RDNA 3 rumours Q3/4 2022

[humbug]

@Nexus18 It's already been confirmed that Massive's new Avatar game will require an RT-capable card to run it, I think that's due next year.

This is a development thing.

A game without RT needs an artist to go in a light the scene manually using multiple tools for it.

With RT its far more simplified, some art is still involved but you simply rely on RT to light the scene correctly. for devs its cheaper and less time consuming, the down side is you lose the artistic licence a skilled artist may employ, so games may have realistic lighting but also be dull.

 

[aoaaron]

£100-200 cheaper with inferior DLSS and Raytracing performance IMO.
Hope I'm wrong.

 

[aoaaron]

@Nexus18 It's already been confirmed that Massive's new Avatar game will require an RT-capable card to run it, I think that's due next year.

Given how the last Avatar game turned out, I'm not sure we should be basing GPU purchases on that.

Heck, people built their PCs for Cyberpunk lol so at launch they could enjoy it.

 

[Nexus18]

This is a development thing.

A game without RT needs an artist to go in a light the scene manually using multiple tools for it.

With RT its far more simplified, some art is still involved but you simply rely on RT to light the scene correctly. for devs its cheaper and less time consuming, the down side is you lose the artistic licence a skilled artist may employ, so games may have realistic lighting but also be dull.

Games that even use RT can/will need artists and their visions to the same extent, ray tracing doesn't limit them from still experimenting and making a whacky game in terms of art style, if anything, it gives them far more control/choice, sure look at pixar films, which use ray tracing.

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

Almost all the popular pixar/animated movies, from arcane to moana, uses ray tracing to simulate lighting. Do you think it made them harder to tell apart at a glance?
Artistic choice and expression will always be there, using path tracing on a cell shaded game would not make it any less distinct, artistic or beautiful.

Ray tracing right now is focused on photorealism because game graphics are still very primitive compared to real life. We've developed innumerable visual and performance cheats to make rastered graphics look better than they actually are, but we've also been constricted by rasterisation's limits for years, and ray tracing is a paradigm shift that will unlock much more potential - not just in art, but also game design. So ray tracing is all about making things realistic right now because that's what we're chomping at the bit to do. Once the initial impact is settled, leveraging ray tracing for unrealistic styles will start to come in.
Ray tracing is fundamentally about cohesive lights and shadows. You can easily set it up to support things like cel shading, surfaces without normals, more intense radiosity or reflectivity, or even a shadow-free environment if you want. The beauty of the technology is that everything is automated in real-time, and the rendering pipeline can always be modified before or after the fact to stylise that automation however you'd like, arguably faster and more easily than with rasterisation because you don't lose weeks of manhours every year to light and shadow baking.

Given how the last Avatar game turned out, I'm not sure we should be basing GPU purchases on that.

Heck, people built their PCs for Cyberpunk lol so at launch they could enjoy it.

I rememer playing that avatar game, it was beyond bad Much more hopeful for massives version on the snowdrop engine though, at the very least they should nail the open world design, which is what makes avatar, fully expect it will be a copy and paste of assasins creed gameplay.

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

It could pay of very well for them in the long run if the market continues on the path it is on though. I personally don't like the thought of only having 1 brand to choose from in this area...

What makes you say that? I would say it seems like they are putting all their eggs in one basket with it currently and hoping to grab the market by the balls here before anyone else does and even going to lengths where they have their own studio to mod/add in RT to classic games. People who think "nvidia pay for RT" was bad with ampere time.... I say wait and see what happens now given this is literally all nvidia has going for 40xx, they're going to make sure that they dominate here as chances are they're going to lose on every other front going forward for a while now. I wouldn't even be surprised if we see a lot more sponsored nvidia games suddenly amping up the RT effects and making use of 40xx optimisations & hardware to the point even ampere gpus will suffer with maxed RT.

An old article but given how it is easier listing new games, which don't have RT now, this kind of sums up nvidias future plan and it doesn't seem far of, they have now started pushing path tracing:

Ray tracing will be required by AAA games in 2023​

Personally I wouldn't say it is "required" though but from a developers/publishers and project budget POV, you can completely understand why it could classify as being "required". I also wouldn't be surprised if developers were in talks with amd about plans for the next gen/refresh consoles and how to focus on RT given the benefits for them.


Suppose we'll find out soon enough where RDNA 3 stands on RT, I just hope if AMD have improved it considerably, they will showcase the improvements on games like DL 2, CP 2077, the ascent and not godawful.

The reason I don't think they are taking it serioously, is because I would expect them to be designing their die to massively improve RT capabilities and figuring out how to move past the bottle necks in the architect to increase throughput.
Currently they seem more interested in using AI to make up for the short coming. Even their own slide showed that this is where they are investing their efforts.

They have a new RT mode for CP2077 but the only way to play it is with DLSS 3 because the RT hardware is too weak. Really?

 

[humbug]

This is a development thing.

A game without RT needs an artist to go in a light the scene manually using multiple tools for it.

With RT its far more simplified, some art is still involved but you simply rely on RT to light the scene correctly. for devs its cheaper and less time consuming, the down side is you lose the artistic licence a skilled artist may employ, so games may have realistic lighting but also be dull.

These for example are not RT, they are the work of a skilled lighting artist.

A few of them, one preview the rest in the spoiler.

Spoiler: Lighting

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

This is a development thing.

A game without RT needs an artist to go in a light the scene manually using multiple tools for it.

With RT its far more simplified, some art is still involved but you simply rely on RT to light the scene correctly. for devs its cheaper and less time consuming, the down side is you lose the artistic licence a skilled artist may employ, so games may have realistic lighting but also be dull.

The materials will most likely determine artistic direction and you can still make materials that don't fully obey physical properties while using RT, from what I've seen.

The way materials are coded into the engine will give variation between video games and how they look. Even if they tried to use the same texture.

I will say that artist will still need to light the scene manually, they will simply spend less time waiting for it to bake.

 

[humbug]

The materials will most likely determine artistic direction and you can still make materials that don't fully obey physical properties while using RT, from what I've seen.

The way materials are coded into the engine will give variation between video games and how they look. Even if they tried to use the same texture.

I will say that artist will still need to light the scene manually, they will simply spend less time waiting for it to bake.

Bake? Not all engines are Unreal Engine, that's all i'm going to say

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

Bake? Not all engines are Unreal Engine, that's all i'm going to say

Do these other engines not need to bake lighting for raster graphics?

 

[humbug]

Do these other engines not need to bake lighting for raster graphics?

No, not all of them do, the screenshots i posted above, none of that is baked, you place the light source or cube map and its just rendered, in real time.

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

No, not all of them do, the screenshots i posted above, none of that is baked, you place the light source or cube map and its just rendered, in real time.

Which engine is this, that you used in the pictures?

 

[humbug]

Which engine is this, that you used in the pictures?

Its a Frankenstein version of Cryengine, it started out in life as Cryengine 3.8, Crytek sold it to Amazon who turned it in to Lumberard, Cloud Imperium Games bought the licence and turn it into their own in house engine, there isn't much left of the original Cryengine, but the core renderer is in place.

If you want to see how that works Cryteks latest engine still works in the same way. Its free.

CRYENGINE | The complete solution for next generation game development by Crytek

The complete solution for next generation game development by Crytek

www.cryengine.com

 

[Calin Banc]

This is a development thing.

A game without RT needs an artist to go in a light the scene manually using multiple tools for it.

With RT its far more simplified, some art is still involved but you simply rely on RT to light the scene correctly. for devs its cheaper and less time consuming, the down side is you lose the artistic licence a skilled artist may employ, so games may have realistic lighting but also be dull.

From my experience is working perfectly and is quite avoiding the usual "bugs" with light spill, improper shadows, etc.
Plus, it has the advantage that is the same lighting as real light, the stuff we're familiar with.

These for example are not RT, they are the work of a skilled lighting artist.

A few of them, one preview the rest in the spoiler.

Spoiler: Lighting

And with RT/PT all that happens instantly without the need to painstakingly tune everything.

 

[humbug]

From my experience is working perfectly and is quite avoiding the usual "bugs" with light spill, improper shadows, etc.
Plus, it has the advantage that is the same lighting as real light, the stuff we're familiar with.



And with RT/PT all that happens instantly without the need to painstakingly tune everything.

Right. I did make that point, what i'm saying is the lighting in those screenshots is probably not accurate, but it sure is pretty, if you replace the lighting in those scenes with RT it may look completely different, it may even look better, but either way it looks the way it does because an artist made it look like that, a Turner painting can say more about a scene than a photograph, because it comes from the artists imagination. not code.

 

[gpuerrilla]

Ladies and gentlemen my name is Paul and this one is for @humbug

a lot more vector registers than RDNA2

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

I saw this article earlier, but it didn't explain exactly what vector registers are and how they affect gaming. For example most people know the concept of how infinity cache works.

It is a shame his video doesn't explain it either.

 

[JediFragger]

It is a shame his video doesn't explain it either.

MOAR FASTER!!!!

 

[gpuerrilla]

I saw this article earlier, but it didn't explain exactly what vector registers are and how they affect gaming. For example most people know the concept of how infinity cache works.

It is a shame his video doesn't explain it either.

The part of interest was the 50% increase. I was hoping bug could expand on his wisdom when he asked about shaders and after feeding him something he said:

Thanks, i'll have a good look at that later...

Waiting for the update.

 

[JediFragger]

Ladies and gentlemen my name is Paul and this one is for @humbug

He reckons Navi32 (7800XT) delayed til late Spring, which will be very surprising if so...

 

[humbug]

Waiting for the update.

Yeah sorry, not enough info to go on, not beyond what i have already said

He reckons Navi32 (7800XT) delayed til late Spring, which will be very surprising if so...

eh..... i give up.