What do gamers actually think about Ray-Tracing?

[Firegod]

I'll keep saying what I said since the 20th century: Give me denser voxels and a completely interactive world.
Gameplay matters more than looks and that's why Baldur's Gate 3 won the most awards and has been waited for more than 20 years instead of the arguably graphics king of the same year as the first Baldur's Gate, Incoming.

I'd take destructable terrain over RT. Man alive, I used to love Red Faction haha.

 

[Zarax]

I'd take destructable terrain over RT. Man alive, I used to love Red Faction haha.

Give me Teardown-like interactivity with better resolution and I'm sold.
Imagine Dwarf Fortress with 3d voxels and it's heaven...

 

[Tinek]

I'd take destructable terrain over RT. Man alive, I used to love Red Faction haha.

In this specific case, I've heard a lot of excuses from devs that lighting is an issue with physics and destructible terrain and models, and RT makes it much easier. Considering we've seen in the past games that could without issues do both sensibly well... I call that at least partially BS.

 

[Tinek]

If it's a quick bite, fast food style, I don't care more much other than the food to be decent - aka phone gaming, but for something more, I care about the location, how it looks, people serving, etc.

Yes, but you don't ask the waiter for exact recipe, do you? Same as almost all gamers don't go to ask devs how they made exactly this or that effect - it's all irrelevant for most people as only end result matter.

The point was that if graphics don't matter, then devs wouldn't waste time have graphics above what swtich or phones do. They do matter and even console people argue amongst themselves which one does it better.

Graphics matter but not in the way you're describing. It's not making or breaking most games unless it's really bad and for example you can't see what you're supposed to be seeing, so you can't play the game properly. Games by definition are an entertainment - ergo, they have to be entertaining first and mostly. How it's done, that's on devs. Usually it's achieved by engaging gameplay and design, with sound and graphics sprinkled on top by real artists to make it properly looking and sounding. Without proper gameplay and design you get at best a tech demo, not a game. There are plenty of great games that don't use latest and top graphics tech, as it wasn't needed, still sell well and hardly anyone complains - some of them have very simple retro-style graphics even. Example - look at games like indie Vampire Survivors, which sold over 2 milion copies and growing, even though game is pixel art, with simple idea yet well designed and very entertaining. By some estimates it sold better than newest Dragon Age.

Point being, graphics, just like other elements, does elevate the experience for me.

I don't argue this point, it's personal preference. But the moment we step into more general terms, I have a problem with that.

I figure it does for a lot from the bunch of "I don't care about graphics", is just that it does up to a certain point which usually means that it runs decent for what hardware they have.

You can't have a Dacia run like a BMW, AUDI or Ferrari.

In the rare case of game being fun and designed to use RT/PT, not for the free NVIDIA monies and marketing, but to actually achieve something relevant (which is, as per HUB video and similar, only a literal handful of games so far) - sure, people could wish for faster hardware for it to work better. Because one might only have option of good visuals vs horrible visuals (sadly not all games have proper scaling). But such games are still so rare they're pretty much irrelevant. Most games don't use that tech, or falls back to simplified software Lumen at best, or they use it but it adds nothing relevant aside increasing hardware requirements (and that's besides gameplay being often just bad).

You also don't print on regular cheap, recycled paper your photos, you use photographic paper for a reason.

This is bad take - I already described above what games are by definition and it's not graphics. Photographs, on the other hand, you need to print on photo paper, as that's part of the definition of paper photograph. Otherwise you'd get a photocopy for example, not a photograph.

Anyway, bottom line, if graphics won't matter than people wouldn't lose time here or on graphics card forums. They'll just buy the cheapest, set all to low and lowest res available and game... which doesn't happen.

It's not black and white. Again, most people don't care for the tech behind graphics, it has to be functional and fitting the game, that's it. That said, the number of enthusiasts like yourself, on this forum, is so miniscule it wouldn't even register as a bleep in comparison to the number of gamers out there. Most of said gamers do not even know there's such thing as forums, nor couldn't be bothered to read one (writing is even smaller number).

It doesn't matter either way. Stalker 2 is a killer for 8GB cards and yet... here it is.

It is if you care for full details graphics. If you cut down details and play in 1080, it works fine enough - that's what majority of gamers do. It actually proves my point, as enough people do not care for graphics but love the gameplay, so they don't mind dropping details down to enjoy it even on their weaker GPUs.

But is a killer only if you max out settings. Since graphics don't matter, people should just lower settings to its lowest and enjoy. It shouldn't go over 8gb from what I've played - at 1080p at least.

Exactly my point