Nixxes has revealed the details for Marvel Spider-Man 2’s release on PC.
In the post on PlayStation Blog, Nixxes confirmed support for DLSS 3, FSR3.1 and XeSS. However, they also revealed a huge emphasis on enhancing ray-tracing for this title, including AMD’s FSR frame generation, but especially Nvidia’s ray reconstruction.
Nixxes’ graphics programmer Menno Bil shared this explanation on the work they put to enhance the game with ray reconstruction in particular:
“NVIDIA DLSS Ray Reconstruction aims to achieve more detailed raytracing features by combining two separate temporal processes in a frame: denoising of the raytracing features and upscaling of the entire frame. By combining these steps, ray reconstruction keeps more useful information over multiple frames to add small details in raytracing effects that can otherwise be lost.
In Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC with ray reconstruction enabled, we see more detailed ray-traced reflections and better-defined ray-traced shadows, especially when viewing raytracing effects at steep angles. We also see improvements in the ray-traced interiors and less ghosting and noise in the ray-traced ambient occlusion.
We’ve included two models of NVIDIA’s Ray Reconstruction, the original model introduced in DLSS 3.5, and a newly improved model designed for RTX 40 series GPUs and newer. This new model results in an overall more temporally stable image, further improving the visual quality of raytracing.”
Of course, Nixxes won’t say it directly, but this makes Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 better on a PC with an Nvidia GPU than on PlayStation 5. Now that we have realistic expectations of the PlayStation 5 Pro’s capabilities, it’s easy to understand that even that console can’t match what is possible with this game with a high end, and possibly even a mid-range build, that is packing an Nvidia.
Nixxes also claims this game needs 140 GB in SSD storage, though we’re sure many PC gamers will be eager to test that claim. As Insomniac have confirmed they’re not adding new content for the PC port, Sony will instead offer a Standard Edition, a Digital Deluxe Edition, and a Deluxe upgrade path.
Sony will also offer early unlocks for costumes that are already in the game, as well as extra skill points, if you pre-order the game, and also if you log on to PSN. As Sony recently announced, they will no longer make PSN logon mandatory for some of their PC ports, and will instead offer bonuses if you do.
It’s certainly bittersweet news to get this PC port months after Sony laid off some of the people who worked on this game at Insomniac, as well as the pending retirement of Insomniac founder and head Ted Price. Hopefully it does much better here than it did on PlayStation 5, to prompt Sony to acknowledge certain changes they could do to make their business sustainable and keep their talent on board.
