What do gamers actually think about Ray-Tracing?

[mrk]

These rays are about to be thrown around like fists

 

[Howling]

These rays are about to be thrown around like fists

Like Sugar Ray.

 

[Kirby Wurm]

Reminds me of years ago, when I (foolishly) showed my non-IT literate brother how to delete loads of 1K odd temp files on his PC, back in the days when HDD space was tight and expensive.

Cue a couple of days later..."my PC isn't booting."

Popped around to have a look, he'd only taken it upon himself to delete every single 1K file on the system!

Hahahaha! This reminds me of my horror when my brother asked for help with his PC as it wasn't running great. I saw his application list in the remove/repair apps tool was massive, at which point he informed me he just deleted the folders for the apps he wanted rid of, so the registry must have been bloated beyond belief!

 

[Nathlm]

Its a blance, RT with unable frame rates is fine, these game with 20 FPS on £600 GPU's tho.... completely useless.

I don't know, I would even prefer the lower noise and power draw from my pc than having RT, if I really think about it

 

[BS Dave]

Just to through in a bit of left field comment here. I was in Venice last week and at this time of year with the light low in the sky you really notice what it's doing, casting shadows, reflecting colours of one thing on to another, and then we went to the little Leonardo da Vinci museum and watch a video that showed him moving his candlesticks around to see the change in the fabric he was drawing, and it struck me that RT is kinda like having an artists eye. If you have an artists eye it matters completely, if you don't - you don't even know what your supposed to be looking at.

 

[Calin Banc]

RT is kinda like having an artists eye. If you have an artists eye it matters completely, if you don't - you don't even know what your supposed to be looking at.

RT/PT "just works". You don't need a lot of work hours to crate a believable scene, you just "move candles around" for the best look.
Also, we've been "train" to accept the fakery of raster, so it tends to bother us less.

 

[BS Dave]

I mean I guess my point is, before the invention of the camera a large proportion of the effort spent by artists worldwide was the realistic capture of light and how it falls. That illuminates my opinion on RT.

 

[Zarax]

It's honestly the future but imho it's still a couple gens from being viable for the masses.
RT will be seriously adopted only when an X60 class can at least do 1080p/60 without upscaling, until then there will always be compromises to be made.

 

[Tinek]

RT/PT "just works". You don't need a lot of work hours to crate a believable scene, you just "move candles around" for the best look.
Also, we've been "train" to accept the fakery of raster, so it tends to bother us less.

The funny thing that people constantly dismiss is that raster IS a very simplified form of RT. It still calculates rays (it always has). What I mean by that is that it's hardly "fake" like people love to say - and it really isn't, in the math it's doing. It's just cutting out a lot of fluff and simplifies things but in the very core of it, it is still tracing rays - but you get much less rays and a lot of clever math to fill in the blanks. There are few very interesting videos out there showing how actually things like screen space reflections work - these are almost pure ray racing just very limited in scope to what they calculate exactly (just visible screen and lower resolution etc.). It's very similar with other modern raster effects. All the true fakery hasn't been present in games for quite a while now (like completely precalculated and baked in lights - still RT but not done live).

That said, a lot of the calculations in both raster and PT are still done for the underlying geometry - that hasn't changed at all in either case.

 

[Calin Banc]

The funny thing that people constantly dismiss is that raster IS a very simplified form of RT. It still calculates rays (it always has). What I mean by that is that it's hardly "fake" like people love to say - and it really isn't, in the math it's doing. It's just cutting out a lot of fluff and simplifies things but in the very core of it, it is still tracing rays - but you get much less rays and a lot of clever math to fill in the blanks. There are few very interesting videos out there showing how actually things like screen space reflections work - these are almost pure ray racing just very limited in scope to what they calculate exactly (just visible screen and lower resolution etc.). It's very similar with other modern raster effects. All the true fakery hasn't been present in games for quite a while now (like completely precalculated and baked in lights - still RT but not done live).

That said, a lot of the calculations in both raster and PT are still done for the underlying geometry - that hasn't changed at all in either case.

It's "fake" insofar as how easily it falls apart, 'cause as you've said, down at its core is based on a (very) simplified approach. In a complex scene, even today, the artist has to manually place and work around with the lights so it looks right, while with PT/RTGI it looks good/believable/right from the start. Moreover, outside of PT you can't have many lights that cast shadows. Is painful to see in a lot of games. Also speaking of shadows, if you're going after more accurate ones and have stuff such as HFTS (a bit of RT as well in them), performance also tanks...

SSR is a good example where if pushed hard enough it drops performance and is even slower than RT reflections - case in point, CB77 on SSR psycho. Or, if you wanna do mirrors and such, are they still rendering the scene twice (from your perspective and another camera from the mirror perspective)?

 

[Tinek]

It's "fake" insofar as how easily it falls apart, 'cause as you've said, down at its core is based on a (very) simplified approach. In a complex scene, even today, the artist has to manually place and work around with the lights so it looks right, while with PT/RTGI it looks good/believable/right from the start.

That's a very simplified description straight from Nvidia marketing slides, though. Both RT and raster need a lot of work from artists standpoint to make scenes look right and as intended. They still manually tweak all lights as they go. It's a faster process with RT, sure, but it's not "straight away" in actual games - that's total rubbish. And in the end, players shouldn't even care, as this isn't our problem, it doesn't influence us one bit (prices and development time are even higher now than before!).

Moreover, outside of PT you can't have many lights that cast shadows.

That's just not true at all, modern raster engines handle that just fine. Not even Nvidia mentions that in their marketing materials to Devs, as it's not been a problem for years now.

Is painful to see in a lot of games.

Only old ones or lazily made

Also speaking of shadows, if you're going after more accurate ones and have stuff such as HFTS (a bit of RT as well in them), performance also tanks...

Nvidia underlines in their own marketing materials that RT shadows are slower, just more accurate. In any case, shadows in raster games haven't been a problem for a long time now to the point most people can't even tell a difference between raster and RT shadows and often get it wrong. Both look and work well these days. What is more, when you look at what CGI artists say these days, making movies etc., even next PT shadows still cause them issues and require fixes by hand. And that's way more advanced than RT we have in games. Accurate doesn't always mean "looks good" - though this is when they try to make things look really real and not CGI like.

SSR is a good example where if pushed hard enough it drops performance and is even slower than RT reflections - case in point, CB77 on SSR psycho. Or, if you wanna do mirrors and such, are they still rendering the scene twice (from your perspective and another camera from the mirror perspective)?

You can make any effect ridiculously computationally expensive without any real world benefit - that's a proof of nothing at all. In this case, it's really in the name, what it is. That said, SSR doesn't really use hardware acceleration of any kind, it's pure software RT - that's why it's so slow when pushed hard. Still way faster than actually software PT would be. They could make hardware acceleration to particular effects but they decided might as well do it for RT at that point - and they did. Which is fine, but again, both are very simplified approaches with loads of AI, denoising etc. And in the end, none of the is relevant for the gamer - we want mostly good games and looking well for what they are. How they are made isn't our problem nor most people care one bit (aside enthusiasts). Most of Nvidia taking points are really relevant just to Devs and their workload not to end user.

 

[gpuerrilla]

CB has certainly changed since he got his 4080

 

[Tinek]

CB has certainly changed since he got his 4080

Personally I was pixel peeping and going on and on about graphics in my 20s. Which was 20+ years ago Now I just want good games - not just pretty but actually good. Most (with some exceptions) modern AAA games forgot gameplay matter more than anything else, and then best PT games still look nothing like CGI in films so... it's largely not relevant to me. A good example of very pretty but also well optimised and very fun to play (to me) game is the Horizon Forbidden West - no PT and yet looks and works great, but most of all plays great. Wukong game also plays just as well with or without hardware RT - as realistic look is also largely meaningless in a fantasy game like that, to me. And when I really go pixel peeping I see all the problems with very simplified PT implementation in best games (like CP2077) - all the noise, slow reaction to light changes, missing effects in places, etc. etc. Looking really close, it all looks fake. So, my opinion is - just enjoy the game.

 

[TNA]

Personally I was pixel peeping and going on and on about graphics in my 20s. Which was 20+ years ago Now I just want good games - not just pretty but actually good. Most (with some exceptions) modern AAA games forgot gameplay matter more than anything else, and then best PT games still look nothing like CGI in films so... it's largely not relevant to me. A good example of very pretty but also well optimised and very fun to play (to me) game is the Horizon Forbidden West - no PT and yet looks and works great, but most of all plays great. Wukong game also plays just as well with or without hardware RT - as realistic look is also largely meaningless in a fantasy game like that, to me. And when I really go pixel peeping I see all the problems with very simplified PT implementation in best games (like CP2077) - all the noise, slow reaction to light changes, missing effects in places, etc. etc. Looking really close, it all looks fake. So, my opinion is - just enjoy the game.

Yep, as much as I love nice graphics, gameplay and story come first.

I also don't bother pixel peeping much as I used to. What I noticed it after a while I just get used to whatever the graphics are and just enjoy the game if it is any good.

Prime example is when I go back and play OG Deus Ex. Even modded it looks crap compared to games today. Yet none of that matters after a while once I get into the game.

I am also happy playing games multiple times if it is a game I really enjoyed a lot. So even say I am about to play STALKER 2 and I won't be able to max it out. That is perfectly fine. I can play it maxed out on my next play through in a few years assuming it is any good.

 

[ginjaninja]

Dont think raytracing is transformative yet on a 4090. From what ive read raytracing is unlikely to have the efficiency to be so...and path tracing is where its at. Until the visuals transform the experience its not a consideration but i guess you have to start somewhere for chances of improvements eventually.

 

[ebilcake]

Been playing around with path tracing in Cyberpunk and it seems to run a lot better now. I'm now getting around 80-100fps and considering a second play through, it looks amazing. I was getting around 60fps when it was first added to the game.

Sure, this is with DLSS and FG, DLSS even at balanced is perfectly acceptable to me in most games on a 3440*1440 display.

It's down to the developers at the end of the day, depends how motivated they are to integrate RT, ideally games should be designed from the start with RT in mind.

Bolting RT on at the end is never going to produce optimal results, not without a lot of work.

 

[Tinek]

Dont think raytracing is transformative yet on a 4090. From what ive read raytracing is unlikely to have the efficiency to be so...and path tracing is where its at. Until the visuals transform the experience its not a consideration but i guess you have to start somewhere for chances of improvements eventually.

One thing to remember is that Ray tracing is a generic term (after all many bits of raster are using ray tracing too). Path tracing is just one of the methods of ray tracing - they all trace rays, just with different efficiency and results. Hence, saying"ray tracing" is not very accurate in what one means exactly by it - games that had it mentioned usually just meant they use it for shadows or reflections, in rare cases (the most spectacular in my eyes) for global illumination. With PT you get much more, though still not 100% (unlike what many people imagine) - we usually don't get caustics for example, as that's very computationally expensive and even in films CGI it's often faked (animated textures etc. used) as even super computers take too long to calculate that.

 

[Tinek]

Been playing around with path tracing in Cyberpunk and it seems to run a lot better now. I'm now getting around 80-100fps and considering a second play through, it looks amazing. I was getting around 60fps when it was first added to the game.

Sure, this is with DLSS and FG, DLSS even at balanced is perfectly acceptable to me in most games on a 3440*1440 display.

It's down to the developers at the end of the day, depends how motivated they are to integrate RT, ideally games should be designed from the start with RT in mind.

Bolting RT on at the end is never going to produce optimal results, not without a lot of work.

We can't forget that CP2077 is uniquely suitable for fancy reflections and GI because of the neon lights and the whole design. Plus, they got a huge amount of support from Nvidia's best to make it look and work as good as possible, as a showcase for Nvidia technologies. That's usually not the case with other games, hence it's still so rare to see it done well.

 

[Calin Banc]

That's a very simplified description straight from Nvidia marketing slides, though. Both RT and raster need a lot of work from artists standpoint to make scenes look right and as intended. They still manually tweak all lights as they go. It's a faster process with RT, sure, but it's not "straight away" in actual games - that's total rubbish. And in the end, players shouldn't even care, as this isn't our problem, it doesn't influence us one bit (prices and development time are even higher now than before!).


That's just not true at all, modern raster engines handle that just fine. Not even Nvidia mentions that in their marketing materials to Devs, as it's not been a problem for years now.


Only old ones or lazily made


Nvidia underlines in their own marketing materials that RT shadows are slower, just more accurate. In any case, shadows in raster games haven't been a problem for a long time now to the point most people can't even tell a difference between raster and RT shadows and often get it wrong. Both look and work well these days. What is more, when you look at what CGI artists say these days, making movies etc., even next PT shadows still cause them issues and require fixes by hand. And that's way more advanced than RT we have in games. Accurate doesn't always mean "looks good" - though this is when they try to make things look really real and not CGI like.



You can make any effect ridiculously computationally expensive without any real world benefit - that's a proof of nothing at all. In this case, it's really in the name, what it is. That said, SSR doesn't really use hardware acceleration of any kind, it's pure software RT - that's why it's so slow when pushed hard. Still way faster than actually software PT would be. They could make hardware acceleration to particular effects but they decided might as well do it for RT at that point - and they did. Which is fine, but again, both are very simplified approaches with loads of AI, denoising etc. And in the end, none of the is relevant for the gamer - we want mostly good games and looking well for what they are. How they are made isn't our problem nor most people care one bit (aside enthusiasts). Most of Nvidia taking points are really relevant just to Devs and their workload not to end user.

Here's from 4A Games and how it helps speeding up the process, explained by DF:

Also: "Christmas for artists" + 5:36 onwards "way easier to make games visually", "shorten time span for delivering games".

Mostly I care because they should be able to make games faster and look better.

LE: previously only10 shadow casting lights (obviously you can have more, but only a limited amount can cast shadows).

 

[Calin Banc]

CB has certainly changed since he got his 4080

How exactly? )