PS5 hardware based Ray-Tracing vs Xbox Series X hardware accelerated Ray Tracing: Is there a difference in the tech or just the wording?

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Personally I'm looking forward to Hardware-Enabled Ray Tracing and Hardware-Enhanced Ray Tracing.

Agreed. Seems like Hardware-Enhanced Ray Tracing > Hardware-Enabled Ray Tracing. This is logically sound as hardware is enhancing the enabled ray tracing. Similar to 'Hardware Accelerated Ray Tracing'. The hardware is accelerating the ray tracing requirements making it superior to 'Hardware Enabled Ray Tracing'. For example, 'Hardware Enabled" meaning the hardware has to enable ray tracing first losing out on the enhancement part.
 
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I think people in this thread should first clarify for themselves what does it mean "hardware RT"? Is NV Turing a HWRT? Why? What exactly makes it so? Quantify.
Then we can continue the discussion.
Currently for rasterization we consider hardware which is designed to be efficient for the operation.
Usually this means parts of pipeline in software and parts in fixed function units. (In modern GPUs we have fixed function units like ROPs for rasterization, TEX units for texturing etc.)

If the patent is correct we may see TEX units in Ps5/XsX which will have additional fixed function units which handle ray intersections. (Most likely using same cache as TEX units.)
How efficient this will be and what possible limitations are, we will have to wait for actual hardware and programmers and talks emerge and do the deep dive.

Turing has fixed function units which handles for ray/triangle and ray/BVH intersection, so yes it has hardware accelerated RT.
That doesn't explain the 12TFLOPS. Just because the card has built-in RT cores doesn't mean it's overall TFLOPS goes up.
Yup.
It is good to remember what metric the TFLOP count usually used when talking about GPUs, they usually are meant for maximum throughput of programmable FLOPs on ALUs.

Any work by ROPs, TEX units or now RT units will not be seen in the FLOP count, even if there would be floating point operations.
 
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Turing has fixed function units which handles for ray/triangle and ray/BVH intersection, so yes it has hardware accelerated RT.

Ray/aabb. Otherwise you're totally correct.
The only hardware module that exists in Turing specifically for RT just handles the intersections.
But for efficient ray tracing you need much more than that. Therefore Turing is just slightly accelerating a specific software path.
 
Ray/aabb. Otherwise you're totally correct.
The only hardware module that exists in Turing specifically for RT just handles the intersections.
But for efficient ray tracing you need much more than that. Therefore Turing is just slightly accelerating a specific software path.
Wow, I have no idea how I have missed the AABB for bottom level hierarchy.
Thanks, will hit papers and best practices again. :D

And yes, actual intersection is very small part of what makes modern ray tracers.
There is a lot of work to do before image looks good and is artifact free.
 
I'm not totally sold on the whole Ray Tracing is the future.
We have seen a number of demos from both Unreal Engine 4 and Cryengine where both photorealistic and Ray traced via software, on basic GPUs.
You would expect in the future this to improve even more in those engines, so is it really required to have hardware ray tracing that impacts the GPU as much as it does?

If Sony has gone for a hybrid software and hardware solution compared to maybe a full hardware solution in the XSX, maybe the Sony solution (if it is so) would be smarter and as good.
 
I'm not totally sold on the whole Ray Tracing is the future.
We have seen a number of demos from both Unreal Engine 4 and Cryengine where both photorealistic and Ray traced via software, on basic GPUs.
You would expect in the future this to improve even more in those engines, so is it really required to have hardware ray tracing that impacts the GPU as much as it does?

If Sony has gone for a hybrid software and hardware solution compared to maybe a full hardware solution in the XSX, maybe the Sony solution (if it is so) would be smarter and as good.

The AMD patent describes a hybrid solution, I don't think you will see a full hardware solution from either side for another generation or two yet.
 
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bruh, that's what happens. we're just getting information about them. it's fun to speculate and talk about it with others that are interested in gaming. not sure why that's a bad thing.
 


Well this is awkward

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Eh, considering how this year has gone. Nah, it really isn't.

For the topic of the thread the tl;dr is that they won't look any different. What will be seen is very similar if not identical. It's just buzzwords, really.

One thing for sure something different is going on & I'm thinking MS might be trying to add the option at the system level where it would come in a FW update or something.
 
Ofcourse you wouldn't dare include the oopsie from John.

For reference The Medium also will have ray tracing (December 10).


We shall see what's up at launch or Microsoft could clear all this up by telling us themselves. We already know that games will have raytracing in early December because that's when DMC5 on XSX is getting raytracing patch.
 
One thing for sure something different is going on & I'm thinking MS might be trying to add the option at the system level where it would come in a FW update or something.
They are probably doing some stupid cloud raytracing or something.
 
it's criminal how AMD gave the real deal ray tracing to one of their customers and shafted the other. if I was a good lawyer this could be the basis for a massive lawsuit. is anyone here a good lawyer?? :(
 
it's criminal how AMD gave the real deal ray tracing to one of their customers and shafted the other. if I was a good lawyer this could be the basis for a massive lawsuit. is anyone here a good lawyer?? :(

It'll be interesting to see who got AMD's implementation and who went with a different approach. And which one ends up better.
 
He said maybe
And just like in the OP you are once again grasping at the straws and interpreting things in a way that suits you.
We shall see what's up at launch or Microsoft could clear all this up by telling us themselves. We already know that games will have raytracing in early December because that's when DMC5 on XSX is getting raytracing patch.
Bright Memory(not Bright Memory Infinite, that is 2021) is a launch title, a demo to the upcoming Bright Memory Infinite and a ray tracing benchmark.
 
I'm sure it will be local but they are behind on the API or something or found a better way of doing things than they started off with.

ray-tracing-amd-vision2-720x720.jpg


If I had to make a complete guess I suspect MS decided to go cloud for their games but have failed to have anything ready. Hence why all their games were getting a "raytracing patch". Just like they werent ready with the "power of the cloud" this gen either.
 
Bright Memory(not Bright Memory Infinite, that is 2021) is a launch title, a demo to the upcoming Bright Memory Infinite and a ray tracing benchmark.

I certainly hope for Microsoft's sake that they have more than a 48 minute demo at launch to showcase raytracing.
 
I certainly hope for Microsoft's sake that they have more than a 48 minute demo at launch to showcase raytracing.
Apart from that
  • Man Eater
  • Marvel's Avengers
  • Observer: System Redux
  • Watch Dogs: Legions
  • CoD: Black Ops Cold War
will have ray tracing at launch.
 
Hardware accelerated usually means it's software with Hardware Acceleration
 
ray-tracing-amd-vision2-720x720.jpg


If I had to make a complete guess I suspect MS decided to go cloud for their games but have failed to have anything ready. Hence why all their games were getting a "raytracing patch". Just like they werent ready with the "power of the cloud" this gen either.
I bet RDNA 2 just doesn't do real hardware ray tracing in the traditional sense. They probably have to come up with their own solution and it's taking a while and not producing result that people will be happy with.
 
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