RDNA 3 rumours Q3/4 2022

[Twinz]

Because the graphics look better

It's like asking why do people care about using high graphics settings instead of low. Or why people will buy a PC that's cost 3 times the price of a PlayStation.

This is dubious. When a game has *properly implemented* baked-in lighting, it looks great. When devs use ray tracing as an excuse to phone-in the baked-in lighting, then yes, ray tracing looks better than crap-tier baked-in lighting.

Control is an example of such a title. Ray tracing looks nice in Control, but when you turn off ray tracing, it looks like a 6-year-old coded the lighting on a "bring your child to work" day.

 

[Grim5]

This is dubious. When a game has *properly implemented* baked-in lighting, it looks great. When devs use ray tracing as an excuse to phone-in the baked-in lighting, then yes, ray tracing looks better than crap-tier baked-in lighting.

Control is an example of such a title. Ray tracing looks nice in Control, but when you turn off ray tracing, it looks like a 6-year-old coded the lighting on a "bring your child to work" day.

This is just whataboutism. Some games still look great on low settings and not far from high, some look 20 years older on low than high.

 

[Shaz12]

can someone explain why people care about ray tracing? In games I'm too busy playing them to notice fancy reflections. Are people so sucked into to nVidia kool aid they need RT for no apparent reason?

It really is subjective. I think RT actually makes a difference in motion rather than still screenshots. In Cyberpunk for instance, turn on all RT effects, play for 30 mins and then try playing with it off. Something about the image just won’t feel right. Ray tracing is the future and with 4000 series being so stupidly fast at it, I don’t see why people don’t care about it. My 4090 is running Cyberpunk near 60 FPS with RT Ultra settings without DLSS. That’s an indication that RT is finally viable this gen.

 

[Twinz]

This is just whataboutism. Some games still look great on low settings, some look 20 years old.

What about my point is it "whataboutism"?

How good ray tracing looks depends on how well the baked-in lighting is done in the title you are comparing it to.

 

[Frenzy]

Yeah Ray tracing isn't where we want it yet but it is the future of games, unless someone comes across a better way to simulate light. The end game is computer graphics indistinguishable from real life.

 

[kieran_read]

It really is subjective. I think RT actually makes a difference in motion rather than still screenshots. In Cyberpunk for instance, turn on all RT effects, play for 30 mins and then try playing with it off. Something about the image just won’t feel right. Ray tracing is the future and with 4000 series being so stupidly fast at it, I don’t see why people don’t care about it. My 4090 is running Cyberpunk near 60 FPS with RT Ultra settings without DLSS. That’s an indication that RT is finally viable this gen.

This reminds me of when I had my Xbox 360 when i was a kid, i got my first "HD" TV and i remeber player on the new HD TV thinking, what was all this talk about, this looks no different.
It wasn't until I went back to an older non HDTV and i was like holy crap this looks terrible.

Raytracing reminds me of that, it's one of those things you don't realise you want until you've lost it.

 

[gpuerrilla]

My 4090 is running Cyberpunk near 60 FPS with RT Ultra settings without DLSS. That’s an indication that RT is finally viable this gen.

So a £1700 card is all that's needed but then anything below is not viable from the angle your putting it? That is exactly how nvidia marketing team would have you believe it.

 

[Nexus18]

This is dubious. When a game has *properly implemented* baked-in lighting, it looks great. When devs use ray tracing as an excuse to phone-in the baked-in lighting, then yes, ray tracing looks better than crap-tier baked-in lighting.

Control is an example of such a title. Ray tracing looks nice in Control, but when you turn off ray tracing, it looks like a 6-year-old coded the lighting on a "bring your child to work" day.

Again.... What about metro ee? The original version which people touted as one of the best for lighting etc. before RT was even a thing.... Then came along metro ee which made that supposedly fantastic looking game look pretty bad in comparison....

No matter how good rasterization might be in likes of RDR 2 for example, there is nothing you can do to improve/fix the weird distortion effects or/and reflections disappearing or looking broken, halo'ing around the edges, lighting bleeding through walls, objects and so on. Funnily I noticed in Jack frags BF 1 video recently just how bad the sea/water reflections looked (something I would never have noticed if it had not been for seeing what RT reflections look like), look at when the guy runs past the naval ship on the beach for example:

 

[Nexus18]

It really is subjective. I think RT actually makes a difference in motion rather than still screenshots. In Cyberpunk for instance, turn on all RT effects, play for 30 mins and then try playing with it off. Something about the image just won’t feel right. Ray tracing is the future and with 4000 series being so stupidly fast at it, I don’t see why people don’t care about it. My 4090 is running Cyberpunk near 60 FPS with RT Ultra settings without DLSS. That’s an indication that RT is finally viable this gen.

If done from the ground up like metro ee, RT is viable on all hardware since turing (using said gpus appropriate for their res.), hybrid models like cp will require more brute force and sadly will be the main way until legacy hardware without RT is completely dropped. Even with titles like CP, with ampere it is viable, obviously dlss is to be used but why one wouldn't use this when it produces better IQ on the whole is beyond me.

But agree, in motion is where you really see the difference, riftbreaker is probably my favourite show case for where in motion it adds a lot to the atmosphere of the game.

This reminds me of when I had my Xbox 360 when i was a kid, i got my first "HD" TV and i remeber player on the new HD TV thinking, what was all this talk about, this looks no different.
It wasn't until I went back to an older non HDTV and i was like holy crap this looks terrible.

Raytracing reminds me of that, it's one of those things you don't realise you want until you've lost it.

Well said, just like that bf 1 video above, I would never have noticed such issues with SSR had it not been for seeing how RT looked. When it comes to RT, I just think a lot of people just don't understand what it does and the advantages it offers over raster, let alone the value it provides to developers, which is a shame as when you talk about "next gen" graphics and so on, RT is literally the main thing that will provide that next leap and not just for "shiny reflections" but also will allow the potential for better dynamic environment which could mean better and improved destruction in game worlds (something that I am sure many want....)

 

[Shaz12]

So a £1700 card is all that's needed but then anything below is not viable from the angle your putting it? That is exactly how nvidia marketing team would have you believe it.

Depends on your definition of viable. For me its high refresh gaming. My 3080 Ti/3080 were running all RT games at 60 FPS at 4k with DLSS performance and at 1440p with DLSS Quality and none of them were £1700 GPUs. I just put up with it because I like how it looks. The 4090 just shuts people up who keep complaining that RT drops FPS too much, even though you are still above 60 FPS. The 4090 is so fast, you will run into CPU bottlenecks if you don't use RT

 

[Shaz12]

This reminds me of when I had my Xbox 360 when i was a kid, i got my first "HD" TV and i remeber player on the new HD TV thinking, what was all this talk about, this looks no different.
It wasn't until I went back to an older non HDTV and i was like holy crap this looks terrible.

Raytracing reminds me of that, it's one of those things you don't realise you want until you've lost it.

Pretty much. Its just like HDR. I was having a crappy AW2721D, which was not a proper HDR monitor and I used to think HDR isn't a big deal. Now that I have seen it on my AW3423DW QD-OLED which is a true HDR monitor, I just cannot do without it.

 

[gpuerrilla]

Depends on your definition of viable. For me its high refresh gaming. My 3080 Ti/3080 were running all RT games at 60 FPS at 4k with DLSS performance and at 1440p with DLSS Quality and none of them were £1700 GPUs. I just put up with it because I like how it looks. The 4090 just shuts people up who keep complaining that RT drops FPS too much, even though you are still above 60 FPS. The 4090 is so fast, you will run into CPU bottlenecks if you don't use RT

From conversations/posts on here all we had to do was turn down a setting or two and guys with 3080 class cards were playing buttery smooth ray traced titles is what I was led to believe..

 

[Shaz12]

From conversations/posts on here all we had to do was turn down a setting or two and guys with 3080 class cards were playing buttery smooth ray traced titles is what I was led to believe..

More fps is always better? I am getting 120 fps in ray tracing games which is silky smooth but that doesn’t mean I don’t want 240 fps?

 

[kieran_read]

If done from the ground up like metro ee, RT is viable on all hardware since turing (using said gpus appropriate for their res.), hybrid models like cp will require more brute force and sadly will be the main way until legacy hardware without RT is completely dropped. Even with titles like CP, with ampere it is viable, obviously dlss is to be used but why one wouldn't use this when it produces better IQ on the whole is beyond me.

But agree, in motion is where you really see the difference, riftbreaker is probably my favourite show case for where in motion it adds a lot to the atmosphere of the game.



Well said, just like that bf 1 video above, I would never have noticed such issues with SSR had it not been for seeing how RT looked. When it comes to RT, I just think a lot of people just don't understand what it does and the advantages it offers over raster, let alone the value it provides to developers, which is a shame as when you talk about "next gen" graphics and so on, RT is literally the main thing that will provide that next leap and not just for "shiny reflections" but also will allow the potential for better dynamic environment which could mean better and improved destruction in game worlds (something that I am sure many want....)

One thing i would like and i don't know if this is a thing yet is ray traced sounds, i love sound in games, music whatever it is. I wouldn't say i'm an audiophile but the imersion good sound plays in games is up there, it would be awesome to play an online shooter where i can hear peoples footsteps echoing around me bounching off different materials and have it change the sound/behaviour.

Imagine playing a shooter where you have to actually close the doors behind you as it would help muffle the sound you're making as those ray traced sounds bounce of the door and back into the room.

Or playing a new battlefield where as a helecopter goes past a building and it would sound different depending on the material between you and it.

That might already be a thing but i don't really see people talk about it much.

 

[Nexus18]

One thing i would like and i don't know if this is a thing yet is ray traced sounds, i love sound in games, music whatever it is. I wouldn't say i'm an audiophile but the imersion good sound plays in games is up there, it would be awesome to play an online shooter where i can hear peoples footsteps echoing around me bounching off different materials and have it change the sound/behaviour.

Imagine playing a shooter where you have to actually close the doors behind you as it would help muffle the sound you're making as those ray traced sounds bounce of the door and back into the room.

Or playing a new battlefield where as a helecopter goes past a building and it would sound different depending on the material between you and it.

That might already be a thing but i don't really see people talk about it much.

I believe forza 5 had ray tracing audio, at least it was talked about a fair by the devs, I think there are a couple of other games that have or will be implementing it too.

 

[Mr Evil]

One thing i would like and i don't know if this is a thing yet is ray traced sounds...

Check out this demo of AMD TrueAudio Next: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLlW-lO1wXU It's a really good example of how much improvement is possible in audio. I don't know if any games actually use it - most games have terrible audio.

And though not ray-traced, it's worth listening to the binaural parts of Hellblade. Binaural recordings are about as close to perfectly realistic reproduction as it's possible to get.

Unfortunately most people don't care about audio in games, or are even able to hear that anything is lacking.

 

[RBImGuy]

Check out this demo of AMD TrueAudio Next: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLlW-lO1wXU It's a really good example of how much improvement is possible in audio. I don't know if any games actually use it - most games have terrible audio.

And though not ray-traced, it's worth listening to the binaural parts of Hellblade. Binaural recordings are about as close to perfectly realistic reproduction as it's possible to get.

Unfortunately most people don't care about audio in games, or are even able to hear that anything is lacking.

At this point I assume most game devs are deaf really

 

[kalniel]

Creative did environment bounced sound via EAX many moons ago. Nowadays I think most devs are using engine-based sound stuff rather than needing third-party hardware.

But I wouldn't say they're ignoring audio these days - just listen to the difference Forza Horizon 5 has over 4 in the sound department - it's such an improvement I can't really play 4 any more.

 

[Shaz12]

One thing i would like and i don't know if this is a thing yet is ray traced sounds, i love sound in games, music whatever it is. I wouldn't say i'm an audiophile but the imersion good sound plays in games is up there, it would be awesome to play an online shooter where i can hear peoples footsteps echoing around me bounching off different materials and have it change the sound/behaviour.

Imagine playing a shooter where you have to actually close the doors behind you as it would help muffle the sound you're making as those ray traced sounds bounce of the door and back into the room.

Or playing a new battlefield where as a helecopter goes past a building and it would sound different depending on the material between you and it.

That might already be a thing but i don't really see people talk about it much.

Returnal on PS5 was the best example of ray-traced audio. Sounded really nice on my Astro.

 

[kieran_read]

Check out this demo of AMD TrueAudio Next: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLlW-lO1wXU It's a really good example of how much improvement is possible in audio. I don't know if any games actually use it - most games have terrible audio.

And though not ray-traced, it's worth listening to the binaural parts of Hellblade. Binaural recordings are about as close to perfectly realistic reproduction as it's possible to get.

Unfortunately most people don't care about audio in games, or are even able to hear that anything is lacking.

That's pretty awesome really, i found the talking a little defening it would have been nice if they made them a little clearer and more conversational, I could easily imagine a game like Hitman having something like that in a big ball room, walking around listening into conversations to identify a target. But it's an amazing sample of something that would be great in games.

Ill have to check out Hellblade I own it, never played it though.

At this point I assume most game devs are deaf really

I honestly would prefer sound over graphics, we are already at a good point in graphics, better ambient sounds would be far superior. With the example above would be good for weather sounds and things like that too, wing rushing through trees, would make the next Elder Scrolls game pretty imense!