4A Games update Metro Exodus, new engine, Ray Tracing GPU now required

[nvidiamd]

Guys you are wrong about non RT GI. Nothing stops an artist to ray trace a scene and then bake the light exactly how it looks with real time RT. The only ones that can't be baked are the dynamic lights but even then if the artist works long enough he can get a lot of great results through rasterization.
Look at DF review of TLOU2. That is such a beautiful game and the light effects are some of the best ever.
I am not saying that RT is not a good thing or it is not the future. I can't wait to see what can be done with even stronger hardware. But i won't laugh at those who still prefer rasterization right now. You can make awesome games with no performance penalty though classical methods.

 

[Poneros]

Oh wow. That is a big difference and not in a good way.

Any pictures of what the scene behind the camera looks like?

I wonder if that is a limitation of their RT algorithm?

Is this scene during the day?

I cropped that from a youtube capture from someone else, but that's at the beginning of the game if you want to test. The scene is in-doors in the medical area. There's no limitation there, it's just the RT lighting up the scene more and picking up more colour (due to the infinite bounces) and thus changing the temperature of the scene (colder) as well as the shadowing (and hence softer shadows).

I have not been keeping up with this thread, but why does the original look better?

Well, the better part is subjective (even tho I agree). Simply put in the original they had to author the scenes based on the tech they already had, so in the EE when the lighting got a major overhaul that changed the look of a lot of scenes (for better or worse, depending) because they weren't going to go and re-author the whole game just so that it looked the same as the original (after all, the original is still available). The lighting is more "accurate" now, but it also means it has to be controlled in order to achieve a specific look, no different than photos/videos.

In Exodus in particular it's not necessarily a boon to have this advanced RT simply because the original version already had great dynamic lighting, so unlike older games that would get a remastering treatment the benefits are not necessarily as large & are riskier because now it will disrupt the original vision. Granted, for them I'm sure it makes a lot of sense to do it (for console re-release + experience for next project) but as the end user on PC it's meh.

 

[ltron]

Spoiler

RTX 3080 FE, 3900X, 1440P at extreme settings with Quality DLSS.

 

[_Cereal_]

Tried this yesterday, upgrades are really really noticeable, people comparing screenshots are 100% missing the point, lightning feels so natural now, loving it. Performance been rlly good on my 3090 and having no problems with DLSS so far .

 

[shankly1985]

Guys you are wrong about non RT GI. Nothing stops an artist to ray trace a scene and then bake the light exactly how it looks with real time RT. The only ones that can't be baked are the dynamic lights but even then if the artist works long enough he can get a lot of great results through rasterization.
Look at DF review of TLOU2. That is such a beautiful game and the light effects are some of the best ever.
I am not saying that RT is not a good thing or it is not the future. I can't wait to see what can be done with even stronger hardware. But i won't laugh at those who still prefer rasterization right now. You can make awesome games with no performance penalty though classical methods.

From what I understand RT will also speed up game development not having to spend huge amount of time getting each scene right. Naughty Dog are one of the best for this and Last of Us 2 shows that to the point I do not think I have played a better looking game to date and that is including PC games.

 

[Nexus18]

Oh wow. That is a big difference and not in a good way.

Any pictures of what the scene behind the camera looks like?

I wonder if that is a limitation of their RT algorithm?

Is this scene during the day?

As mentioned, it is indoors (no windows) and source of light is candle on the right side of the doctor and the light bulb behind him:

I have not been keeping up with this thread, but why does the original look better?

Because it is faked lighting.

Same way, resident evil without ray tracing is more "striking" looking:

What GPU and resolution?

3440x1440 and 3080 FE (1815 @ .825MHz), everything on/maxed with dlss quality

Tried this yesterday, upgrades are really really noticeable, people comparing screenshots are 100% missing the point, lightning feels so natural now, loving it. Performance been rlly good on my 3090 and having no problems with DLSS so far .

Exactly, screenshots don't show the importance or impact of ray tracing at all. My jaw literally dropped in the terminal scene here when in motion:

 

[Wrinkly]

Yup. I would consider the enhanced version to be a net negative in terms of atmosphere as a result of these "enhancements". There's a reason when shooting video you have all kinds of lights, light controls and many other things, even though we have "perfect lighting". Art direction is still the king.

This is just down to a preference for fantasy or reality. The enhanced looks far more natural and immersive to me, while the original has the fantasy look that was criticised negatively at launch for being too dark e.g. the shadow on the female character's face looks ridiculous to me.

 

[Steampunk]

I have not been keeping up with this thread, but why does the original look better?

Someone has taken the trouble to make an artistic choice so the lighting looks that way and flatters the scene. If it was a movie, the character would be lit with lights from off-camera. With full ray-tracing, the lighting is probably set from the lighting sources placed in the scene eg, a light bulb or a fire. The latter approach may be more accurate, but it may not look as aesthetically pleasing as the "fake" lighting that has been set up to look a particular way.

As one of the posters said upstream, even when photographing or videoing, natural, realistic lighting often isn't what is wanted. Synthetic lighting (instead of relying on daylight) is used to create a particular look.

 

[Raiden85]

Th

As mentioned, it is indoors (no windows) and source of light is candle on the right side of the doctor and the light bulb behind him:

Because it is faked lighting.

Same way, resident evil without ray tracing is more "striking" looking:

3440x1440 and 3080 FE (1815 @ .825MHz), everything on/maxed with dlss quality



Exactly, screenshots don't show the importance or impact of ray tracing at all. My jaw literally dropped in the terminal scene here when in motion:

That warehouse location was stunning when running through it

 

[opethdisciple]

Interesting. I'm playing the game at 2560x1440 at the same settings (maxed, vrs off and DLSS balanced) and yet my performance isn't great.

 

[LoadsaMoney]

That terminal looked great on the original, love that part, the nappies hoying rocks at yer, and the big fish

 

[Nexus18]

Encountered the big bad again and fps remained higher this time round so reckon there can be some more optimisation to do for this:

Some close ups of it, didn't have fps on for this but didn't feel like it dropped below 60/70:

Th

That warehouse location was stunning when running through it

That terminal looked great on the original, love that part, the nappies hoying rocks at yer, and the big fish

Also, forgot there is another area later on which is very much like that but not quite as impressive, still stunning nonetheless though.

Interesting. I'm playing the game at 2560x1440 at the same settings (maxed, vrs off and DLSS balanced) and yet my performance isn't great.

Will be the CPU holding you back, sadly nvidia have a lot of driver overhead.




I really want to see batman, mad max, half life 2 and maybe fallout "enhanced" ray tracing versions now!!!

 

[Nexus18]

Just came across another big hairy monster (forgot about this one, well actually forgot about most of this mission tbf!) and fps didn't drop much, if at all for this one so that first specific encounter/area must be an issue or something else going on otherwise it also have similar drops here if it where an issue with ray tracing + hairworks.

Is hairworks being used for this creature???? Could also be down to the difference in lighting i.e. other area is during day where as this is at night (you don't get the choice for time of day during these encounters)

 

[opethdisciple]

Encountered the big bad again and fps remained higher this time round so reckon there can be some more optimisation to do for this:

Some close ups of it, didn't have fps on for this but didn't feel like it dropped below 60/70:

Also, forgot there is another area later on which is very much like that but not quite as impressive, still stunning nonetheless though.

Will be the CPU holding you back, sadly nvidia have a lot of driver overhead.




I really want to see batman, mad max, half life 2 and maybe fallout "enhanced" ray tracing versions now!!!

What CPU are you running?

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

I cropped that from a youtube capture from someone else, but that's at the beginning of the game if you want to test. The scene is in-doors in the medical area. There's no limitation there, it's just the RT lighting up the scene more and picking up more colour (due to the infinite bounces) and thus changing the temperature of the scene (colder) as well as the shadowing (and hence softer shadows).
..

Thank you. My pc is in a box at the moment so I will try and find some YouTube videos.

FYI it isn't an infinite amount of bounces for gaming it is probably 1 or 2 for performance reasons.

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

Someone has taken the trouble to make an artistic choice so the lighting looks that way and flatters the scene. If it was a movie, the character would be lit with lights from off-camera. With full ray-tracing, the lighting is probably set from the lighting sources placed in the scene eg, a light bulb or a fire. The latter approach may be more accurate, but it may not look as aesthetically pleasing as the "fake" lighting that has been set up to look a particular way.

As one of the posters said upstream, even when photographing or videoing, natural, realistic lighting often isn't what is wanted. Synthetic lighting (instead of relying on daylight) is used to create a particular look.

They almost certainly have standalone lights and do not only rely an emission material.

 

[Rroff]

Guys you are wrong about non RT GI. Nothing stops an artist to ray trace a scene and then bake the light exactly how it looks with real time RT. The only ones that can't be baked are the dynamic lights but even then if the artist works long enough he can get a lot of great results through rasterization.
Look at DF review of TLOU2. That is such a beautiful game and the light effects are some of the best ever.
I am not saying that RT is not a good thing or it is not the future. I can't wait to see what can be done with even stronger hardware. But i won't laugh at those who still prefer rasterization right now. You can make awesome games with no performance penalty though classical methods.

Non-RT GI whether baked offline ray tracing/radiosity based on trying to fake it with hand placed dynamic lights doesn't even come close to the effect of real time scattered and captured light on surfaces where colour is being transferred and surfaces have indirect specular lighting, etc. - not even close.

They almost certainly have standalone lights and do not only rely an emission material.

While you can do point lights with ray traced lighting most game path tracing implementations are based around emissive materials and standalone lights, if implemented, are a kind of hack.

Quake 2 RTX for instance has zero point lights though someone made a mod to add the feature in.

 

[nvidiamd]

Non-RT GI whether baked offline ray tracing/radiosity based on trying to fake it with hand placed dynamic lights doesn't even come close to the effect of real time scattered and captured light on surfaces where colour is being transferred and surfaces have indirect specular lighting, etc. - not even close.

Why don't you look at TLOU2 review @8:00 and you will see these effects made without RT. And they look good, there is no difference between RT and their simulation.

 

[Rroff]

Why don't you look at TLOU2 review @8:00 and you will see these effects made without RT. And they look good, there is no difference between RT and their simulation.

There is a huge difference - the game looks good but it has nothing like the effect of scattered light captured accurately and dynamically a path tracer is capable of.

 

[nvidiamd]

It has transferred color and indirect specular lighting on dynamic light?
We need to remember that the game devs don't work with real light or real surfaces. We can talk as much as we want about the realism of RT but in the end, a game will look as good as the artist can make it look. A RT game can look much worse than a non RT game by simply being made by an artist that has no idea about how the light looks or how the surfaces should look and behave.
RT is giving you the mathematics. As an artist you still have the biggest impact on how the game will look. If you are not talented you can make a crappy looking game using the right mathematics and if you are talented you can make a masterpiece through rasterization.