What do gamers actually think about Ray-Tracing?

[Calin Banc]

Too obvious for me to say. Will let someone else have a go

@mrk and @Nexus18 which do you prefer? My guess is you like the one on the left.

I'll go right (and I'm assuming that's the RT one)

Right one for me too, for stated previously reasons.

I am saying that based on images you posted before. PT ones looked more like the image on the left

@Calin Banc time to reveal what's what

Left is Raster, right is Path Tracing. To me, left looks like old gen or like someone disabled shadows in an indie game....

No wonder people tend to prefer the right

Shall we do a deep dive? I think a deep dive is in order.....

Litter on 1 has unusual illumination in areas of the box that should be in dark shadow because no light source is casting light on those sides:

The emissive ceiling light is amber toned, on 1 the light source is not casting GI on the surrounding concrete structure of the ceiling, it is on 2:

The underside of this ceiling is in an area that has no bounced surface lighting cast off the ground or anywhere else so should be fully shadowed, it is not in 1, so 1 would be the raster as raster isn't clever enough to account for this:

Scaffolding reflections are missing on 1 vs 2:

The edging of the concrete structure is missing a shadow run where less light hits that face of the beam on 1:

Pavement ledge, the 90 degree facing part of the pavement faces light sources and should be illuminated this time round, but the raster in 1 is painting this surface with shadow when there should not be a shadow. 2 is correctly lit in this instance:

The concrete wall has angled sections facing the sky so the flatter 90 degree bits of the upper wall should have a different shade vs the lower angled part that faces the sky. On 1 the entire wall is the same shade, 1 is the raster:

Once you've played enough games with ray tracing all of the above are immediately obvious and noticed even in motion. I guess we've become trained subconsciously to notice them too as something doesn't feel "right" with raster in every game now that has environments like this.

Someone knows his stuff )

 

[mrk]

Phew, this was me waiting all this time:

 

[Tinek]

Left is Raster, right is Path Tracing. To me, left looks like old gen or like someone disabled shadows in an indie game....

No wonder people tend to prefer the right

Someone knows his stuff )

I chose right one just because of it being in this case more aesthetically pleasing, with more contrast and "meat" instead of just flat image with no life. I paid 0 attention to what is more realistic in this case, went for pure aesthetic. This isn't always the case in raster VS RT, though.

 

[Calin Banc]

I chose right one just because of it being in this case more aesthetically pleasing, with more contrast and "meat" instead of just flat image with no life. I paid 0 attention to what is more realistic in this case, went for pure aesthetic. This isn't always the case in raster VS RT, though.

Probably. I haven't found yet an instance where Raster looks better in Cyberpunk, Portal or Alan Wake 2. Yourself were drawn to the more natural, pleasing image. Raster suffers from "flatness" pretty steadily.

 

[gpuerrilla]

Phew, this was me waiting all this time:

Almost agreed but that display doesn't look like its been sent back multiple times on RMA!

 

[humbug]

Almost agreed but that display doesn't look like its been sent back multiple times on RMA!

Its how long it took for Asus to send him one back that actually works.

 

[nalla]

i like it on, but i do have a 4090, so why not.

 

[Grim5]

Probably not much, that screenshot is of a scene that isn't that complex. It's in space for starters with only one single light source, there are no props around the camera for bounce GI to take effect on anything and everything that isn't star facing will be cast in shadow. This scene is extremely easy to render convincingly with just raster if we only look at the scene as presented in the image!

If anything, the little lights on the ship would cast more accurate bounce illumination on the ship's hull, but they would be minor details given the grand scale of the scene's viewport there.

I wonder if this is why movies set in space with CGI tend to look more "realistic" than movies set on earth with CGI. Maybe doing CGI in a space scene is just much easier than a scene on the ground with more complex lights, shapes etc

 

[Grim5]

How would this look with RT? considering it is getting it, its actively being worked on right now. What difference would GI light bounce make to this scene? @mrk

Its wrong to say i'm not interested in RT, i am....

Why does the image have god rays?

The size of the planet in the frame is similar to images we get from the ISS in real life, so the ship is about between 300 and 500km from the planet surface assuming similar size as Earth, so shouldn't have god rays right?

 

[humbug]

Why does the image have god rays?

The size of the planet in the frame is similar to images we get from the ISS in real life, so the ship is about between 300 and 500km from the planet surface assuming similar size as Earth, so shouldn't have god rays right?

Its from the clouds, the ground fog is fully integrated in to the atmosphere, the clouds are in the atmosphere so they do cast shadows in to the fog, you can see it looking up from the ground and looking down from above the clouds.

Same planet, you can see it happening here as the camera goes up through the clouds.

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[TNA]

Phew, was wiping my brow all this time just incase

I was half waiting for him to say you was wrong for a laugh

Yeah, the one on the right is clearly better. But the one on the left looks like a poor example of raster. Not sure what the blue tint is about for starters.

But yeah. RT, PT, Luman is the way forward.

 

[humbug]

Same planet again, look's a bit different here, this was before the volumetric clouds, ground fog and they have updated the shaders since this, this was 2020.

Manually flying down to the surface, you can use the drive to do a quick jump or you can fly down manually, like i did here, notice the closer to the ground you get the thicker the atmosphere, the more drag and noise on the ship, watch the speed.

Nothing Much

www.youtube.com

 

[Tinek]

Yeah, the one on the right is clearly better. But the one on the left looks like a poor example of raster.

For a modern raster it looks really bad in general, the left one. I've seen raster looking really good on games and really bad - this is definitely really bad.

But yeah. RT, PT, Luman is the way forward.

Definitely something will replace raster eventually. It doesn't seem like it will happen anytime soon, though. Prices do matter and it feels like we already got all the crutches possible and it still isn't enough for it to become mainstream. Some mix of It and genAI might make a difference but I'm not counting on it.

 

[tommybhoy]

@humbug incredible!

Got an SC Omega AMD reward ship back in the day, think it's in the hanger, can I still use it to fly about like that?

 

[humbug]

@humbug incredible!

Got an SC Omega AMD reward ship back in the day, think it's in the hanger, can I still use it to fly about like that?

Yes, absolutely, its a rare ship that now, most, including mine were sold on the grey market, they were worth quite a lot of money.

 

[tommybhoy]

Yes, absolutely, its a rare ship that now, most, including mine were sold on the grey market, they were worth quite a lot of money.

I'm listening!

Can I punt mine and get a 4090?

 

[humbug]

I'm listening!

Can I punt mine and get a 4090?

Its not worth that much i got £90 for mine, they were only sold on the grey market because you can't actually buy them, at all, not from CIG, not with real money and not in game.

I don't know what they are worth now, you would have to ask here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Starcitizen_trades/

If you want more info or help on anything SC post in the Star Citizen OCUK thread, we have a Discord too.

 

[mrk]

If Hellblade 2 and Still Wakes The Deep are anything to go by, then RT in UE5.x engined games is shaping up really well. Not only is the performance excellent, but the optimisation and resource use under excellent control. Was initially cautious before Hellblade 2, but that ended up being a surprisingly excellent release with no stutters etc. And SWTD seems to be that too now. This makes me look forward to more UE5 engined games coming out, if small devs like these can push out amazingly optimised games running UE5 like this, then AAA devs should have no problem at all, which leads me to wonder what CDPR will cook up for Cyberpunk 2 and Witcher 4

 

[JonRGV250]

Cook up, or **** up?

 

[mrk]

There's no way they are repeating 2020