Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered vs RTX Remix Performance Review

Sometimes, a classic game’s soundtrack hits you hard; for me, encountering Nathan McCree’s score for the original Tomb Raider is one such nostalgia-overload moment. Lara Croft’s debut adventure was at the core of the modern 3D era of games, and during the late ‘90s and early 2000s she became the biggest star in games. So it’s something of a blast from the past that now, almost 28 years later, a remastered collection of the first three original games has arrived across every format, including the Switch, and from a remaster perspective it offers a decent treasure – at least on paper. Improved models, textures, lighting, and controls, a 120fps mode on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation, and bundled-in DLC (which we called expansions back then). This remaster comes with competition in the form of the free RTX Remix mod for the original, which adds real-time ray tracing. It shines a whole new light on Lara, so much that it may just leave the remastered Lara in the shadows.

Both games do much more than just increase the resolution with a myriad of enhancements and features over the original version. For this article, we will break each element down and compare them against each other, including running it on genuine, period-appropriate original hardware for the Sega Saturn version – a true PAL. And for the original PC versions, I’m running on genuine Windows 98 Pentium 100 hardware paired with the very first D3D2.0 ready 3D graphics accelerator to hit the market: the S3 Virge. The RTX Remix modification is a download that requires the original DoS PC game. Once installed it can be run on any ray tracing capable GPU, although it is much better on Nvidia cards, enhancing the original game with improved textures, objects and most importantly real time path traced lighting.

Models

There’s no better place to start than with the heroine who stole the limelight: Lara herself. She occupies a decent percentage of the screen real-estate at all times, making her one of the most important areas to focus on. The Remaster wins this section hands down. Right from the main menu, you can see the original, angular design of Lara becomes far more organic and fleshier. The original Lara model was made up of approximately 250 polygons, most of those in her face. The new model, by contrast, is likely in the tens of thousands, and it improves her face, eyes, ponytail, and pretty much every curve.

Her model has been sympathetically managed within the original design, but sadly this does not extend to her movement, animation, and physics. The RTX Remix is second, with polygon increases and the ponytail also added in. But it is much closer to the original than the remastered version. Much of the original was data or procedural driven, such as ray casts on the environment for collision and climbing, to the gun and head movement that tracks enemies. For example, when Lara turns a single gun to point at enemies behind or at her side, tracking their location by looking at them as you enter the bounding box.

The remaster and the RTX mod both use the animation routines directly from the original models, be it running, jumping, climbing, or swimming, they are an exact match, just interpolated to a higher framerate on both when in the updated mode. The main difference is that the remaster has much higher-quality textures, features, and shadowing, now relying less on per-vertex shading as per the originals’ Gouraud shading and the quadrilaterals of the Saturn. The updated model is better; however, the update does look more like a mobile game or even as though it’s been AI unsampled than it does a modern game model, similar to the GTA Trilogy. The RTX mod is second best, with sharper textures, more polygons, and far superior per-pixel lighting and shadow thanks to the path-traced lighting. The Remaster wins this section, and certainly takes years off our Lara.

Performance

An important one – and really, one that should be a simpler conversation than it is – the full Remastered mode on everything, including the Switch, is 60fps. Aside from a couple of dropped frames in camera cuts it runs fine across both Series X at 4K, and Series S, which runs at 1440p 60fps. The original mode takes authenticity all the way and is capped at 30fps.

The developer of the remasters and the Open Lara update stated on X that the reason for the cap is that the old game engine’s logic locks it to that rate – a common issue with serial code back then. But interpolating the original graphics using a buffer creates lag so – we can assume – due to constraints of time, budget, etc., it remains 30fps. That in itself is not terrible, but it can present bouts of incorrect frame pacing, causing judder. These look random and are not obvious as to the cause, but it can feel worse than the old games on genuine period appropriate hardware. The launch platform of the SEGA Saturn, here in PAL land, took the 50 hertz too literally, as it can hurt those frame times. In Europe we had 50 frames (or fields) per second rather than 60 of our NTSC cousins in North America. Due to the quads the Saturn renders with, this can result in extra load on the machine due to overdraw caused by the warped sprite technique most 3D games used to render.

In basic areas with little complexity and high polygon count, the Saturn holds an even 25fps or half refresh in modern money. Frame times sit at 40ms consistently and, as you will see, always remain consistent due to the inline frame production approach in the engine. It can suddenly drop, such as in the open bridge area, and we get some big 120ms spikes to a 12fps low. It always remains consistent, though – see, the frame time graph just moves up and down evenly with flat lines between 40, 60, and 80ms most often and the game logic slows down. It’s a lot like when you’re playing an old shoot-em-up and the action gets busy.

Over on the DOS PC, the S3 Virge 325 can do better both in visual quality and performance. Having launched a few months before Tomb Raider, it was a 3D accelerator that was often called a decelerator due to many games’ performance being worse than when using the software render option. But paired with an equally top-end (for its time) Pentium 100Mhz CPU and 128mb of RAM, this was a top-spec PC for the day. Yet we still rarely see 30fps frame rates, albeit with far more stable textures & models, and more details than the Saturn or PlayStation version. The Direct X2.0 version, though, was only available post-launch in 1997, packed in with the Unfinished Business expansion. The software version can also run at 30fps at times but V-sync is disabled and the impact to resolution and quality is significantly worse than the hardware version or the Saturn. Higher resolutions are also available but even at 512×384 with or without the hardware perspective correct textures and Bilinear filtering, we remain in the single digit performance bracket. This does highlight how good even the Sega Saturn was at the time versus the PC let alone the PlayStation.

The RTX Remix is the most demanding, even on my GeForce RTX 3080 with a Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU it hovers between the 30s and 50s at best when running 4K DLSS ultra performance, at a 1280x720p base. You can get a locked 60fps using 1440p ultra performance, but that impacts the image quality (IQ) too much due to the sparse pixel samples and denoising filter having too little to work with. That said, it is still better than the original mode’s performance, so not a complete loss – but the remastered version is smoother across a wider variety of hardware.

Textures and World Detail

The results here are not as clean cut. The Remaster has the most increases in sheer surface and geometric detail, with more curved and less angular surfaces, higher detailed textures with surface effects, and even a quasi-parallax occlusion map on ladders, though that appears to be broken. The skulls or moveable blocks now sport concave and convex surfaces which increase the complexity and detail. Grass alpha, hanging vines, and trees are now 3D objects rather than 2D sprites that pan with the camera frustum. Many 2D billboards now become 3D rendered objects as well, something which was more common in the later sequels on PS1 and PC.

However, this does not always mean the results are better. Water, for example, is quite limited, with a simple specular and noise map on the surface as opposed to the animation texture of the originals. It also causes some issues with the flowing currents being obvious in the originals, but they all use this same, static surface map which means you no longer get telegraphed on of a current or not and which direction it flows.

Water is far superior in the RTX Remix, on the surface at least, with a more realistic specular and reflectance map along with a distortion map for objects below. This looks much better than the remaster. Once swimming in the deep, though, the Remaster balances the feel of the original better and with much better visibility. By comparison, the RTX Remix goes too “N64 Fog” happy, reducing visibility and giving many of the sections an ethereal look to them. On the whole, the world details are better and fleshed out in the Remaster, but they stray too close to the old versions for my liking and would have benefited from more detail increases on textures and geometry in many areas.

Lighting and Shadows

Unsurprisingly, both updates are drastically better than the originals when it comes to lighting, but both also suffer from similar issues. In the cold light of day though, the Remastered version is not a patch on the RTX mod. A weak light map or vertex map GI is used in some areas both on walls and Lara herself; this is not close to the full path-traced global illumination bounce we see in the RTX version. Mixed with the extensive use of fog volumes, as opposed to the Remastered mix of more alpha 2D fog, it never stands out or looks as atmospheric as the RTX remix code.

I know the internet correction force will call out the obvious, “Who lights all these torches in the long-lost temple?” question, but this is a game and one about ancient made-up artefacts. Nothing here stays close to reality and in the aims of visual, technical, and atmospheric quality the difference is night and day. The Remaster uses more point lights, with shadow maps and normals which help raise the quality over the blob shadows and vertex lighting of the originals. But the shadow-casting light sources are limited and can pop on and off drastically with no blend. The RTX version, however, calculates light and shadow from many sources at once, such as muzzle flash casting fleeting shadows of Lara or her prey as she fires. Light sources bounce and cast shadows across the caves, dancing in corners as you look around and bounce or diffuse on surfaces presenting a far more ambient and more accurate light reaction than the Remaster could ever hope for. Both suffer with no lighting in many sections making it hard to see, not an issue in the originals but the RTX had a head torch for Lara in the 3rd person view which is far more logical and solves this issue the remaster does not.

That said, it can go a bit over the top, and I think a more toned-down level of light sources and fog volumes, and a focus on realism overall, would help. I feel the best balance is somewhere in-between them both, but on this front the RTX Remix is head and shoulders above the Remaster at all times, even if the hardware to run it well and with good image quality is very expensive.

Controls

This brings us to the classic Mario 64 vs Tomb Raider question: both solved similar problems, but only Mario was built around the precision of the analogue controller of the N64, while Tomb Raider was designed for D-pad controls and a six-button pad. As such, the “modern” controls in the Remaster are far worse than the OG tank mode that the old game and RTX Remix use, although mouse and keyboard is also great and an option along with a transformative 1st person view that aids the games control immensely along with the immersion, not available in the remaster. The main problem comes down to the lack of precision required, as the ability to walk slowly to edges holding the walk button is still necessary but the camera is worse and causes more issues and the controls are too erratic.

Remember, the original Tomb Raider was designed on a grid tile system for movement, which you can see in the world, and you can see that Lara’s walk divides each cell into approximately four sections. Each level is built around the slow climb, walk, balance, jump, grab, etc actions. The journey is the adventure, not the destination, and without fine control the base controls provide, it feels clunky, frustrating, and largely not fit for purpose.

As I grew up years before 3D was around I find that I am a little biased in favor of the tank controls. But the modern ones don’t do themselves any favors. To win me over they need to allow walking via a small push on the sticks, a larger one to run and a safety buffer to not fall off ledges so much, they should track the cells in motion to help you feel more in control and lean into the precision offered by the analogue sticks, They don’t. Effectively, the modern controls make Tomb Raider play and feel even worse, and I struggled to use them effectively. I also noted that the auto tracking and shooting of enemies is less effective and harder in the remastered mode than the OG mode, which may be to do with interpolation, bounding boxes, or such, but you need more distance from the enemy for it to work as well. My advice? Stick to the tank controls and let Lara enjoy the climb.

Sound

This is a lift and shift carbon copy with an instant nostalgia hit when Nathan McCree’s incredibly evocative music begins to play. It takes me right back to 1996, and those moments of tension or wonder as it kicks in and tips you off to something lurking just ahead.

Lara’s voice is the original lines recorded by Shelly Bond in the original and Judith Gibbins for the two sequels across gameplay, cutscenes or FMVs. These also have a choice to run in a low-rate original or AI up-sampled quality. This does clean up the video over the poor-quality Saturn Video-CD although I still love watching old FMV cutscenes like this, as it was such a burgeoning and improving aspect of games from the late ‘80s to later ‘90s. Better MPEG compression and other innovations led to increasing quality year on year. The RTX Remix skips all this and is straight to the action, but sound is again the same as the DOS-based originals. Both largely rely on your personal sound set-up, it still is an amazing-sounding game though, across the whole trilogy and much of this is the super Nathan MacCree soundtrack.

Summary

The very small and largely independent team that built Tomb Raider I-III Remastered have clear passion and skills for the legacy of Lara Croft. The enhancements offered are great and much better than, for example, the recent Konami Metal Gear Solid Collection. High frame rates, dual new and old modes, all of the expansion packs, improved graphics and controls alongside fast swapping across all 3 titles and DLC from the main menu are welcome. However – and this is directed more at the owners at Embracer – this is a series and character that deserved more money and team size thrown at it to really do these classics justice. The AI-like texture and character updates feel as if this was designed with a mobile release in mind rather than PC, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and even Switch. The visual enhancements are great and stay close to the origins, but a higher fidelity level would have been welcome. The RTX Remix mod is extreme in the use of Path Tracing, but for a free mod that can be played by anyone with the original games on PC, it proves that had the Remastered project been given more resources it could have improved on that visual quality without the need for expensive ray-tracing hardware. It certainly does not beat the Remaster in all areas, but on a pure visual quality and technical level it makes a much bigger splash and has a better atmosphere. Maybe updates will come that add more to the Remaster and improve on some of the areas noted, as Ms Croft should always look her best no matter where she is or what trouble she finds herself in.