Ray tracing is only a gimmick if you can't use it or don't play games with it.
Given you have consoles adding RT wherever they can now and it's pretty much in 90% of the games that gets released these days, it's far from a gimmick, if the first sentence applies, that's on the end user, not the industry.
Developers have spoken out about how great RT is in the here and now, it benefits them vastly with their workflow and in return also benefits visuals and in some cases, it can actually perform better than the old rasterization ways (as shown with metro ee).
What we see currently is just the tip of the iceberg for RT.
If you want the full RT experience then likes of quake, serious sam, doom, minecraft, mario etc. is the best showcase to see how the future will look.
In terms of modern games with somewhat proper RT implementation, metro ee is the best so far, next best one will be avatar and probably even excel past metro ee, it definitely will have the game world design advantage to show it of better anyway.
DL 2, cp 2077, chernobylite all have RT "added" on rather than being done from the ground up like the above but they are still very good showcases. Likes of RE village, FC 6, riftbreaker are using significantly less RT because of them being amd sponsored but the effects still make a noticeable difference if you know what to look for.
It definitely is something you need to experience for yourself though as it is quite cool seeing how lighting interacts with the environment as you move around and how shadows get cast and diffuse depending on distance, strength of light sources etc. likewise with reflections and not having them distort/disappear like they do with SSR.
IMO, RT is the first proper leap in graphics we have had in a long time (unless someone can name something else?). Sadly some people just don't understand it or rather don't want to hear it for whatever reason. I would advise watching digital foundrys videos on it as they know what to look for and explain the advantages and disadvantages of it very well.
Do a google search of reflections, puddles or whatever and you'll find, ray tracing effects are considerably more realistic than rasterization ways. Unless having your reflections disappear depending on your angle/position is normal?
I wish likes of days gone and ark had RT:
Given you have consoles adding RT wherever they can now and it's pretty much in 90% of the games that gets released these days, it's far from a gimmick, if the first sentence applies, that's on the end user, not the industry.
Developers have spoken out about how great RT is in the here and now, it benefits them vastly with their workflow and in return also benefits visuals and in some cases, it can actually perform better than the old rasterization ways (as shown with metro ee).
What we see currently is just the tip of the iceberg for RT.
If you want the full RT experience then likes of quake, serious sam, doom, minecraft, mario etc. is the best showcase to see how the future will look.
In terms of modern games with somewhat proper RT implementation, metro ee is the best so far, next best one will be avatar and probably even excel past metro ee, it definitely will have the game world design advantage to show it of better anyway.
DL 2, cp 2077, chernobylite all have RT "added" on rather than being done from the ground up like the above but they are still very good showcases. Likes of RE village, FC 6, riftbreaker are using significantly less RT because of them being amd sponsored but the effects still make a noticeable difference if you know what to look for.
It definitely is something you need to experience for yourself though as it is quite cool seeing how lighting interacts with the environment as you move around and how shadows get cast and diffuse depending on distance, strength of light sources etc. likewise with reflections and not having them distort/disappear like they do with SSR.
IMO, RT is the first proper leap in graphics we have had in a long time (unless someone can name something else?). Sadly some people just don't understand it or rather don't want to hear it for whatever reason. I would advise watching digital foundrys videos on it as they know what to look for and explain the advantages and disadvantages of it very well.
Is real life overblown as well?
Do a google search of reflections, puddles or whatever and you'll find, ray tracing effects are considerably more realistic than rasterization ways. Unless having your reflections disappear depending on your angle/position is normal?
I wish likes of days gone and ark had RT:
) how many of those games do you think are in the top 100 most played games on Steam? 
