RTX or no RTX

CuriousTomCat · 10 May 2020 at 02:09

Gerard said:
Wheres the big improvement in the last 2 pics? You can see differences in the first 2 comparisons but they're hardly massive.

I was being sarcastic to be honest. I couldn't see any difference in the last two either.

Rroff · 10 May 2020 at 02:11

CuriousTomCat said:
I was being sarcastic to be honest. I couldn't see any difference in the last two either.

You can see a difference in the lighting in the buildings on the right and generally in the scene there is more indirect light but it isn't very well done or taking good advantage of ray tracing at all though it probably looks more noticeably different in action rather than a screenshot but still not a good example of what ray tracing can do.

tommybhoy · 10 May 2020 at 02:47

Rroff said:
You can see a difference in the lighting in the buildings on the right and generally in the scene there is more indirect light but it isn't very well done or taking good advantage of ray tracing at all though it probably looks more noticeably different in action rather than a screenshot but still not a good example of what ray tracing can do.

Screenshots don't show RTX in it's full glory, RTX Metro/SOTTR look way way better in the dark scenes, definitely adds immersion, Turing isn't anywhere near powerful enough though as fps tanks and DLSS is pants, if they add DLSS v2 support, these games would be better.

Gerard · 10 May 2020 at 03:38

CuriousTomCat said:
I was being sarcastic to be honest. I couldn't see any difference in the last two either.

Guest2 · 10 May 2020 at 08:31

random_matt said:
Means nothing to me if it tanks 144fps.

Some like graphics, some like fps. Though we would be stuck with pong with no-one liked eye candy

Rroff said:
Actually took quite awhile if you add it all up - it is based on top of two other mods once of which implemented path tracing as a proof of concept but visually was a mess. However the final implementation of RTX and the noise filter actually didn't take long at all relatively speaking.

Quake 2 has an advantage over many other games however and probably why they choose it in that the original lighting was purely based off a static baked technique similar to ray tracing - so they could delete that in one go and then replace it with path tracing without having to touch the levels manually to rework them for ray tracing, etc. many other games they'd have to go back in and make lots of level design tweaks which would be a licensing nightmare.

Interesting, i'm sure some people will try at least on the older games. Hopefully they become open source as some games tend to

opethdisciple said:
The new consoles will have a lot to say on this subject. If they are capable then we PC gamers will see much more adaption of the technology.

Isnt the PS5 supposed to have a 2070S which supports RTX? Yes, not as cabable but the games will be highly optimized so expect the 2070S will be driven a long way

tommybhoy said:
Screenshots don't show RTX in it's full glory, RTX Metro/SOTTR look way way better in the dark scenes, definitely adds immersion, Turing isn't anywhere near powerful enough though as fps tanks and DLSS is pants, if they add DLSS v2 support, these games would be better.

I only realised how to take screenshots in Metro near to where I was playing. The big turny train part looked totally different with RTX switched on

CuriousTomCat said:
Wow, RTX made a huge difference in those screenshots. It's like comparing a modern game with something that came out 15 years ago.

I never said it was, or expected it to be. Over the years though all the different effects add up.

CuriousTomCat · 10 May 2020 at 09:06

Isn't Metro Exodus sponsored by Nvidia? Didn't Nvidia work on the RTX effects? I'm going to go out on a limb here, but isn't there a possibility that Nvidia may have gimped rasterisation lighting effects or told the developers not to waste too much time on it? Kind of like when Intel sponsers a review to make their hardware look good.

The first screenshot with RTX off clearly looks over exposed. Easily fixed by turning down the brightness on my screen

I'd like to see RTX on vs off in a game that didn't have any involvement from Nvdia.

I agree that RTX is the future and Ampere will be interesting but you cant use an Nvidia sponsered game as proof.

Zefan · 10 May 2020 at 09:22

Guest2 said:
Isnt the PS5 supposed to have a 2070S which supports RTX? Yes, not as cabable but the games will be highly optimized so expect the 2070S will be driven a long way

Consoles are confirmed to be using AMD's RDNA 2, which was shown doing real time ray tracing of sorts (I believe the exact form/equivalence to RTX is still under debate) in a video a few weeks ago. Like Turing, not all of these GPUs are expected to be RTX capable, so it wasn't always a guaranteed thing just from the GPU architecture alone, there've now been announcements and videos showing ray tracing in action on the new consoles.

Guest2 · 10 May 2020 at 10:10

CuriousTomCat said:
Isn't Metro Exodus sponsored by Nvidia? Didn't Nvidia work on the RTX effects? I'm going to go out on a limb here, but isn't there a possibility that Nvidia may have gimped rasterisation lighting effects or told the developers not to waste too much time on it? Kind of like when Intel sponsers a review to make their hardware look good.

The first screenshot with RTX off clearly looks over exposed. Easily fixed by turning down the brightness on my screen

I'd like to see RTX on vs off in a game that didn't have any involvement from Nvdia.

I agree that RTX is the future and Ampere will be interesting but you cant use an Nvidia sponsered game as proof.

Good point and I did think this at the time. Like you say, I too would be interested on a developer game with RTX on and off that's in no way related to Nvidia

Zefan said:
Consoles are confirmed to be using AMD's RDNA 2, which was shown doing real time ray tracing of sorts (I believe the exact form/equivalence to RTX is still under debate) in a video a few weeks ago. Like Turing, not all of these GPUs are expected to be RTX capable, so it wasn't always a guaranteed thing just from the GPU architecture alone, there've now been announcements and videos showing ray tracing in action on the new consoles.

If they are not all expected to be RTX capable, how are there videos shows ray tracing in action on new consoles? ...Or can ray tracing be achieved with something other than RTX, RTX is just Nvidias version of ray tracing right? (along with the RTX branding on new GPUs, instead of GTX)

Zefan · 10 May 2020 at 11:03

Guest2 said:
If they are not all expected to be RTX capable, how are there videos shows ray tracing in action on new consoles? ...Or can ray tracing be achieved with something other than RTX, RTX is just Nvidias version of ray tracing right? (along with the RTX branding on new GPUs, instead of GTX)

Not all of the RDNA 2 GPUs will be capable of real time ray tracing from what I've read, in the same way as the 16xx models don't have tensor cores but are Turing nonetheless. The new consoles look to be using one of the RDNA 2 GPUs that is capable of it, at least from the evidence presented so far; it may be that they opt to use far less rays (I recall the PS5 tech announcement talking about 1million rays, I'm no RT buff so unsure what other games use BP) and/or a different implementation to RTX which will make it a bit fiddly to directly compare the two.

K1LaW8tt5 · 10 May 2020 at 11:10

Is DLSS on in those screens they look horrific?

Until consoles and AMD start doing ray tracing RTX will just be a bolt on in a few games. And in some instances they will gimp the normal lighting to make RTX methods look better. Global illuminations etc.

Guest2 · 10 May 2020 at 11:16

Thanks Zefan.

I'm sure people have seen these before but Q2 really does come to life with RTX enabled. Yes, fps takes a huge hit but still very playable at 30-40fps on 3440x1440 with RTX on the highest setting. FYI gsync is enabled so off still limited to 100fps

RTX off

RTX on

RTX off

RTX on

RTX off

RTX on

varkanoid · 10 May 2020 at 13:25

Reading this last page it looks like people are confused what RTX is. Ray Tracing is Ray Tracing is Ray Tracing its been around for years and years and years. If you have a fast enough computer it can be done on any machine.

RTX is just a marketing label for the consumer graphics cards Nvidia sell that are capable of performing certain types of Ray Tracing in games due to their specific hardware better than any other for the first time.

You can produce a Ray Tracing image on a GTX 1080ti, a GTX 1080, an AMD RX 580, even an AMD 7850 or older it will just take a long time to create one frame/image. You can do ray tracing on a console nothing to do with "RTX" whatsoever if it is fast enough.

Jimmy Weirdarms · 10 May 2020 at 13:47

varkanoid said:
Reading this last page it looks like people are confused what RTX is. Ray Tracing is Ray Tracing is Ray Tracing its been around for years and years and years. If you have a fast enough computer it can be done on any machine.

RTX is just a marketing label...

That's kinda the point though - you can do any graphical calculation on a CPU just as you can on a GPU, it's just that you'll have to wait a long old time for each frame. RTX is hardware raytracing acceleration. So while you *can* do raytracing on anything, it's useless for games without some form of hardware acceleration, and the RTX line have specific hardware for it.

You can do ray tracing on a console nothing to do with "RTX" whatsoever if it is fast enough.

Sure, but so far RTX is the only hardware fast enough. When AMD reveal their solution I guess we'll see whether it's dedicated hardware like the RTX stuff or if they've found a way to do the same on their 'normal' graphics chips at a reasonable speed. I hope they do have something that is practical for gaming use - if the consoles have it, it'll take off, if not it's going to be a small niche for years.

LoadsaMoney · 10 May 2020 at 14:01

varkanoid said:
Reading this last page it looks like people are confused what RTX is. Ray Tracing is Ray Tracing is Ray Tracing its been around for years and years and years. If you have a fast enough computer it can be done on any machine.

RTX is just a marketing label for the consumer graphics cards Nvidia sell that are capable of performing certain types of Ray Tracing in games due to their specific hardware better than any other for the first time.

You can produce a Ray Tracing image on a GTX 1080ti, a GTX 1080, an AMD RX 580, even an AMD 7850 or older it will just take a long time to create one frame/image. You can do ray tracing on a console nothing to do with "RTX" whatsoever if it is fast enough.

Yeah, ive said it before, RTX is the name of Nvidias graphics cards, that have hardware ray tracing, the ray tracing they are doing, isn't RTX, its Microsofts DXR, which is the exact same ray tracing, that the new consoles, and AMDs new RDNA 2 cards, are going to be running.

The only difference, is going to be the hardware used.

melmac · 10 May 2020 at 14:37

LoadsaMoney said:
Yeah, ive said it before, RTX is the name of Nvidias graphics cards, that have hardware ray tracing, the ray tracing they are doing, isn't RTX, its Microsofts DXR, which is the exact same ray tracing, that the new consoles, and AMDs new RDNA 2 cards, are going to be running.

The only difference, is going to be the hardware used.

Exactly right, and you have posted this several times, people don't want to learn I guess.

CuriousTomCat said:
Isn't Metro Exodus sponsored by Nvidia? Didn't Nvidia work on the RTX effects? I'm going to go out on a limb here, but isn't there a possibility that Nvidia may have gimped rasterisation lighting effects or told the developers not to waste too much time on it? Kind of like when Intel sponsers a review to make their hardware look good.

The first screenshot with RTX off clearly looks over exposed. Easily fixed by turning down the brightness on my screen

I'd like to see RTX on vs off in a game that didn't have any involvement from Nvdia.

I agree that RTX is the future and Ampere will be interesting but you cant use an Nvidia sponsered game as proof.

I have read it all now. Nvidia gimping the lighting on games to make "RTX" look better.

And just in case you misunderstand me. Your post is nonsense.

Guest2 said:
Good point and I did think this at the time. Like you say, I too would be interested on a developer game with RTX on and off that's in no way related to Nvidia

No, he hasn't a good point. He hasn't any kind of point. Suggest you read Loadsamoney's post above. And Think about it for a minute. With the scrutiny that Ray Tracing is under, do you think that if Nvidia was gimping image quality in games to make Ray Tracing look better that some tech sites wouldn't have reported it? There are several sites that would jump on the chance to make Nvidia look bad. Adored TV is one. Hardware unboxed is another, they have been very critical of Ray Tracing and DLSS.

Guest2 · 10 May 2020 at 14:53

varkanoid said:
Reading this last page it looks like people are confused what RTX is. Ray Tracing is Ray Tracing is Ray Tracing its been around for years and years and years. If you have a fast enough computer it can be done on any machine.

RTX is just a marketing label for the consumer graphics cards Nvidia sell that are capable of performing certain types of Ray Tracing in games due to their specific hardware better than any other for the first time.

You can produce a Ray Tracing image on a GTX 1080ti, a GTX 1080, an AMD RX 580, even an AMD 7850 or older it will just take a long time to create one frame/image. You can do ray tracing on a console nothing to do with "RTX" whatsoever if it is fast enough.

Thanks for clarifying a few posts above

RTX is just Nvidias version of ray tracing right? (along with the RTX branding on new GPUs, instead of GTX)

arc@css · 10 May 2020 at 15:18

K1LaW8tt5 · 10 May 2020 at 16:21

melmac said:
I have read it all now. Nvidia gimping the lighting on games to make "RTX" look better.

non rtx global illumination in metro looks like someone turned the lights off. Games from 10 years ago could do it better.

melmac · 10 May 2020 at 16:30

weldon855 said:
non rtx global illumination in metro looks like someone turned the lights off. Games from 10 years ago could do it better.

LOL

LoadsaMoney · 10 May 2020 at 17:03

You can't really see it in screenshots.

I noticed the difference in Exodus when i played it with RT on, after playing it previously on a V64, looks much better.