion

It is great to see AMD delivering a card that is performance competitive with the RX 3090. However, the RX 6900 XT only delivers higher unconstrained framerates in 2 of the 15 VR games we benchmarked. In addition, several of the FCAT VR frametime plots indicate the RTX 3090 delivers a smoother experience. However, the RX 6900 XT distinguishes itself from the RX 6800 XT as a faster card for playing at our demanding VR settings better than it does with pancake games and the Red Devil is a fine RX 6900 XT indeed.