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What do gamers actually think about Ray-Tracing?

So far all games I have played with RT at 4K have achieved a minimum of 100fps which is my nominal framerate for an all round good experience. This is leveraging the tech though obviously when things like path tracing is involved, frame gen is needed to hit 100fps otherwise it's 60-80fps give or take which is fine at maximum settings. DLSS4 has literally transformed everything now anyway, the new DLSS Performance is visually better than old DLSS Quality, and arguably better than DLAA/native TAA because the transformer model generates more detail which is missing and not possible with native rendering. The RTX premium price kind of becomes worth its salt under this context, though this only applies to the top end cards obviously.

I could play Doom Dark Ages at over 150fps with just DLSS and no frame gen if I used /only/ hardware RT, but why would I bother when the performance feels the same using path tracing still and all I need to do is turn on 2x frame gen to get those high framerates?

Again, I keep saying this, but some people need to understand that their gripe isn't with the technology like they think, it is with the developers who refuse to optimise games which then results in poor performance out of the box which only gets worse in titles using RT/PT until a day comes when they hopefully patch it up.

Point fingers at the devs, not at the tech.

And point fingers at Nvidia for lowering the classing range of GPUs whilst increasing the price. Hardware Unboxed did a video recently demonstrating how 70 class cards now are basically 60 borderline 50 class cards depending on model.

AMD are no better by giving up after years of dragging its feet along the dirt whilst shooting "ray tracing won't be popular"... meanwhile AAA devs who know how to optimise properly are releasing games with only hardware RT with some underlying screen space to cater to the console market, a practice will be erased slowly once the next gen consoles are out in full force as there will be no more need for screen space.
 
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Ayahuasca said:
People were using SLI 980TIs to achieve higher frame rates and when you factor in inflation over that period,
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No need to factor in inflation. I used a pair of Titans (12 GB 980 Ti) to game at 4k at high frame rates, though I started gaming at 4k on a 780 Ti.
 
It'll be interesting when Death Stranding 2 releases on PC as to whether they decide to include any form of RT or PT - the game has some incredible lighting on PS5/PS5 Pro considering it's not using any RT at all right now and the game looks phenomenal.
 
t2na said:
It'll be interesting when Death Stranding 2 releases on PC as to whether they decide to include any form of RT or PT - the game has some incredible lighting on PS5/PS5 Pro considering it's not using any RT at all right now and the game looks phenomenal.
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Baked lighting can look phenomenal, nobody is disputing that. It may not be accurate though. There are many examples where people prefer the look of baked lighting in a scene because it lights the scene in a way that fits the artistic vision of the game. The whole point of RT is to make accurate lighting, but as with anything, it doesn't mean it will be the best option in every situation. You also need to remember that baked lighting can take devs months to implement when the same thing can be implemented with RT very quickly, allowing the devs to spend their time making the game better elsewhere.
 
no_1_dave said:
Baked lighting can look phenomenal, nobody is disputing that. It may not be accurate though. There are many examples where people prefer the look of baked lighting in a scene because it lights the scene in a way that fits the artistic vision of the game. The whole point of RT is to make accurate lighting, but as with anything, it doesn't mean it will be the best option in every situation. You also need to remember that baked lighting can take devs months to implement when the same thing can be implemented with RT very quickly, allowing the devs to spend their time making the game better elsewhere.
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No no, I'm not disagreeing with that either. I think it was more to highlight how good DS2 looks without making use of RT - and posing the question as to what improvements it might get as a result of implementing any form of RT.

I also guess being a console game primarily, they want to ensure that performance stays at 60fps as much as possible and the benefits of RT come with the downsides of a more severe performance hit compared to baked in lighting.

I am really interested to see what happens when DS2 releases on PC though.
 
mrk said:
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I'm sorry but this is the wrong argument entirely.

The problem isn't Ray Tracing in of its self, its the way its used in some instances for upselling more expensive GPU's when Nvidia have their fingers up the devs rear, or just really poor engine optimisation, which lets be honest i'm talking about UE5 which runs like garbage for no apparent reason even without RT, Nvidia have their fingers up Epic's rear too.

##70 class cards from Green or Red are plenty powerful enough to run high RT at 1440P native, that is when its unmolested by smelly green fingers.

RT is a good thing, i'll give Nvidia that, they didn't invent it but they did put the work in to push it mainstream, the problem is nothing comes free and they expect to be rewarded, for as long as Nvidia are dominant enough to gaslight people in to spending more than they feel they should the more we will get games that run like they should look 8X better than they do.

Have you ever seen a UE5 game that looks as good as any of the namouras showcases? No, they look meh and run like crap and i know why, first hand.
 
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Did you watch the whole video?

Hellblade II looks photo realistic in many areas, there are others too, none of them use full RT either but just Lumen/Nanite, so it's entirely possible, just down to the devs to actually implement it well. Hellblade runs as good as it looks, too.

But if you want HWRT and PT into the mix then yes that's possible too, look at Wukong, another game that looks as good as UE5 demos.
 
mrk said:
Did you watch the whole video?

Hellblade II looks photo realistic in many areas, there are others too, none of them use full RT either but just Lumen/Nanite, so it's entirely possible, just down to the devs to actually implement it well. Hellblade runs as good as it looks, too.

But if you want HWRT and PT into the mix then yes that's possible too, look at Wukong, another game that looks as good as UE5 demos.
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I watched about half of it in segments.

Wukong looks good, i think it looks good, with a narrow localised view most of that game has its not too difficult to make a game look like that, same with Hellblade II, again its quite close, tight, this is not a criticism and i take nothing away from the obvious talent on display here and of course you can't do it without the tools but the environmental characteristics those games are set it lends its self to that.

For as good as they look they don't look as good as the demoes, the Witcher 4 demo is also just a showcase, its not the game.
 
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Yet Star citizen looks nowhere near as good as any of the above mentioned :p

The UE5 demos have always just been fan made demos, which is why I slated them all the time, it's not an actually playable download, just a video export from unreal engine someone made.
 
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Take Dune, currently a favourite of mine, it is visually expansive, it need's to be, it manages to run like Cyberpunk with full RT (Not PT) and look like something from 2018.

I don't mind, i'm used to playing games that don't run well, tho Star Citizen actually runs notably better while for the most part looking every bit its $1 bn, which it also has its visual issues, it cannot do a lot of foliage density, at least not as it is right now foliage especially at medium distance looks BAD, lighting, geometry, surface materials... photorealistic, foliage = 2012 on a good day.

Nothing is perfect and EU5 has its own problems, there is a narrow range in which Nanite is a hindrance to performance and where its a benefit, Star Citizen absolutely would benefit from Nanite Foliage because its so expansive, there are no boundaries, no ends to the game, trouble is nothing else it like that.

Wukong (to use your example) doesn't need Nanite, its an example where that is a hindrance to performance, i would be surprised if its using it tho.... it probably is.

mrk said:
Yet Star citizen looks nowhere near as good as any of the above mentioned :p

The UE5 demos have always just been fan made demos, which is why I slated them all the time, it's not an actually playable download, just a video export from unreal engine someone made.
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It depends on what you're looking at, as i said some aspects of it look stunning, others look like trash, the whole bio and LOD aspect that i talked about is being completely reworked.

Its also a little frustrating sometimes when people come at Star Citizen with some on the surface fair criticisms, and believe me i have some of my own, i'm not in their forum mods good books....

Star Citizen isn't comparable really to anything, there is a reason why other games in the same genre either have load screens when ever you turn left, right or walk forward (Starfield) look like cartoons or have 2003 graphics (No Mans Sky / Elite Dangerous) and yet despite this still don't do what Star Citizen does on a technical level, aside from a screenshot from a dev below, for example take Dune again, across the 100 KM or so deep desert it has about 5 meshed server boundaries, when i cross them i know it, i can feel it and i can see it.
Star Citizen has about the same number of meshed server boundaries across distances measuring billions of KM and i cannot tell where they are unless i'm running the game data text, its completely seamless even across those distances.

When Chris laid out everything that he intended to do many devs laughed "that's not possible" these days they don't laugh, i could go on forever.... but i will say Star Engine in its most advanced form is Squadron 42, for the past 5 years, until now really that's all that's been worked on, that is now in the process of being ported over to Star Citizen and we are seeing the benefits of that.

wMdVDlo.jpeg



If you haven't seen SQ42 yet you should watch this, i think its a game you would like....

 
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PS: on that note ^^^^ In Star Citizen the ships move through space and the planets move, in the sense that they rotate and orbit the star, ships vary in size from single seaters to huge leviathans that can and do comfortable house many hundreds of real players, everything is 100% seamless.

Nothing else can do even one of those things, Star Citizen does it all, as Chris laid out. there's your $1 bn and more than a decade. Starfield was 7 years and $400 million.
 
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Calin Banc said:
Teardown uses Path Tracing.
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Read about it and it seems to work pretty differently in terms of hardware requirements but then geometry and textures are way simpler than the average game.
Something similar with increased voxel resolution would pretty much be close to perfection imho.
 
Zarax said:
Read about it and it seems to work pretty differently in terms of hardware requirements but then geometry and textures are way simpler than the average game.
Something similar with increased voxel resolution would pretty much be close to perfection imho.
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Kinda depends on what you're looking for specifically, but there's plenty that can be done without a game being made just from voxels.
 
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Calin Banc said:
Kinda depends on what you're looking for specifically, but there's plenty that can be done without a game being made just from voxels.
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Interactive responsive environments, something like Cities Skylines did very well.
I could spend hours there manipulating terrain and water sources, the same could be applied to many other genres.
 
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