What do gamers actually think about Ray-Tracing?

[D3K]

It was a sarcastic dig at the fact your post was an oxymoron. As srekal34 alludes to, using RT on with DLSS off is practically impossible even with a 40

My post isnt an oxymoron. There are games which can be run with RTX on and no DLSS. Control, Doom Eternal, SOTTR, etc. So the "if possible" stands. And further, it also means I turn it on when it's needed.

Perhaps you read me as "DLSS off, RT on if possible".

 

[ntemples1]

I think on some games it looks good but some it looks awful and totally over the top, I have it off regurlarly now! oooh errr.

 

[jklc]

It depends since in current games it ranges from ray traced shadows only to lighting or full blown path tracing. When done right it looks great but isn't always worth the performance hit for me even with DLSS. It's definitely here to stay and I suppose the performance hit will lessen over time as the cards get faster each generation.

 

[Dravic]

I love RT, it just seems to make game worlds more vibrant. Having recently played Elden Ring, Witcher 3, Metro Exodus and CP2077 with RT on the lighting in non RT games and especially Starfield seems "flat." Just a shame the performance penalty is so much.

 

[ICDP]

You accuse of writing oxymorons then reply with that when corrected... have a proper discussion or bore off.

You need to get a sense of humour. Also as pointed out the vast majority of games with RT need DLSS to be playable on anything but a 4090 and even then it’s touch and go.

 

[ICDP]

It depends since in current games it ranges from ray traced shadows only to lighting or full blown path tracing. When done right it looks great but isn't always worth the performance hit for me even with DLSS. It's definitely here to stay and I suppose the performance hit will lessen over time as the cards get faster each generation.

The thing is RT shadows on its own is not worth the cost. Look at Elden ring with the RT shadows, slightly darker better shadows in forested areas, but hardly transformative. Yet the performance penalty is massive and with no in game upscaling it makes RT shadows practically worthless.

Even a 4080 at 1440p stutters like hell with RT on with no DLSS. So for anyone with mediocre hardware, “playable” FPS with DLSS off and RT on is indeed oxymoronic. Getting “playable” FPS with your 4090, in a 4.5 year old game like Control is hardly boast worthy.

 

[Ayahuasca]

I love RT, it just seems to make game worlds more vibrant. Having recently played Elden Ring, Witcher 3, Metro Exodus and CP2077 with RT on the lighting in non RT games and especially Starfield seems "flat." Just a shame the performance penalty is so much.

This is pretty much my opinion too. With a 3090 the performance penalty is sometimes too much without using a DLSS preset that makes the overall image worse than native res without RT.

 

[humbug]

I love RT, it just seems to make game worlds more vibrant. Having recently played Elden Ring, Witcher 3, Metro Exodus and CP2077 with RT on the lighting in non RT games and especially Starfield seems "flat." Just a shame the performance penalty is so much.

Starfield is a bad example, it is just a flat monocolour looking game.

 

[D3K]

You need to get a sense of humour. Also as pointed out the vast majority of games with RT need DLSS to be playable on anything but a 4090 and even then it’s touch and go.

The games I quoted run fine, and that's not a comprehensive list.

As for sense of humour, I posted my perspective following a run of 2 people saying RT off DLSS on, flipping it around and adding a caveat in the event someone claimed it wasn't possible. Which you did anyway.
Clearly not all RT games can run RT on, DLSS off and get acceptable (subjective) framerates. Portal RTX can run fine with it off, but it's not a good experience. Some others might be ok with that performance.

Back to the main topic, RT is 100% the future but needs the hardware to catch up (and/or more software optimisation) before it's widely accepted by the masses as worthwhile. For me I'm happy with it's progression so far, as having worked with 3DS Max users I could never have imagined back then that it would be possible to render in real time.

Also, the overhead it removes from devs is a great thing. No longer need to spend the time baking in scenes. So going back to rasterisation-only doesn't make sense when you can just dump a material on an object and know you're gonna get the correct lighting from your light sources without further effort.

 

[BS Dave]

I also think RT looks great, but again the cost is massive for something like PT in Cyberpunk. Knowing it still isn't perfect even with a 4090 actually makes me want to hold off buying a new card until something can actually smash it, so hopefully the 5 series will give us a beyond just extra shaders uplift. Also I don't really know how CPU bound it is either? Is my 5800x3d already a bottleneck for RT say at 1440p my res? If a 5090 could smash PT at 1440p I'd be interested even if it was super expensive, if not I think my 3080 will just have to last me even longer

 

[SpudMaster]

RT looks great in some games but looks worse in others imo. Even in games like Cyberpunk which essentially become the RT poster child there are many scenes that look better without RT imo.

 

[Gerard]

RT looks great in some games but looks worse in others imo. Even in games like Cyberpunk which essentially become the RT poster child there are many scenes that look better without RT imo.

Sometimes the raster interpretation of a scene can look better as the devs can light it to make it seem more dramatic with more over the top lighting. With RT it's going to give you a more real look, which may or may not work depending on the look the devs are going for.

 

[SpudMaster]

Sometimes the raster interpretation of a scene can look better as the devs can light it to make it seem more dramatic with more over the top lighting. With RT it's going to give you a more real look, which may or may not work depending on the look the devs are going for.

Thats true, but theres also a lot of scenes where its bugged and looks worse. a lot of games they make things too shiney or reflective. IRL its not often I see a dirty puddle in town that reflects the world around me perfectly like they do in Cyberpunk

 

[ICDP]

The games I quoted run fine, and that's not a comprehensive list.

As for sense of humour, I posted my perspective following a run of 2 people saying RT off DLSS on, flipping it around and adding a caveat in the event someone claimed it wasn't possible. Which you did anyway.
Clearly not all RT games can run RT on, DLSS off and get acceptable (subjective) framerates. Portal RTX can run fine with it off, but it's not a good experience. Some others might be ok with that performance.

Back to the main topic, RT is 100% the future but needs the hardware to catch up (and/or more software optimisation) before it's widely accepted by the masses as worthwhile. For me I'm happy with it's progression so far, as having worked with 3DS Max users I could never have imagined back then that it would be possible to render in real time.

Also, the overhead it removes from devs is a great thing. No longer need to spend the time baking in scenes. So going back to rasterisation-only doesn't make sense when you can just dump a material on an object and know you're gonna get the correct lighting from your light sources without further effort.

lol at the “RT is the future”. The vast majority of games are pure raster and no amount of “we only count AAA games” will change that. Nowhere did I state it was not here to stay for a lot of games, I just joked that at present it is very niche due to the excessive hardware requirements. And that won’t change any year soon seeing how expensive even mediocre GPUs are.

 

[VonScar]

I think RT is too early in its lifespan at present. The overhead in using it in most games is far too demanding to be good for competitive gaming, or for a good single player experience.

I say it needs at least five years to bake in Jensen's oven to really deliver on its promise (ray tracing).

I would rather have 120 frames per second than shiny puddles...

Granted the RTX 4090 may perform quite well with RT, but that is one expensive card to use, for shiny puddles at 4K.

Anyway, older games delivered great experiences and amazing visuals without this RT tech. Bioshock's water looked amazing back in 2006, without RT.

 

[D3K]

lol at the “RT is the future”. The vast majority of games are pure raster and no amount of “we only count AAA games” will change that. Nowhere did I state it was not here to stay for a lot of games, I just joked that at present it is very niche due to the excessive hardware requirements. And that won’t change any year soon seeing how expensive even mediocre GPUs are.

I don't think I get your argument. You are laughing at "RT is the future" because you don't believe it? And your justification for this is because today the vast majority of games are raster? It's not like it was a choice between the two and devs chose not to use RT - its new tech. It's been said a few times in this thread that it's a benefit to game devs. It is a significant time saver and they WILL use it over raster. It's not even debatable. Raster will eventually die. Raster was just a workaround for visualisation, a means to an end for the hardware limitations of its time. RT allows lighting to be done correctly, and accurately, and with almost zero effort.

 

[VIPER258]

Can't say I have played any games with RT. What you don't have, you don't miss.

 

[Nexus18]

I don't think I get your argument. You are laughing at "RT is the future" because you don't believe it? And your justification for this is because today the vast majority of games are raster? It's not like it was a choice between the two and devs chose not to use RT - its new tech. It's been said a few times in this thread that it's a benefit to game devs. It is a significant time saver and they WILL use it over raster. It's not even debatable. Raster will eventually die. Raster was just a workaround for visualisation, a means to an end for the hardware limitations of its time. RT allows lighting to be done correctly, and accurately, and with almost zero effort.

Yup it's very weird why people are so against ray tracing "being the future" (well I know one of the main reasons why but lets not go down that path.....) and always such a silly argument/statement "but but but most games are raster", well most games were also 2d at one point....

I wouldn't say "zero effort" though as like anything in development especially new technology that will have an impact on various other areas, it does require a significant amount of effort and time to learn new ways of doing things especially if you're having to shoehorn it in to legacy methods.... But once over that initial hurdle and devs build around this new workflow, well, a picture is worth a thousand words, just ONE FRAME/SCENE with ONE LIGHT SOURCE:

 

[SpudMaster]

I don't think people are against RT being the future, it clearly is going to be, I just think we've all had it dumped on us way too early without sufficient hardware to use it adequately. And then selling us the idea of bandage tech, dlss, fsr, frame gen etc to fix a problem that wouldn't have been there if RT waited a few more years and devs focused other things such as NPC AI in the meantime.

 

[danlightbulb]

I haven't seen a raytraced game first hand, only screenshots which didn't seem to be that much of a difference.

My main gaming is virtual reality sims (racing & flight). For VR, close to 4k resolution at 90Hz is needed. If, in the fullness of time, raytracing enables that performance at photorealistic quality then I think that could be massive but it's not there yet.