In the latter half of the interview, we discussed the implementation of these NVIDIA technologies, we received confirmation that AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 will be supported at launch (unlike Intel XeSS), and we also got reassured on the performance of the game on old-generation consoles like PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. As a reminder, Atomic Heart launches on February 21st for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S|X. Game Pass subscribers will be able to play it on day one.
Atomic Heart is confirmed to support NVIDIA DLSS 3. What was your impression of this new technology? Do you feel AI-based Frame Generation is the future of rendering to keep up with advanced ray tracing effects? Yes, we feel that AI-based frame generation is the future. We were impressed with it. It just works - thanks to NVIDIA. How much of an improvement does DLSS 3 introduce in your game compared to DLSS 2 (Super Resolution)? The improvements feature a significant framerate boost, greater quality, more details, fewer artifacts, and higher resolution. One of the potential drawbacks of DLSS 3 is the additional latency. Does Frame Generation add significant latency in your implementation, or is Reflex able to cover that? Reflex synchronizes GPU and CPU and ensures optimum responsiveness with Frame Generation enabled, and covers that for sure. We really like how these technologies cooperate and work together. Does the game support the new NVIDIA RTX DI (Direct Illumination) technique? Not yet, but we are working closely with NVIDIA to make this happen in the future with one of the game updates. The new GeForce RTX 4000 Series also introduced Shader Execution Reordering (SER), Opacity Micro-Maps (OMM), and Displaced Micro-Mesh (DMM) to help with ray tracing optimization. Are you planning to take advantage of any of them? You know, a lot of new technologies are released every day. Many projects are already in production and so close to release you cannot simply add some new features to the existing roadmap. However, we are looking forward to exploring how to integrate more really cool technologies in our next projects. Does Atomic Heart support FSR 2 and/or Intel Xess on PC? Atomic Heart supports FSR 2. But we do not plan to support Xess before release. Will Atomic Heart feature a built-in benchmark on PC? No, just a game this time. The game is also coming out on last-generation consoles. Can you reassure PlayStation 4 and Xbox One users on performance? Absolutely, we have made a mind-blowing optimization and literally ripped up the engine with a can opener to make it possible for the game to use all possible CPU cores on all platforms, to the fullest. We’ve moved a lot of critical code to async threads. The code traditionally runs only on the game thread in Unreal Engine. It was a challenge and not an easy thing. But it was worth it. I’m not hinting at anything, but we were even able to run the game on a device with 3 cores. Lastly, how much did the game improve on a technical level compared to the Atomic Heart Tech Demo released a few years ago? It’s impossible to compare where we were a few years ago to today. Creatively and technologically, it feels like a lifetime. Maybe one day we’ll show you that first demo to see the whole development journey we went through. Thank you for your time.
