The RT Related Games, Benchmarks, Software, Etc Thread.

[Nexus18]

I don't think a lot of it has anything to do with lighting even if RT were to make that bit easier to implement,although it does make me wonder whether VRAM is a consideration too(needing to load a new set of textures for destroyed items).However, Just Cause 3 and 4 incorporated destruction physics into an openworld years ago. Merely the fact a door can't even be destroyed,or the fact that NPC AI models have not improved,or the fact the same 10 voice actors are used,etc seems more like an obsession over making games look graphically pretty,and the rest has been utterly ignored. Also massive open worlds existed decades ago,and processing power has increased in size by huge amounts,as has core count. Even Cyberpunk 2077 is a mediocre RPG experience and outside the main quests it's still an empty world populated by copy paste NPCs,and I really hope the Modding community can fix that. Games such as GTA V might be technically obsolete but they seem to do certain things far better than newer games.

Bit easier? Try a lot quicker and easier.... Again, see above example, 26 minutes to get somewhat decent results for just "one" scene/frame and 1 light source..... now add all the frames/scenes and multiple light sources throughout the game and work out how much time that would have taken and metro ee is pretty linear/closed.... of course when devs are still working on raster version then the true benefits of this time saved won't be fully realised but that day is coming whether we like it or not.

Everything in the development world always comes down to timelines and budgeting, if something isn't achievable or not required for MVP, it won't make the cut.

Yes we have had open worlds or yonks but they all feel/look dead with the same copy and paste done throughout, first game that actually had an immersive game world for me was assassins creed unity. Cp 2077 also feels immersive and like the city is lived in. GTA 5 is good but it's not really as good as people make out, npcs are still dumb, they don't have sentient like behaviour like some think and they are also scripted/set on a path, I wouldn't say either cp 2077 or gta 5 npc is much different to each other, both have their pros and cons.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Bit easier? Try a lot quicker and easier.... Again, see above example, 26 minutes to get somewhat decent results for just "one" scene/frame and 1 light source..... now add all the frames/scenes and multiple light sources throughout the game and work out how much time that would have taken and metro ee is pretty linear/closed.... of course when devs are still working on raster version then the true benefits of this time saved won't be fully realised but that day is coming whether we like it or not.

Everything in the development world always comes down to timelines and budgeting, if something isn't achievable or not required for MVP, it won't make the cut.

Yes we have had open worlds or yonks but they all feel/look dead with the same copy and paste done throughout, first game that actually had an immersive game world for me was assassins creed unity. Cp 2077 also feels immersive and like the city is lived in. GTA 5 is good but it's not really as good as people make out, npcs are still dumb, they don't have sentient like behaviour like some think and they are also scripted/set on a path, I wouldn't say either cp 2077 or gta 5 npc is much different to each other, both have their pros and cons.

The two biggest things I liked about Cyberpunk 2077 were the art design(with each zone of the city being very distinctive) and the character animations(using technology from the company JALI). But,Cyberpunk 2077 is not that great at all in certain aspects,especially compared to some of their earlier games. It's very empty,has a distinct lack of random events and a lack of interactability. Modders are trying to now add some of this back,and if they can do what modders have done for Bethesda games we could be in for a treat.

It makes me wonder if the game had been delayed another year,what we might have had!

The NPC AI is horrendous - I played plenty of games where the NPC AI and pathing is better and more reactive. Even in Fallout 4,which like most Bethesda games is not know for its great NPC AI,I have moments where NPCs have followed me into buildings or found high vantage points and attacked me,etc. Then games like FEAR which had awesome NPC AI,who would try and flank you....and this was in an era of single core CPUs.Now look at what CDPR demoed before....we never got that at all. Its a good game,but if the pre-release game we were promised happened it would have been an amazing RPG experience.

I really hope the DLC addresses some of the problems,and the next Cyberpunk fixes some of the issues.

 

[Nexus18]

Oh yeah cp 2077 is certainly nothing to shout home about, it's a good game imo and provides similar experience to other open world rpg games, it just doesn't deserve the bashing it got or rather still does get but that is the devs fault for false advertising/creating the hype and also the players fault for believing the e3 trailers/hype.

 

[SirPsychoZe0]

I downloaded CP2077 to try out the new Path Tracing (and also look at the Ray Tracing again, which I never really played with). Whilst I hear all the praise for the Path Tracing, and have seen some nice on/off screenshots, I have to say that I don't really see any great benefit to it. I can certainly notice that things are 'different', but not necessarily 'better'. And by no means did I see anything which made me start to say things in my mind like "This is the closest to realism ever". I should note that I am a bit of a graphics-snob and would love to be 'blown away' by RT/PT, but I am still waiting for a game which does that.

Even if RT/PT does provide for better lighting overall compared with traditional rasterisation techniques, why does the whole process need to be done in real time? It reminds me of the days of the dedicated physics card and when physics were all the rage; whilst its great to do in real time, if you just run half a dozen simulations of a given object being destroyed in a game, and bake those recorded animations into the game so that the object gets destroyed differently each time, then the average gamer will think (a) this is proper physics destruction being accurately done, and (b) won't notice that its an animation because its not a 'repeating' animation due to the various animations that can be cycled through. Bringing this back to PT/RT, why for the most part can't developers just use PT/RT like movies do to work out the correct / best lighting, and then just bake that lighting into the game and just keep PT/RT for more dynamic objects? I assume you can't 'bake in' reflections being accurate, but by god am I tired of RT being showcased wholly around puddle reflections etc. - I don't care about them, and traditional rasterisation techniques for this are good enough in my mind. Maybe there is a suite of games out there which use reflections as a core mechanic which require the gamer's attention, but I've not seen it.

What I also wonder is whether anyone is going out of their way to create a CP2077 'Overdrive Raster' mod, i.e. seeing how good they can make things using traditional techniques. Because if they are not, then we aren't comparing like for like i.e. we're comparing the best PT/RT can do when developers focus exclusively on it, versus was comes 'as standard' in games in terms of raster, which seems unfair.

I'd much rather developers put much, much more time into facial and body animations (but mainly facial) which are so bad compared to modern graphics. You can make CP2077 look at great as possible with PT on a rainy night, but the moment an NPC comes into shot it all falls apart. I know there has been some recent demos on AI helping with this, but I've seen videos from 10 years ago promising big leaps in this regard and it never happens. Part of this I'm sure is to do with different languages and having characters open their mouths in a generic fashion to suit this, but I'd hope AI could solve this by matching the animation to the words spoken. There is much more to just eyes and mouths when you watch a real person speak, so many unsysmetric movements, ticks, oddities, distractions etc. which could be built in to make NPCs believable. Voice lines should have natural fluctionations in repeated lines spoken along with ad libs.

The moment I will consider a video game to be 'close to realism' is not when the graphics get better, but when I start to feeling emotions for an NPC because I've forgotten their not real.

 

[Calin Banc]

You can't bypass no light since there is no light sources. It's physics. This why they try and add the burning torches in Dungeons nobody has ever been in for decades! Or all the huge cracks or holes in ceiling which in theory should mean you could enter the Dungeon from above and bypass half the traps!

Also it's just as easy to switch it off it rasterised games - a virtual point light source is added. Just disable it - the reality is most people will complain that it's too dark just like they did in Doom 3.So I will expect even the RT lighting will be subject to artistic whims too on how it is implemented. After all those super reflective floors which are superclean and totally even. No dirt, etc which would affect the reflections.

Usually the cracks are small and more believable, but yes, most likely they would have design the levels a bit different if they would have had an engine that allows an open world and not closed in cells.
Mines, caves or other areas where people live have the logical lights. Tombs are a bit different, but you could still add torches to light the place as you move in plus others spells: they were two in vanilla game: a ball of light that would follow you around and one where you cast a light point that travels until it hits something and sticks to it, ilumaniting the area. There shouldn't really be a problem.

In terms of other gameplay mechanics, yes, RPGs are pretty crappy - others genres as well.

But that's part of the dumbing down move and players who're happy with petty experiences that find excuses for everything, from physics, AI, sound, etc. Case in point: try and jump in cold water and then go about like nothing has happen while a snow storm is coming down on the land.Skyrim and Valhalla have no issues with that.

Oh, and radioactive dust and particles that will remain on you, so radiation poisoning would happen fast in games like Stalker, Fallout, Metro...

LE: A "total darkness" scene from Hogwarts.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Usually the cracks are small and more believable, but yes, most likely they would have design the levels a bit different if they would have had an engine that allows an open world and not closed in cells.
Mines, caves or other areas where people live have the logical lights. Tombs are a bit different, but you could still add torches to light the place as you move in plus others spells: they were two in vanilla game: a ball of light that would follow you around and one where you cast a light point that travels until it hits something and sticks to it, ilumaniting the area. There shouldn't really be a problem.

In terms of other gameplay mechanics, yes, RPGs are pretty crappy - others genres as well.

But that's part of the dumbing down move and players who're happy with petty experiences that find excuses for everything, from physics, AI, sound, etc. Case in point: try and jump in cold water and then go about like nothing has happen while a snow storm is coming down on the land.Skyrim and Valhalla have no issues with that.

Oh, and radioactive dust and particles that will remain on you, so radiation poisoning would happen fast in games like Stalker, Fallout, Metro...

LE: A "total darkness" scene from Hogwarts.

Or the survival games were you need eat,drink and poo every 15 minutes.

 

[Calin Banc]

Yeah, that too.

 

[mrk]

Alex makes some valid points about the future of RT and it is quite exciting to be fair.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I downloaded CP2077 to try out the new Path Tracing (and also look at the Ray Tracing again, which I never really played with). Whilst I hear all the praise for the Path Tracing, and have seen some nice on/off screenshots, I have to say that I don't really see any great benefit to it. I can certainly notice that things are 'different', but not necessarily 'better'. And by no means did I see anything which made me start to say things in my mind like "This is the closest to realism ever". I should note that I am a bit of a graphics-snob and would love to be 'blown away' by RT/PT, but I am still waiting for a game which does that.

Even if RT/PT does provide for better lighting overall compared with traditional rasterisation techniques, why does the whole process need to be done in real time? It reminds me of the days of the dedicated physics card and when physics were all the rage; whilst its great to do in real time, if you just run half a dozen simulations of a given object being destroyed in a game, and bake those recorded animations into the game so that the object gets destroyed differently each time, then the average gamer will think (a) this is proper physics destruction being accurately done, and (b) won't notice that its an animation because its not a 'repeating' animation due to the various animations that can be cycled through. Bringing this back to PT/RT, why for the most part can't developers just use PT/RT like movies do to work out the correct / best lighting, and then just bake that lighting into the game and just keep PT/RT for more dynamic objects? I assume you can't 'bake in' reflections being accurate, but by god am I tired of RT being showcased wholly around puddle reflections etc. - I don't care about them, and traditional rasterisation techniques for this are good enough in my mind. Maybe there is a suite of games out there which use reflections as a core mechanic which require the gamer's attention, but I've not seen it.

What I also wonder is whether anyone is going out of their way to create a CP2077 'Overdrive Raster' mod, i.e. seeing how good they can make things using traditional techniques. Because if they are not, then we aren't comparing like for like i.e. we're comparing the best PT/RT can do when developers focus exclusively on it, versus was comes 'as standard' in games in terms of raster, which seems unfair.

I'd much rather developers put much, much more time into facial and body animations (but mainly facial) which are so bad compared to modern graphics. You can make CP2077 look at great as possible with PT on a rainy night, but the moment an NPC comes into shot it all falls apart. I know there has been some recent demos on AI helping with this, but I've seen videos from 10 years ago promising big leaps in this regard and it never happens. Part of this I'm sure is to do with different languages and having characters open their mouths in a generic fashion to suit this, but I'd hope AI could solve this by matching the animation to the words spoken. There is much more to just eyes and mouths when you watch a real person speak, so many unsysmetric movements, ticks, oddities, distractions etc. which could be built in to make NPCs believable. Voice lines should have natural fluctionations in repeated lines spoken along with ad libs.

The moment I will consider a video game to be 'close to realism' is not when the graphics get better, but when I start to feeling emotions for an NPC because I've forgotten their not real.

It would be nice to see more movement on the character models and animations. Cyberpunk 2077 did try and use some tech from JALI to help wrt to the character side. But it does seem even NPC AI isn't progressing forward that much either.

 

[Calin Banc]

Alex makes some valid points about the future of RT and it is quite exciting to be fair.

Rasterisation can't evolve much more in certain ways (shadows for instance), since will be impossibly expensive to have shadow casted by each light in a complex scene. It will always be about cutting corners and looking less than ideal while the difference between Ray Tracing and Rasterisation, performance wise, will be getting smaller. I do hope Microsoft and Sony will be pushing hard enough on it to force AMD in providing better solutions for next gen consoles.

 

[Aegis]

Alex makes some valid points about the future of RT and it is quite exciting to be fair.

Richard's off-hand comment about AMD's RT strategy (or rather, lack of) was interesting - I guess it explains why they're so far behind at the moment - hopefully they'll bring their 'A' game to the 8000 series and the next generation of consoles.

 

[Calin Banc]

Richard's off-hand comment about AMD's RT strategy (or rather, lack of) was interesting - I guess it explains why they're so far behind at the moment - hopefully they'll bring their 'A' game to the 8000 series and the next generation of consoles.

Until next gen consoles I doubt they'll change something major. Is in their benefit to have similar architecture in consoles and in their GPUs. Multiple architecture, since they'll most likely go forward with what will be in next consoles, means multiple headaches from a driver point of view.

What could be useful is if AMD will manage to break further the GPU for a more advanced MCM design. That could help build larger or multi GPU cards cheaper (for them).

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Looks like modders have entered the fray:

Modder achieves huge Cyberpunk 2077 RT Overdrive performance boosts - OC3D

Want to try RT Overdrive mode without ultra-high-end hardware? Try this mod! This mod makes Cyberpunk 2077’s RT Overdrive mode playable on all compatible GPUs Thanks to the Ray Tracing Overdrive Optimisations mod by Erok and Scorn, Cyberpunk 2077’s experimental RT Overdrive mode is now playable...

overclock3d.net

Thanks to the Ray Tracing Overdrive Optimisations mod by Erok and Scorn, Cyberpunk 2077's experimental RT Overdrive mode is now playable on mainstream (RT compatible) graphics cards. With this mod, performance gains of 25%-100% are promised to gamers, with the largest performance gains coming from AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs.

What does this mod do? It downgrades RT overdrive's ray tracing by reducing its ray bouncing from 2 to 1. This reduces the impact of bounce lighting, and reduces the level of detail that many in-game reflection have. That said, most gamers would not notice a drop in visual quality outside of side-by-side comparisons unless they are only looking at Cyberpunk 2077's reflections.

In the video below, Digital Foundry has showcased this mod with an RTX 3050 at 1080p 30 FPS with DLSS set to performance mode. While 1080p 30 FPS does not sound like a great experience for most PC gamers, it shows that path traced visuals can be delivered in complex games like Cyberpunk 2077 with relatively low-end hardware.

So with everyone onboard with DLSS/FSR and FG,looks like if you want to slight decrease reflection quality there is a good performance jump.

 

[gpuerrilla]

Can always count on the open community to offer something that should have been in the options menu.

 

[mrk]

The mod worked great on the 3080 Ti but it's basically unnecessary on a 40 series as FG improves the FPS so much anyway so no need for the slight visual decrease.

 

[TNA]

The mod worked great on the 3080 Ti but it's basically unnecessary on a 40 series as FG improves the FPS so much anyway so no need for the slight visual decrease.

Hah. Show off!

 

[chris85oc]

Well, couldnt help myself so i got me a 4090 as well. Can’t try it until tomorrow though since my PSU isn’t good enough rn ( it’s from the acer predator po5-640-12700f+3080). Got a seasonic vertex 1000w on the way and then it’s pathtracing time..

 

[mrk]

Well, couldnt help myself so i got me a 4090 as well. Can’t try it until tomorrow though since my PSU isn’t good enough rn ( it’s from the acer predator po5-640-12700f+3080). Got a seasonic vertex 1000w on the way and then it’s pathtracing time..

Oooh you're in for a treat, see my latest post in the Cyberpunk thread I have the same CPU.

I also found that in the quiet BIOS mode on my 4090, it's basically 1400rpm max fan speeds, it's audible but it's an ambient hum rather than the Delta fan noise that the 3080 Ti FE used to spool up to at 1700rpm+ even with a power limit

Temps seem to hover at 80-81 degrees at 99% utilisation when in Cyberpunk with path tracing enabled, otherwise it's pretty much always in the <75 degree range in other games.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

RTX3080 10GB/RTX3080TI 12GB owners are now dropping like flies due to the sweet allure of the 24GB RTX4090!

 

[mrk]

Who can scoff at free double the framerate though!