Poll: Do you care for Ray Tracing "now"?

[Nexus18]

Is it me or is there no light source at all in this picture ?? Looks a bit like "Mr Bean spotlight"

(an invisible torch ?)

Lol yeah does look a bit odd doesn't it

Basically is that for demo purposes:



Time stamp of that bit:

Exclusive: Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition Analysis - The First Triple-A Game Built Around Ray Tracing

The first triple-A PC game that will *only* run on ray tracing equipped PCs (and next-gen consoles to come), Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition is a phenomenal im...

youtu.be

 

[Nexus18]

Hold on, thought you guys were on about the movies. Is there a Avatar game also?

There is indeed and RT only:

Going to look so good on the QD-oled panels, hopefully HDR is featued.

By massive on the snowdrop engine iirc @mid_gen?

 

[Nexus18]

So that means it will be a bag of spanners just like the films. Not like Film tie ins have good prospects.

Possibly!

Whilst I'm hesitant of ubi games (last one I thoroughly enjoyed was assassins creed origins and the division 1 and somewhat 2), this one is by massive and ubi do decent open world games along with good graphics (especially with it being based on the snowdrop engine). As long as they nail the gameworld/pandora where you can just get lost/immersed in it (much like the film), that will do for me

 

[Nexus18]

Which one of those pictures is so awesome that cannot be seen in a non RT game? As far as i can see all reflections are of on screen objects and WD Legion only has RT reflections. It doesn't look like the best example of how RT can make a difference.

If you can show a game which achieves similar effects, please post them Also, there is more RT happening in them screenshots than just reflections too.

I suppose the developers intentionally made rasterization worse though eh

 

[Nexus18]

That’s what the majority think. One day the technology will be so good you don’t need marketing or salesman to convince you how essential it is. One day…

Well the problem is when you have people who can't even tell the difference between SSR and RT reflections, you kind of do need marketing and salesmen, see this video:

Wouldn't really say it is essential for us consumers though tbf, however, for developers, it is a necessity now.

 

[Nexus18]

I turned RT reflections off in Dying Light and things like trees vanished from the reflections so looks like they do work. Neither looked very impressive though tbf so you need to work on your salesman skills to pay those bills.

Just found the exact same area, switching on and off RT does nothing different:

DL 2 Not RT - Imgsli

imgsli.com

Here's a video too:

Restarting the game has no effect either. Notice the good old SSR traits around the weapon when moving in front of the water too..... just like you see in every other game with SSR.

Also, here's a RT on VS off in doom eternal:

Of course, you'll no doubt get people saying in motion, you won't see the difference though




You had time to compare the 3090 to RDNA 2 to confirm if RT is not fully rendering properly on RDNA 2 hardware like the several other people who have noted these issues in a few games? Know you have done ghostwire (although be good to see other scenes) but what about the other games?

 

[Nexus18]

@Nexus Sorry should have clarified it was not that spot but just a puddle showing a reflection of a tree with RT reflections on and nothing with RT reflections off. I’ll put up some screenshot comparisons for you tomorrow so you can join me in the unimpressed camp.

Look forward to seeing these kind of RT on vs off comparisons:

Spoiler

No need to waste your time for DL 2 though We already have plenty of comparisons showing how much of a next gen upgrade it is as shown by DF and the other video by wrinkly

 

[Nexus18]

I’m a man of my word I’ll add them soon.

Yeah the lighting is decent at least.

Yup lighting, GI and shadows are the only worthy RT additions to DL 2. Reflections are rather meh, same way RT reflections for FC 6 and resident evil village are very meh. As said before, it's a bit silly to be basing RT reflections on a game(s) that didn't implement it fully across the board like we have seen with other titles though.

Hard to say with 100% certainty but so far, it seems like F1 will be a pretty good showcase for RT reflections:

Indeed.

I have played more RT titles in the last 2 years than I have just rasterization games.

Quite looking forward to trying out the f1 game:

F1 - Imgsli

F1 - Imgsli

F1 - Imgsli

F1 - Imgsli

 

[Nexus18]

@Nexus18 Not sure how it is possible to enjoy the game without this level of fidelity present.

Dying Light 2 Incredible Ray Tracing 1 - Imgsli

imgsli.com

Dying Light 2 Incredible Ray Tracing 2 - Imgsli

imgsli.com

Dying Light 2 Incredible Ray Tracing 3 - Imgsli

imgsli.com

I've started turning the reflections off to save the 6 FPS they cost.

So pretty much the standard of screenshots I was expecting then Although you can easily see how the RT is representing realism better, not to mention if you were passing by in motion But yeah, if you are on lesser/weaker/RDNA 2 gpus and playing at 1440 or above without DLSS/FSR, then the perf. will saved will be worth it.

But still the point stands:

As said before, it's a bit silly to be basing RT reflections on a game(s) that didn't implement it fully across the board like we have seen with other titles though.

If you want another better example of RT reflections, would check out the ascent, free on gamepass if you have it:

That video doesn't even show the best parts until later in the game either.

We all know you won't like/want to use RT until AMD beats nvidia at it though so it's a futile argument until then




Went back to batman arkham knight last night as I consider it to be one of the best showcases for lighting, shadows, AO, reflections on rasterization (and it still is compared to most other rasterization titles tbf) but boi after having been playing RT games for the last 1-2 years, it was incredibly jarring, could see all the issues with rasterization immediately, surprised nvidia haven't got an enhanced/remaster of this out yet.

 

[Nexus18]

When polls go bad.

Most of the forum won't/can't run RT'ing for reasons given throughout the thread, mainly because performance sucks when RT enabled/fps is king, but still arguing for the sake of arguing.

How can polls go bad? Please lets not turn this into another case of it being "to suit narrative".....

The results are quite interesting:

- 70.6% of the forum do care about RT
- 29.4% of the forum don't care at all and never will (which is weird, basically saying no, we don't want better graphics in which case, why bother with pc gaming, just get a console )

I think if I were to split the poll into something like the following, the results would be quite telling

Yes (nvidia owner)
Yes (amd owner)
No (nvidia owner)
No (amd owner)
Not yet but in the future (nvidia owner)
Not yet but in the future (amd owner)

As shown throughout this thread by various developer comments, RT is more for the developers than us really, we get benefit of better graphics obviously but lets not fool ourselves, they aren't doing it for us so whether people like it or not, RT is only going to slowly fade out rasterization over the coming years, you would be a fool to think otherwise imo.

 

[Nexus18]

That was running on a 3090 with DLSS Quality and to get acceptable performance you have to turn reflections off, as the game feels horrible below 55 FPS.


Haven't seen polls this bad since Theresa May called a snap election.

Which backs up what me, @Wrinkly, @TNA etc. have been saying all along, we have run out of grunt (and not just in DL 2 but several other titles too) hence the need/want for better RT hardware "now"

But agree, you need to be using dlss balanced like I do if you want max settings, very usable at 3440x1440 but at 4k, you probably need dlss performance, which is largely why I played on 3440x1440 monitor as max settings with dlss balanced had greater IQ "overall" than playing at lower settings or/and no RT @ 4k dlss quality.

Let's bring some balance to the "suits narrative". 39.8% said not yet. That means as of "now" (a point you've stressed), it's actually only 30.8% that said "Yes, I care now".

Bit of statistical twisting there, chap.

I'm on the side of ray tracing and look forward to it, but I don't care enough about it "now".

Not really, most people are "making" it out like "no one/very small minority" cares for RT when the poll shows that they do care about it either now or in the future. This was why I created the poll to get a better idea as on this forum and as shown in this thread, you get a handful of a few on here who are very vocal about how they think RT is pointless/not worth it at all, which gives the impression that the larger audience also don't care for/like it. Someone on amd reddit also noted the same with that amd subreddit about there being a very toxic bias view point towards rt. Given history with various things like tessellation, physx, gsync, gameworks, hairworks, vram, power consumption, it's just the same thing happening over again with yet another feature where nvidia is better to start with/ahead of the game. You also get people who are vocal about their dislike to nvidia and what they do but yet they keep on buying nvidia over amd.....

Yes, as of right now, it's not a priority for people but still the point stands that I be willing to bet "most" i.e. not "all" of the no/never votes are amd owners or/and people who just simply don't care for graphics at all or/and don't understand/see what RT achieves (and refuse to watch/think otherwise even when you have in depth videos explaining it from several sources and developers themselves....), which sadly seems to be a lot, which is surprising given we're on a so called "enthusiast" forum....

or 67% dont care for Ray Tracing *TODAY* ; which is about right - the performance hit from using it (unless you like 1080p upscaled to 4k) is too much.

Plenty of people on this very thread would disagree. Not really the fault of the tech itself if people are using weaker/older or RDNA 2 hardware and either way, RT performance is only going to get better with every new gen of gpus, well, maybe not for amd if RDNA 3 is being hinted at to be disappointing already.... If a 4060 can provide 3090 levels of RT perf. for <£400, I think we could see a shift in interest in the not too distant future. Time will tell.

@LtMatt Still doing your best to play down the benefits of raytracing. Combine that with a rather odd tweet from kopite7kimi -



Is RDNA3 going to be slower than Lovelace in raytracing workloads?

If Nvidia are indeed launching early then AMD have to start talking performance within weeks. If AMD choose to go dark on the subject, as they did with RDNA2, many of us will be ordering Lovelace rather than waiting for RDNA3.

Hoping rdna 3 delivers on RT as I have been saving up a lot of bookmarks

 

[Nexus18]

And you are making out like everyone loves it now. To settle it, you started a poll. 30.4% of 283 people said yes, now. That's a minority.

@LtMatt said he will care about it in the future, but the performance hit is too much at the moment (Paraphrasing, before I get a direct quote back ). That is not unreasonable, and could also apply if his card was a 2060 or 3060, rather than a 6800xt/6900xt. If the reason is it doesn't do anything for him, that's opinion and fine. If the reason is his AMD card can't keep up, that's a perfectly valid reason to answer the question.

The question was originally about now, and "in the future" was added later (I agreed with doing that, by the way) to catch votes like mine. Ray tracing is great, but it is not yet the be all and end all. Please note, this is someone that can run it and appreciate the difference, too. I have no axe to grind, but this is starting to get a bit crusadey.

I enjoy your questioning, but your point does seem to change to "fit your narrative". Originally it was "who cares now?", then it became "who cares and who will care", then it became "I bet it's just because your GPU can't run it properly yet".

Except I'm not, I like to think of myself as an educator on RT

Just read back in this thread to see how many posts we have where people have no idea, "don't care for shiny puddles", "developers downgraded rasterization to make RT look better" then we have links to "show" areas where RT isn't even implemented or extremely limited/poor areas Then when you link videos/posts explaining the benefits/perks it can provide to the gaming scene, suddenly, oh they're paid by nvidia, doesn't count

If people don't care for it then fair (which still puzzles me given we all want better graphics hence why we keep upgrading our hardware) but alas it's not just a case of that, again see posts showing no understanding for it. The performance reason is perfectly valid too, never said otherwise except that it's not the fault of RT as a tech., it's just an incredibly demanding workload and tbh, it's impressive how far it has come to do it in real time imo. We're only on second gen of RT too....

PS. might be worth reading matts posts way back with the fury x 4gb vram, power efficiency, tessellation comments etc. He'll soon be changing his tune on RT

Maybe it's because I work in development so can see how valuable it is from a developers/project POV too, which is why I am a big fan of it, that and also as per wrinklys posts, the most underrated thing with RT is allowing for a much more dynamic interactive scene i.e. when it comes to things like physics/destruction of the game world, something which people have stated they would rather have over RT but not realising RT is vital to achieving that goal too.

Plenty of people on this thread wopuld agree ; being forced to use 1080p upscaling on a £2000 gpu for ray tracing to be useable, means it isnt ready for general use. Thats Cp2077 and the RTX 3090 ofc.

£2k? Last time I checked a 3090 cost £1400?

See above points, just going around in circles again....

Would advise people to watch some videos on Disney/Pixar productions, kind of puts everything into perspective imo.

 

[Nexus18]

I think I mentioned early on that most people are ignorant of the subject matter. Some people expect the same level of quality that we have seen from a couple of UE5 demos, while others base their answer on poor or shallow implementations such as Dirt 5, SOTR, WoW, etc. We even have some falsely believe that ye olde ways are just as good. I think this explains many of the 'Not yet but in the future' votes.



My 3080, ASUS TUF OC, only cost £720 (£600 excl.VAT). I actually prefer the image produced by DLSS due to less shimmering, more detail.

I couldn't have put it better myself. Linus's video is a very good showcase of this where he just looked at SOTR and one other game to come to the conclusion it wasn't worth it HU is quite good in this sense, way back with turing, they like the majority of people stated how **** it was but in their recent videos, they have emphasised how RT is becoming more and more common and is quite a selling point going forward now.

And same, as shown by various sources, in a lot of cases dlss produces "better than native" quality, which is why I will use it even when no need for more perf. and probably also use FSR 2 over native when dlss is not present for the same reasons.

PS. 3080 cost me £660 (including delivery) And even cheaper after selling old gpus on!

 

[Nexus18]

The only one changing his tune is you with the poll options to try and add an option that makes it look like some People care about Ray Tracing. I know you are on a crusade but at least try to stick to the topic.

See said point Bill

Not really, most people are "making" it out like "no one/very small minority" cares for RT when the poll shows that they do care about it either now or in the future

70.6% do "care", be that now or in the future

Also, the "not yet, but in future" option was added as requested by several people (which is why we also added the "now" to the title to get a rough idea on who cares overall as of right now, who cares about RT but not yet and who doesn't care at all and never will), originally, I was just planning on a yes and no option.

 

[Nexus18]

Its only very recently the RTYX 3090 has dropped in price, for the bulk of last year they were all north of £2000 (and yes i am ignoring the unicorn dust powered official drop ones, available for the nano second they were listed, last year) I downscale games - render at 6k (or even 8k it the title is light weight such as Overwatch) and display at 4k, no fsaa and frame rate capped at 60.

3090 launched at £1400 and has been that since launch unless people "chose" to overpay for an AIB model (3090 FE were in stock the most and lasted the longest too so it was much easier than trying to get a 3080 fe). Either way, you don't "need" a 3090 to get playable experience "now", 3070 and 3080 are capable of it too and even a 3060 to some extent, 6900xt and 6800xt do alright in the lesser RT titles and with FSR, it will also get a much more playable experience.

But as said before, it's very subjective performance and what people deem as being acceptable/good as well as the type of games you play.

I did. You changed the poll to include in the future. This had the effect of .....


As stated, I agreed with adding that, but you can't use those people to say that they care about ray tracing now. I can't speak for anyone else, but I chose that option as yes wasn't correct, as I didn't care enough now.

Which changed when it was clear loads of people were not going to select yes.

Maybe read the start of the thread again

As per subject title.

Will get a poll created, probably keep it to basic yes and no options?

- Yes
- No

Was considering that but kind of want to keep the thread for just the here and now as ultimately every game at some point will become RT only.

Hence why I was wanting just a yes or no option to start with....

Based on several comments, I suggested these options, which majority said yes too, in fact it as your idea for the "not yet but in future option".....

Even Matt agreed with you:

Maybe a not yet? By that I mean that I do care for Ray tracing, but I wouldn't necessarily base a purchasing decision on it yet. I think it probably has a little more maturing to do.

Yes I think that makes sense and probably an option most people would pick.

Which then lead onto me suggesting the final options, which everyone agreed with:

Ok, so then perhaps these options? Along with a title change to "do you care for ray tracing now?"

- Yes
- No
- Not yet but in the future
- Never will care for it

So not sure how it was my choice?

 

[Nexus18]

Like I said, I agreed with including the not yet option. But my point is you can't then claim that all the "not yet" votes are "yes" votes in relation to how they feel about it now - The poll has changed, as you pointed out.

I'm not disputing the here and now vs future votes, it's pretty self explanatory that, well I would like to think so..... Problem is you have people insinuating that all of the not yet votes means people don't care about it at all.

Now we have people insinuating that the only reason the not yet option exists is to suit a narrative from my end despite it not being my idea Probably because they realise it isn't showing said narrative they want i.e. to have more votes for the outright "no" option.....

Maybe we should just stick with the basic yes and no options Which tbh as I said further back would have been better because whether people care for it or not, it is going to become the norm in the "future" regardless of how people view it.

 

[Nexus18]

Along with you insinuating that everyone who stated they didn't care about it yet....did.

I agree with you, it's the future. It's just not the now.

Read the post I replied to, tommy stating "when a poll has gone bad" i.e. insinuating that I wanted to see majority of votes saying "yes", presumably because I am a fan of RT and can see/understand what it brings to the table from both a developer and consumer POV as well as use it right "now" with good performance when others can't.... even though myself and the other RT fans stated that most will be voting for "not yet" because of said reasons.

Want to know what's funny is when highlighting that several people are stating amd can't render RT "fully" as shown in several videos from several different sources and even in matts own footage i.e. it wasn't "compression issues", nor "settings difference" (which looks like it somewhat got fixed in fc 6 later on), I get PM'd by Matt asking about it with some back and forth and best part:

Unless you are doing it to purposely mislead people, I'd politely ask you to exercise a bit more caution before throwing these unverified claims around and then passing them off as fact.

Yet....

To the 68.2% of people who voted in this poll that they do not care about RT either now or at all, I ask you to watch this video and tell me if this kind of graphically fidelity would make you change your mind?

 

[Nexus18]

Oh boy.

I'm disappointed that you've posted private conversations here, that's not cool and I'd have expected a bit better from you to be honest. The only reason I contacted you privately was to seek some evidence about these claims you made about RT effects not being rendered properly since others were getting frustrated with the thread derailment in the VRAM thread.

As you know, when I tested the examples provided (FC6, Bright Infinite, and Ghostwire) they all turned out to be false with the effects looking the same on the 6900 XT and the 3090.

EDIT - And yes, RT reflections do work in Dying Light 2 as shown here.

Dying Light 2 Incredible Ray Tracing 1 - Imgsli

imgsli.com

Dying Light 2 Incredible Ray Tracing 2 - Imgsli

imgsli.com

Dying Light 2 Incredible Ray Tracing 3 - Imgsli

imgsli.com

Lets be honest matt, you work for amd and one of the reasons you got a position with amd in the first place was because of the passion you have for pc gaming scene and amd products. You even officially "represented" them for a time being on the forum, which meant you couldn't get as "involved" with such topics like this.... Which I believe is partly why you went back to "LtMatt" instead of "AMDMatt", that and also in a different position now i.e. not a marketing/PR rep?

In this thread, you have made several posts picking scenarios where RT has little to no impact to suit a narrative of "RT does nothing, not worth it" hence your DL 2 youtube video, much like your doom screenshot where you pick an area with virtually no glass/metal to try and show RT reflections being pointless too, much like your dlss screenshot comparison of the close up radio claiming "native is better, dlss is incredibly blurry", much like how you created the guardians bench thread but intentionally left RT off because "oh it wasn't a preset option", several people immediately called it out too etc.

There is no problem with having a bias obviously but it's a bit tiresome trying to pass of the above as being a neutral source then pm'ing me accusing me of misleading people because several sources/videos show(ed) issues (including your own videos....) with RDNA 2 hardware then you go and do DL 2 video.... then saying I added the "not yet but in future" option to suit what I wanted to see i.e. "more people to care about RT" or something along those lines... when it was Bill, yourself and several others who wanted said option....

PS. I have only seen ghostwire screenshot, not bright memory, cp 2077 As noted with your own footage, it looks like it was a game(s) or/and amd driver issue given your newer footage doesn't show the issue, at least not in fc 6 anyway (although it still doesn't look as good as the 3090, 6900xt looks much lower res.). Be good to see video comparisons of same scenes as we have seen with the other sources, it appears to only affect certain aspects and not the "whole" RT scene or rather not "consistently".

Round and round we go, same people, different thread

Pretty much, it's getting tiring now, you can't post anything or have a good discussion without people jumping on your posts saying fanboi, spouting oh said source isn't trust worthy because "nvidia shills" (funny how there are no amd shills in the tech press world though and people only ever take issue with said tech press when they say something bad about amd or do something which shows nvidia in a better light...), people taking snippets to suit their narrative despite having several sources showing otherwise, people with an axe to grind posting nothing of value to any threads and just echoing the same old comments over and over again with no interest in getting involved with the topic at hand.

It's always the same, just see g vs free sync, hairworks vs tressfx, power efficiency, vram (fury x 4gb fiasco) etc. threads, just swings and roundabouts.

Needless to say, I'm taking a step back too until something worthy comes up

So if someone answered No, what does that mean? He doesn't care now but he might care in the future? But then why didn't he picked the 3rd option?

No basically means never will care for it, the 4th option was bit of a joke/over the top option, however, you have had people say things like this before "will never use RT". Hence why on an enthusiast forum where people spend a lot of money to get the best visuals (some can't even bear the thought of dropping from max non RT graphical options....), it's very odd to see people saying "no we don't want better graphics"....