Deus Ex Mankind Divided Tech Analysis/ PC Graphics Comparison

Everything you need to know about the technology of Deus Ex Mankind Divided - plus an exhaustive look at the extensive PC visual options. It's an epic!
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[@phrozac]

Man, I wish Mankind Divided did better. I love this game and really want a 3rd installment of Adam Jensen's series.

[@connectivitytissues1429]

Just bought it for my one x... Years ago I played Invisible war, and loved it... and from what I understand, Invisible War is the worst of the whole lot.

[@phrozac]

@@connectivitytissues1429 True story! But don't miss Human Revolution. Many consider that better than MD.

[@connectivitytissues1429]

@@phrozac will do!

[@connectivitytissues1429]

@Garrus Vakarian so ummm, they fixed whatever people complained about in the 1st game right? Is it safe to buy and play now?

[@SkyGaruda]

It's not about graphic technology it's all about artistry. This game looks amazing

[@Hobojo153]

I love how people are complaining about how at max setting the game doesn't run fantastically. I'd have never guessed ultra is demanding.

[@Jay-sc1em]

people just mad that they need to upgrade

[@UnL1k3]

@@Jay-sc1em Yeah I really need to upgrade my GTX 1080 asap. Newer games like this are super demanding

[@ogaimon3380]

@@UnL1k3 bruh new games like this it's 4y old xD

[@Aries0098]

Well, to be fair... games aren't as optimized as they are today. I mean comparing this game to something like Watch Dogs 2, Doom Eternal, Horizon, Dishonored 2, and AC Valhalla, Deus Ex doesn't look great for how demanding it is (this is comparing with both games small and biggest areas). I am able to match or get more FPS with the other games and they look way better than this.

[@georgkeller3225]

@@Aries0098 iam really sure if it comes to detailes and worlddensity +objects, deus ex is easily about this games your mentioned. The biggest problem is, a lot of people are try this game with 8xmsaa and no other of the mentioned games support this... thats the best antialiasing you can get (my opinion) but in the same time, it will eat your fps from 100fps (ultra) to 30-35 fps (ultra 8msaa) -> tried it with rtx 3080 and rx6900xt. Look at the bodyskin, clothes or Metal objects in DE:MD, it looks definitve better WD2, DoomE, HZD, Dh2 or ACV. The animation is just ubershit bad xD

[@TarTacular]

This is an amazing game, for the content and gameplay that is there - this game was massively underhyped and still is now, I LOVED this game.

[@flyingsnail6079]

If only the animations and faces were as good as the world's effects and textures.

[@miguelpereira9859]

Yeah the faces look really bad

[@matteovukoja1240]

+Miguel Pereira For me, the faces look much better than in HR. I really like them, but they have to repair the awkward animations in dialogues. I hope they launch a patch for it

[@sightseek3r]

The faces look fine. It's the animations where it's hurting in certain parts of the game. Hit or miss honestly. BUT the expressions and animations look great in important dialogue scenes.

[@dark1x]

Yeah, I think the faces and models look mostly pretty good...but the animation is very stiff.

[@shtiken]

Bad animation makes the whole thing seem much less believable and breaks the illusion. I think it's much more important than having sharper textures or better hair or whatever.

[@mrcraggle]

1/10 runs like shit on Ultra @ 4K with MSAA x8 on my GTX 750, 4 gigs of RAM and my 5 year old CPU.

[@DaybreakPT]

10/10 runs at 420 fps on Extreme @ 16K with OGSSAA x64 on my iSBX 275 Video Graphics Controller Multimodule Board (a mildly revolutionary device that was capable of displaying eight unique colors at 256 by 256 resolution.), 32 kB of ram and my 40 year old intel 4004.

[@pureplayin2272]

I know you are being sarcastic, but that sounds like a typical pc gamer as of late. Steam forums are full of gamers acting like games are unoptimized because their overestimated hardware struggles at unrealistic settings.

[@Startrance85]

Your typical Steam user whiner.

[@mrcraggle]

Steam reviews are just toxic. No one just plays a game and enjoys it any more, they're just looking for something to complain about. Even if it weren't for the technical issues, there's still lots of reivews that complain about the totally optional and something you never need to even buy consumables.

[@patrikmiskovic791]

750ti old crap only 2gb vram

[@CarpeDiemKim]

If you look past the terrible lip sync and the shady micro transactions, it is an awesome game and exactly what you would expect from a Deus Ex game. I don't get the review bombing on Steam. I'm playing with no problems with an old GTX 680 at 1080p getting 40-50 FPS on High settings. Just turn off MSAA and still look far better than consoles. I guess it's cool to hate on games now days.

[@theBunater]

yeah but the game stutterd alot

[@theBunater]

+Red Friday stutters

[@TheConor43]

how can it look better than console when they have high settings at 1080p on ps4?

[@ahomicidaltaco]

You having a 680 and decent perfomance is something that confuses me. What CPU do you have? How much memory do you have? I have a 970, and a FX 8370 and I struggle to get the game to run smoothly even at 720p minimal settings.

[@CarpeDiemKim]

+TheConor43 they do not have high settings on consoles, i think there is no volumetric lighting or contact hardening shadows, and the terrible sharpening filter always on. Both consoles are locked at 30 FPS with drops to 20, as you can confirm by Digital Foundry analysis of the game on consoles. With my 4 years old GPU i never drop below 40 FPS.

[@Patrick-S]

Deus Ex needs 7.2GB vram on my GTX 1080 in 1440p! The Textures are amazing though.

[@Patrick-S]

berzu21 In other demanding games it barely goes over 5GB in 1440p.

[@johndesper9425]

It additionally gets terrible framerates relative to the power of Gpus used to run it.

[@DBHHellhound]

+berzu21 i think this a new crysis 3

[@SidOfRivia]

Hey you're the PC gaming community Moderator right? :D

[@Patrick-S]

I DO NOT DESERVE YOUR ATTENTION I'm a mod in the "PC gamers united" community :)

[@gzvid]

This is not only the good comparison but also a nice short preview. Well done

[@winj3r]

When showing each setting, especially on side-by-side comparisons, it would be very useful if you enabled some frame rate counter like Fraps. That way we could see which setting hits performance the most. Even on different PCs, it would give a rough idea of what could be turned on or off for best performance and graphical quality.

[@BicharracoCL]

3/5 David Cages - Too much gameplay >:[

[@Bang4BuckPCGamer]

Loving this game so far, great story

[@Longgshot]

Ambient occlusion on is actually worth considering over very high for the dark aura around characters it introduces in very high.

[@puntybrah]

great video, best settings comparison so far for this game, abit of a missed opportunity not covering all of the settings tho; there are settings like dof, tessellation that i cant seem to spot the difference between settings

[@walterarrua773]

"David Cage Shower Technology" hahahaha the best

[@Dakobra_]

That jab at David Cage was pure gold.

[@SilverEye91]

The game looks really good but I still feel it's a shame they dropped the yellow/black colors of the last game. I know people ridiculed it by calling it "pissfilter" etc. but I really liked it. Especially in the cutscenes where it looked amazing.

[@TechGamesAU]

Playing this in 2023 on a RTX 4080 and it still tanks below 30fps when you enable MSAA, crazy.

[@BigR93]

Well I don’t know what to say…5600x, and a 3090 at 4k and x2 MSAA, solid 60 fps at ultra

[@TechGamesAU]

@@BigR93 try maximum msaa

[@nO_d3N1AL]

As usual, High is the best setting, beyond that it's hard to notice the difference. Given that it's based on Glacier, I'm surprised there's no mention of AMD's performance advantage - or was that just for Hitman?

[@dark1x]

We're working on PC benchmarking now - this is just focused on the features.

[@rici0206]

What Processor will you be using for the PC Benchmark? I read that fewer than 12 Threads can noticeably worsen performance.

[@dark1x]

Maybe a 6700k and something else? Not decided yet. I did all of this capture and testing on a 5820k with 12 threads and CPU was obviously never a limiting factor - just the GPU.

[@incognito76]

thank you very much john , i was worried that you decided not to the benchmarking .

[@Aries0098]

Do all the settings on console come close to the High preset of the PC or are there any other graphic options that are lowered?

[@Pan_Z]

Loved the David Cage bashing :D

[@MerryBlind]

LOL that David Cage poke! haha so random but so good!

[@NoahThomas29]

The graphics difference between human revolution and mankind divided is insane.

[@raresmacovei8382]

NoahThomas29 To be fair, even though Human Revolution was a AAA title, it wasn't really a tech showcase. Batman Arkham, Gears, Assassin's Creed were dramatically ahead of it visually.

[@DJNorwegia]

Awesome Awesome Awesome video DF! Keep up the good work :)

[@TilSkywalker]

4 David Cages out of 5.... Love it :D

[@Thehackerguy2000]

5/10 not enough orange or triangles

[@dark1x]

They need a black and gold mode after you finish the game

[@DaybreakPT]

You mean white and blue right?

[@1moe7]

Dude I'd love the black and gold back. I feel like it'd work best at night though

[@TheLenny655]

Dont worry there are modders for that

[@felisasininus1784]

You mean piss and triangles.

[@dakrawnikg4480]

Deus EX performance review: Although I didn't show the results, I did try the RX 480 flashed to the 4GB BIOS and performance was identical to the 8GB model, even when using the Ultra quality preset. -TechSpot

[@rvymvn]

background music? it's amazing

[@JayJapanB]

It's the soundtrack from the game. You can find it on KZbin to listen to and buy it online if you like it. Also, yes, I agree.

[@rvymvn]

You learning Japanese?

[@JayJapanB]

Yeah, though believe it or not it has nothing to do with my user name. What's up?

[@rvymvn]

Oh right. Was just asking because I'm also studying the language. Nice to come across another student

[@stevenc4477]

I chose to buy it on ps4 cause I just like physical copies better. Even though I have a high end rig. But that is just me if you like digital copies good for you. I'll probably get on pc in the far future on steam sale.

[@no_misaki]

That's the dumbest shit i've read today.

[@OcarinaofKillingTime]

the sharpening filter looks great imo.

[@jack4409]

This is the jump we should have seen with Fallout 4

[@DarkHalmut]

Can you guys do a video explaining sharpening filters? I literally could not tell if you were showing it on or off in this video.

[@Mattscreative]

the perfect example of amd's gpuopen as a tech in games the dawn engine is built from it and gives AMD and GCN cards a huge advantage and soon a even bigger one with dx12

[@J0niex]

Ty for the video DF John. Will we get to see RX480 vs 1060 and a comparison between other cards anytime soon? Thanks :D

[@Facade19]

Picking it up tomorrow!

[@Eysc]

i would love that seamless transition in fallout, the loading screens it's a turn off.

[@princedizzy3506]

Good to see the consoles matching the high preset.

[@SadalDay]

Thanks DF !

[@00HoODBoy]

i fucking love this Video!! please continue to do this kind of analysis

[@mattlandry]

Great video!

[@Klarden]

EMOTIONS out of David Cage for showers. I actually expected this engine to be also based on Crystal Dynamic's tech (especially given NIXXES involvement), so it's interesting that they went with IO tech instead. I guess just so the city feels more alive with many NPCs.

[@Koeras16]

I7 3770 oc at 4,3 GHz, GTX 770 4GB GDDR5. Steady 30 FPS at max settings. No MSAA, and textures are set to "High" since Very High or Ultra tends to go way above 4GB VRAM. Can't complain. (1920x1080p)

[@KrazyBean14]

So can I run it on High at 60fps with a i7-4770K, 16GB RAM and a GTX 970?

[@ericimi]

wonder what settings I will need to run this at 1440p with a decent frame rate (1070 i5 4690 at 4.4 16 gigs of ram)

[@ToTheNines87368]

Beautiful looking game, I'll give it that.

[@Jonlyjo]

DX12 isnt in it yet, or is it? I would be interested what DX12 changes in effects and performance. And question for the comments, how good does it run on a R9 270x. The devs said that the minimum req. are for 720p 30fps on low preset which would be under the Xbox One in Form of visuells. And seeing a HD7870 is for min req. I fear it will run worse on my pc then on my xbox one which sounds not really right. So does someone have a R9 270X and can tell me how well the game runs for him/her?

[@ElRicoPico]

What about cloth physics on and off comparisons? I really didn't notice much of a difference with it on or off.

[@Zockanumber1]

I have a lenovo y50 and a ps4 which should I get the Game for

[@Sazime]

"David Cage Shower Technology" should be the standard from which we judge all games. XD

[@jefferycoleman3781]

This game looks incredible with a good pc, I'm running a ryzen 1600af, 16gb ram, and an xfx rx 480 gtr 8gb. On the highest settings at 1080p average 45fps.

[@Tommek461991]

1440 p with ultra except of shadows and aa just (4 times). 45 FPS too with a rx580 Nitro

[@NicheGames]

I don't like the lightning in Prague (Day). Would have been better is he weather would have been set to cloudy weather with a lightning more grayish/darker. For the other areas, Dubai, Prague by night/Curfew, Garm and Golem City's ambiances are good. But a lots of time is spent in Prague day... Also, running the game with all the options use a lots of ressources. Could have been better optimized IMHO.

[@Solidariity]

I have a laptop with an i5-6300, 960m and an Xbox one S. Which platform should I get this game for? Someone please help

[@acoye42]

The david cage rating, perfect :D

[@DarkHalmut]

Difference between Paralax Occlusion Mapping and Tesselation?

[@kodeypatterson8973]

Thanks for breaking it down for PC!

[@sebastiandurando2493]

It's cool that they included so many options, specially FoV, I still don't get why so many games don't include that option.

[@vamp28k]

What are the fps results for PS4 and XO?

[@zman2748]

can i play 60fps on the very high preset no msaa on a gtx 970 i5?

[@TripleLiquid]

It would have been interesting if you could have compared the techniques used in the game compared to what else is available, for example different ways of doing AA.

[@bmdshred77]

My gtx 970 died so I'm using my old trusty gtx 760. Still played well at 1080 p high settings. 30 to 45fps

[@bmdshred77]

Don't go below high. Looks bad below that

[@Complextro93kg]

What about 960? is this game any good? worth buying?

[@Kiseki_Fan2k24]

i7 6700k, GTX 1080FE, and 16GB of RAM here. Game runs flawlessly at 1080p with everything maxed MSAA OFF. Averaging 80FPS with Vsync OFF

[@rphxleonine]

I would hope that you could max it with a GTX 1080 at 1080p. That's a powerful card. Have you tried using DSR to run the game at 2K/4K?

[@cieuxlux9617]

i5-3570k / 1070 ACX FTW / 1440p - gets no lower than 45 FPS, but I have advanced cloth physics off since keeping them on seemed to dip my frames below 37. I've seen the VRAM usage go all the way up to 7.6 GB which is insane, but atleast the textures look really nice. The game doesn't seem to be very CPU bound, it's definitely a memory bandwith type of deal, just a simple 200 MHz / 8.4 GHz effective boost gave me +6 FPS

[@cieuxlux9617]

oh sorry, forgot to mention it's all on Ultra

[@swampsy]

I'm surprised you didn't talk about the tessellation setting on pc, its not something I have seen in any other game before - hopefully this will become the next evolution of parallax occlusion mapping

[@gameguy301]

no mention of the future DX12 support?

[@XTr3m3b4sh]

God, the game looks gorgeous on high - ultra :D Can you make a few Low to medium spec PC Frame Rate Tests ? Im afraid that the game wont run well on my machine... I have a AMD FX 6300 CPU, 8 Gigs of RAM and a GTX 750 TI. Do you think I could play on medium - high with constant 45 - 60 Frames ?

[@whydoineedahandle793]

Anyone know why the Samsung A5 can't view 1080p 60fps videos without constantly freezing?

[@hark4173]

Oh man i can't believe this is 8 yrs old! I remember this was the first game that really taxed my, then, brand new GTX 1070!

[@wb3123]

Game is great and performs well with mix of high, very high settings and MSAA turned off on lower end hardware at 1080p. Running this game at ultra is a big challenge and really hard at 4k and 1440p. It brings even GTX 1080 to it's knees at those settings but I haven't seen TitanX(Pascal) performance yet.

[@wb3123]

+Rick Exactly my dude. Game is sick though and I'm enjoying it with mix of medium and very high settings at 1080p and getting solid 60 fps most of the time :)

[@wb3123]

+Rick I have GTX 970 and i7-2600k OCed to 4.2 GHz. The game is GPU bound and not so much dependant on CPU.

[@Who-Uhm-Cares]

+Rick Graphics are mediocre I just don't understand how such an decent looking game is so demanding it makes no since. It definitely has to be optimization problems.

[@MilkBreakMinecraft]

With a few tweaks this game runs really well on my PC. Still, I don't like to make compromises in graphics settings when I spend $500 on a graphics card... The game however really feels like the last one, which in my opinion is no problem at all.

[@clarenceboddicker6679]

I know a single Titan X Pascal can't run this game at a solid 60fps with a 4K resolution and ultra settings but does anyone know if two 1080s in SLI can run it at a near solid 60 fps with 4K and ultra settings?. I'm interested in knowing if my two 1080s will do a much better job at running this game at 4K/ ultra graphics settings.

[@javiermd5835]

Clarence Boddicker I have 1080 ti SLI and I have to turn off Contact Hardening Shadows . In some areas it takes me 20fps . Take that setting off and you'll get 60fps

[@CrossplatformGamerMasterRace]

would be nice to get a render scale

[@marekvrbka]

Prague looks like.... Prague. I really like how sometimes, you see Czech words on offer, it gives edge to Czech speakers.

[@madfinntech]

Funny part is that the game looks more appealing at low settings than very high minus the volumetric lightining or just disable depth of field and motion blur.

[@johnjcb4690]

IT seems the PC Reqs exceed the actual graphical prowess of the tile, compared to other games. At 8 core CPU, 16-32GB RAM and 8 GB VRAM these graphics should be better

[@bassmickey]

Digitally foundry is like that university professor you don't wanna show your project cuz it's gonna get torn apart

[@xen9235]

i'll wait for the scorpio analysis

[@Jurigag]

POM is really POM ? Or it's tesselation ?

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

Honestly the way to fix those placement issues in takedowns would be to stop using canned animations for them. Just let me press a button to punch the enemy and make them fall over. Or make it a first-person "grab" the way Crisis does it, that seems to work fine. Taking control away from me to show me some fancy kung fu animation I have no input on is irritating anyway.

[@balestre4141]

Given the low framerates G sync is a blessing on this game.

[@wickedhero3764]

What is Ps4 Possible Setting?

[@mattpage5505]

can someone please tell me what I'd need to set the game on to get a stable 30 fps in this game.. with my adorable 660 and i5 3470?

[@mattpage5505]

and how it would stack up to consoles, roughly

[@Adrian429351]

High presets is the same in consoles very good work

[@TheConor43]

The requirements are high cus its not very optimized. Also dx12 support is coming so that may help

[@playcloudpluspc]

Purehair is based on AMD's TressFX.

[@Kharnivore2099]

Would be cool to see what the minimum spec needed to reach 30fps at console settings is. Would be nice to see console users getting a choice of a decent frame rate over graphics too.

[@Eonymia]

Temporal AA has negligible effect on performance though. It's only slightly more demanding than FXAA.

[@DozifJuggles]

mmmm dat emotional shower graphics tho

[@XxUltimateGodzXx]

Wow even in late 2016 consoles still come in to games almost at max settings. High settings(with atleast veryhigh textures on ps4 due to the high amount of vram) at 1080p is amazing for a 1.84tflop system.

[@killermoon635]

Almost max settings ?! Are you joking ? high is not even close to ultra in system requirement. You don't need expensive PC to play on consoles settings with 1080p and 30fps (console drops below 30fps in some scenes)

[@XxUltimateGodzXx]

maroom1 since when do system requirements determine the quality of graphics. That makes no sense high is EXTREMELY CLOSE to ultra in graphics. And well to play high on this game a console like pc will most likey look and perform worse. 2gb cards will not play this game at consoles settings.

[@aashkaran2006]

ultra and high are not exactly on different planes when you are sitting 3meters far from television.

[@Necreon021]

What would you say a HD6970 2Gb can do with Mankind Divided? With a standard 8Gb RAM, plus an i7 2600k CPU. I'd like to buy MD but not if I'd have to play it on medium-low to have enjoyable fps while the game looks worse than Human Revolution that ran like a dream on max.

[@UndyingGhost]

Where is the Radeon vs GeForce test?

[@MrStranger1944]

Truly the best graphics of any game out right now.

[@OrehBelich92]

Mr.Stranger agree. The city looks beautiful especially at night with all these light effects

[@javiermd5835]

The game is freeking demanding . In my opinion 2016 Crysis 3

[@Aggrofool]

The David Cage thing is so random! D:

[@markusbarstad1103]

Why does my 1060 run at 40-50 fps with medium/high settings in areas that yours run at 60 with high settings? How did you get such a high framerate in this game, when everyone else I've seen online don't?

[@JayJapanB]

CPU? I'm getting 60+ on Ultra 2560x1440 with a 1070.

[@alphaomega887654321]

thats strange... iam getting in dx12 40-60 fps on very high - ultra 1440p with the rx 480. Shouldn´t be really a big deifference between this both graphiccards dont use more than 2x msaa it will kill your gpu ;)

[@gvfc]

Dayus Ex, never heard of that game.

[@merritt2014]

I don't think the "lipsyncing augmentation" is working very well though.

[@aspizak]

as a 3d artist and designer - these normal maps on the street bricks and wall bricks is ludicrous, they feel like cartoonish - sticking out 30cm. it's like the 3d artist couldn't help himself with boosting them more and more.

[@1337Rundown]

Dude... you have no clue how does 30cm looks like...

[@FrancisBurns]

I should probably return to this game and finish all the DLC!

[@86themadhatter27]

The city streets look like you'd twist an ankle lol

[@Gigaryu02]

Why is it recommended to turn the sharpen filter off? From my tests it all looks blurry in comparison...

[@dark1x]

I suppose it's a matter of taste. I do agree that the TAA results in a slightly blurry image but I really dislike aggressive sharpening and the edge ringing it causes. It basically makes the game look as if you're playing it on a poorly configured TV. I can deal with a very light sharpening effect, but I think it's way too strong in this game.

[@GalacticSoul42]

Doens't DOOM use sharpening too? I enable it on my 940M laptop and it looks very good even in 576p

[@dark1x]

Yes! Doom does use it and I do think it looks awesome there. As I said, when used tastefully and with the right aesthetic, sharpening can actually work. I just didn't like the implementation in DXMD.

[@0700shake]

Did anyone else notice that his shadow is bald at 4:47 as he steps into the shower lol

[@enormen]

Well i've heard that people have problem with the optimization but the game runs fine for me if i don't use the MSAA. Running Ultra with my 1080.

[@dpmjmun]

it's interesting how Cybepunk 2077 aims to basically be a 2016 small game, but in a much much larger scale