Topher
Identifies as young
What do you propose? RT even if it means 30fps games?
Is Raytracing a necessity?
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What do you propose? RT even if it means 30fps games?
Donald mac Ronald
Member
I'm using a 3070 and can get reasonable performance in cyberpunk with ray tracing on and I still can't tell the difference when it turn it on or off other than the FPS hit.
Buggy Loop
Gold Member
HeWhoWalks
Gold Member
Don't even need a 5090. This game simply would look nowhere near as good without ray/pathtracing even with the added mods...yeah. games look shit without it. it is demanding but we're getting there. the current gen consoles are too weak for it but next gen will be better of course.
i'm playing on a 5090 so no issue for me. give me all the traced rays
...all on a 3090Ti.
Take away raytracing (pathtracing is simply a fully raytraced scene) and this scene would look far worse. "Necessary" is a relative term, but was tessellation necessary? Was ambient occlusion necessary? Was anisotropic filtering necessary? At one time, they were all new features that also impacted performance. But, we had to go through those times to reach the quality we eventually would.
Still, it all depends on the game. I wouldn't scream for raytracing in a Street Fighter game, let's say, but nothing wrong with it if it can be implemented efficiently. Plus, with DLSS 4 out there (this is a literal game-changer), you can enjoy more games at higher frames with raytracing cranked up!
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adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
It's necessary for rendering just like how previous advancements in rendering were, like deferred rendering, GI over static colored lighting etc etc.
The current (console) hardware is not the best at it and the equivalent PC hardware is also not cheap, but this is one of those things that 5~ years from now, everyone will think of as second nature, like every game having some kind of GI solution.
The current (console) hardware is not the best at it and the equivalent PC hardware is also not cheap, but this is one of those things that 5~ years from now, everyone will think of as second nature, like every game having some kind of GI solution.
Topher
Identifies as young
For you. I'll take higher frame rates every time.
Kerotan
Member
If it means a big hit to performance I'd rather not.
HDR, 60/120FPS, 4K all more important to me.
HDR, 60/120FPS, 4K all more important to me.
Agreed. On PS6 and PS6 pro I think it'll make a lot more sense and by then for cheaper PCs too. At the minute it's in beta phase imo.
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I feel like I'm missing something. You're saying that you haven't seen lighting as good as FEAR but then want dynamic and interactive light sources which is what Ray Tracing gives you by definition?
MiguelItUp
Member
Not at all. If I can turn it on and it doesn't affect performance, I'll throw it on! But it's never a necessity for me.
Schmendrick
Member
Holy shit there's a lot of people who don't even know what RT is but still have a very strong opinion about it in this thread....
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HeWhoWalks
Gold Member
I think at this point, you could say that consoles (outside of the PS5 Pro, and even then, there's still a ways to go) could skip raytracing. On PC? Yes, if it can be offered, I'm all for it! You don't need a monster rig to enjoy it!
Buggy Loop
Gold Member
Oh Topher
@ me by year end when you go through GTA 6
You'll change your opinion I guarantee. In fact let's remake this thread after GTA 6. It'll showcase how pretty much everyone is sleeping at the wheel tech wise this gen.
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HeWhoWalks
Gold Member
Astray
Member
Raytracing has provided a massive improvement to fidelity while requiring very little dev resources in comparison to baked-in lighting.
I'm willing to bet that at least some of the problems with dev costs have to do with the requirement of having BOTH an RT and non-RT solution to lighting in every situation. You're essentially doing double work for no real reason at this point.
I'm willing to bet that at least some of the problems with dev costs have to do with the requirement of having BOTH an RT and non-RT solution to lighting in every situation. You're essentially doing double work for no real reason at this point.
winjer
Gold Member
Every time devs enable RT on consoles, it usually means sub 1080p resolution. And also 30 fps.
With the Pro it's not as serious, because it has a decent upscaler with ML. So a 1080p resolution is not terrible. But 30 fps is.
And for what? slightly better lighting. Slightly better reflections. Or shadows.
The only times when there is a big difference is when a game uses really bad pre-baked GI.
The reality is that it is not worth it today.
memoryman3
Neo Member
The PS6 and Xbox Prime should embrace it as something that is mandatory and can’t be turned off. Heck I would support dropping Nintendo consoles and 60FPS modes for it.
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RCX
Member
This.
If we'd hit a point with rasterization where consoles were easily hitting 120fps then RT would be a good goal to pursue. But we aren't even close.
Too much emphasis has been placed on how a game looks, not how it feels in motion. I'm guessing it's because it's easier to sell something that looks pretty in select shots rather than trying to showcase framerate and how good it feels to play with the lowest possible latency.
Prettier visuals are a race to nowhere. I think i can make a solid argument that graphics were "good enough" by the middle of the ps4 gen.
I wish gameplay, and its evolution, was the priority.
64gigabyteram
Reverse groomer.
It also feels like RT implementations are becoming less severe on perf as the years went on. You can tell the difference in visuals more and in general there's less of a major performance dip
the major issue with RT is that the GPUs capable of doing it are too damn expensive. until we get a 60 class card at 300-400 with at least 5070 TI raytracing there will always be complainers who want to push back on the tech.
Topher
Identifies as young
Oh Topher
@ me by year end when you go through GTA 6
You'll change your opinion I guarantee. In fact let's remake this thread after GTA 6. It'll showcase how pretty much everyone is sleeping at the wheel tech wise this gen.
You'll come around, Toph! Just watch!
The premise was 30fps vs RT. Kinda floored that PC guys are advocating 30fps right now. lol....no that's not a bridge I'm going to cross. I've played plenty of games using RT and I'm not suggesting it doesn't look great, only that I'm not going to sacrifice smooth gameplay for it. Not sorry. GTA 6 be damned.
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Schmendrick
Member
You don't even have to look as far as "photorealistic" lighting, simply "dynamic" already breaks with classic raster tech.
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Astray
Member
Yep.
RT is expensive rn, so adoption is limited, so we are still stuck in a world where games are not %100 RT-based.
HeWhoWalks
Gold Member
Topher
Identifies as young
Full disclosure. I'm not a GTA fan. Or Rockstar in general, frankly. I don't think there is a game that exists that will win me over to 30fps, but if there were, it wouldn't be GTA.
HeWhoWalks
Gold Member
The sentiment I'm with you on, because if I could choose anything over 30fps, I usually will! However, there are certain cases where I'll make an exception! GTA VI will be one of those occasions (no way even the Pro is pulling off that LoD + RT + open world at 60fps). I'd love to be wrong, but I doubt it!
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SimTourist
Member
We'll see if it has RTGI on consoles on release, they couldn't enable it on GTA 5 so might be a downgrade incoming.
Topher
Identifies as young
This is why we have settings. Those technologies you mentioned before (ambient occlusion, anisotropic filtering, etc) are still commonly found in PC game settings. Same should continue to be true for RT.
Shadowstar39
Member
This will be the wrong forum to ask, why because you have a tone of dupes who spent way too much money on over priced hardware. They need to justify spending that for some pixels.I can't imagine being able to fork over 2k+ for a graphics card yet people here so it without blinking. I could literally do it but man that would hurt my savings.
And for what? The only games I seen that really look revolutionary with ray tracing is quake 2 and Minecraft. And those also have reworked textures. It's not just a switch that does the magic, as if you took base quake 2 and just added rt without texture changes it won't look good.
Other games like metro and cyberpunk have it, witcher3, silent hill 2 etc... But it's just some light haze or reflections. Hardly worth loosing half the performance. When a game runs at 80fps without rt and goes down to 30 with it, unless you lower the resolution and do up scaling tricks... What are you gaining?
Nothing it's all a means to an end for something new for them to sell to you. Anti aliaisng, AF, texture filtering, dot3 bump mapping, pixel and vetex shaders, normal mapping, along with mip mapping, hdr(in game shader lighting not TV tech think oblivion) bloom, and lod adjustments were all game changing.
Those had real tangible benefits. Remember going from static flat water to actual ripples and physics or the illusion of it. Remember flat wall texture to having bumped mapped walls? Those things cost performance but not this much. An Nvidia 6800 or ATI 9800 could handle most of that in 2004 with thr 8800gts being able to do it all, plus hdr and aa. That card cost $400. The high end was $500 and ran crysis and was top dog for years.
The 2k price for rt and 4k is crazy money. The value per dollar isn't worth it. Especially when you realize if you turn off RT you get double thr performance and can play the same resolution using a xx60 series card for a fraction of the cost.
I have a 3060ti and play at 1080p. I can enable RT in most games just fine, but it costs in fps and usually having to enable dlss. It's not ideal.
Let me know when they can flcikna switch and RT will act like dynamic lights from the Doom3, theif , splinter cell, fear, dead space, dues ex games where hitting a hanging light made the shadows move too. Or flashlights cast shadows on everything. Things that were done 20 years ago, but are only done in a handful of games now. I don't see Ray tracing solving that. Which is what I expected it to do. Instead it just makes puddles prettier.
And for what? The only games I seen that really look revolutionary with ray tracing is quake 2 and Minecraft. And those also have reworked textures. It's not just a switch that does the magic, as if you took base quake 2 and just added rt without texture changes it won't look good.
Other games like metro and cyberpunk have it, witcher3, silent hill 2 etc... But it's just some light haze or reflections. Hardly worth loosing half the performance. When a game runs at 80fps without rt and goes down to 30 with it, unless you lower the resolution and do up scaling tricks... What are you gaining?
Nothing it's all a means to an end for something new for them to sell to you. Anti aliaisng, AF, texture filtering, dot3 bump mapping, pixel and vetex shaders, normal mapping, along with mip mapping, hdr(in game shader lighting not TV tech think oblivion) bloom, and lod adjustments were all game changing.
Those had real tangible benefits. Remember going from static flat water to actual ripples and physics or the illusion of it. Remember flat wall texture to having bumped mapped walls? Those things cost performance but not this much. An Nvidia 6800 or ATI 9800 could handle most of that in 2004 with thr 8800gts being able to do it all, plus hdr and aa. That card cost $400. The high end was $500 and ran crysis and was top dog for years.
The 2k price for rt and 4k is crazy money. The value per dollar isn't worth it. Especially when you realize if you turn off RT you get double thr performance and can play the same resolution using a xx60 series card for a fraction of the cost.
I have a 3060ti and play at 1080p. I can enable RT in most games just fine, but it costs in fps and usually having to enable dlss. It's not ideal.
Let me know when they can flcikna switch and RT will act like dynamic lights from the Doom3, theif , splinter cell, fear, dead space, dues ex games where hitting a hanging light made the shadows move too. Or flashlights cast shadows on everything. Things that were done 20 years ago, but are only done in a handful of games now. I don't see Ray tracing solving that. Which is what I expected it to do. Instead it just makes puddles prettier.
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HeWhoWalks
Gold Member
"Instead it just makes puddles prettier"
Therein lies the issue, folks. "Light haze" in Cyberpunk?
Therein lies the issue, folks. "Light haze" in Cyberpunk?
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Buggy Loop
Gold Member
64gigabyteram
Reverse groomer.
not a raytracing or lighting problem a dev problem
yes those types of things can be done with RT and it would make the solutions you saw in those old games look like child's play. Devs just don't really want to go for that type of artstyle anymore unfortunately. A lot of games are too static to properly take advantage of dynamic lighting scenarios like that.
Buggy Loop
Gold Member
The solution to light up an open world with raster is completely alien to RTGI. Both of them coexisting is a huge hurdle on studios. There's a reason 4A games said they would never make a game with raster lighting after Metro Exodus EE.
Rockstar bet on RTGI 100%. There won't be a fall back. It takes an enormous amount of artists placing lights in such a complex massive world. If they resort to auto placement with some algorithm it always fails to catch the particularities and the lights are very basic.
As this thread goes on it's obvious that consoles just using it for things like shadows or reflections due to the limits of the hardware has distorted views and meant some people have no idea what it actually is.
Ray Tracing means a minimum of Global Illumination for me so would innately have dynamic lighting tracking from camera to light source with a degree of bouncing.
Ray Tracing means a minimum of Global Illumination for me so would innately have dynamic lighting tracking from camera to light source with a degree of bouncing.
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Topher
Identifies as young
That's their choice. My choice is to not play games that have sluggish performance. You mentioned software RT solutions before. I believe that is what is being used with KCD 2 and that game performs really well. So hopefully it won't be an issue.
Zuzu
Member
It’s a necessity in order for global illumination and shadows to reach the next level of fidelity, and to provide consistent, realistic reflections, especially for open world games. The three open world games with the best lighting/GI and shadows right now are Cyberpunk 2077 with PT, Avatar and Star Wars Outlaws. All three use ray-tracing and path tracing to achieve it.
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Topher
Identifies as young
There are levels to RT though. We can play Cyberpunk 2077 on PC with only RT shadows and/or reflections. Or we can go all the way up to path tracing. RT isn't an all or nothing tech.
RafterXL
Member
The funny part about you claiming it only looks "slightly" better, while also complaining about performance is that you're getting a half baked version of RT to save performance and it still looks better, even with developers cutting it back to allow current hardware to run it. There is no comparison to full path tracing vs traditional lighting, it's night and day, and eventually we are going to get there.
This is the problem, many of you don't even know what Ray Tracing is. Literally all of that can be done in RT, only easier. Hell, literally every game you mentioned has a RT mod that does exactly what you are talking about. There isn't a single thing that traditional lighting does that RT can't do better, it's just up to developers to choose those design decisions, it's not a limitation of the tech.
No, but the goal, and the future, is fully path traced games. It's why comments about RT only looking slightly better or aren't worth it don't mean much. People see a game with RT reflections and claim RT is shit, when they've only see a portion of what it actually is and does.
CuteFaceJay
Member
If you want to rack up a huge energy bill sure.
Topher
Identifies as young
I agree. That's where it is all going and I'm all for it. Not everyone has access to high end hardware though and that's the hurdle that RT has to get over.
This ain't helping...
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ienjoyrawfish
Member
Yeah, it's called "coping".
Ha ha, I remember rendering on my Amiga 1200 in Imagine and Maxon Cinema 4D... sometimes it was taking more than 24hRay Tracing has been the holy grail with lighting for decades, so it's definitely not a gimmick it's just very intensive. I did it on my Atari ST watching it generate a pixel at a time and came back hours later to find it 10% done on one static picture.
I probably needed an Amiga
It depends what platform you're mainly playing on. If you're only paying on consoles then yeah, the bar hasn't moved up much from the start of the gen and I don't think it will move that much more when it comes to graphics quality because there's only so much those boxes can do and path tracing is very much not it. On the PC side there has been constant improvement and RT is so much further along than when the 20 series of cards launched.
The above being said, games like Indiana Jones and the upcoming Doom launched and will launch with Ray Traced GI even on consoles which is quite a big step. The latest DF video showing off RT GI in GTA V on PC gives very clear hints of where Rockstar is going with GTA VI as well with regards to having an RT GI solution. So devs are clearly moving away from the old solutions towards RT but having consoles with weak AMD GPUs when it comes to RT clearly slowed things down which ended up with this gen being a transition one. As Gaben once said: "These things take time"
LavitzSlambert
Member
No, but it will be. This is a game development trend that is being used to facilitate development and reduce costs spent on getting good looking lighting to look right. It's going to be the future and it will be mandatory whether you care for it or not, look at Indiana Jones.
Braag
Member
If you want to push the visual fidelity, then yes it is.
When it comes to lighting, shadows, reflections then RT is the natural next step, it's just incredibly taxing right now.
But as we move forward, the current tech improves along with our hardware and raytracing will become more common in games.
When it comes to lighting, shadows, reflections then RT is the natural next step, it's just incredibly taxing right now.
But as we move forward, the current tech improves along with our hardware and raytracing will become more common in games.
dottme
Member
For me Ray Tracing is in the same state than when we were doing 3D during the PS1 era. It has a lot of good promises but the current generation of hardware is really lacking in power to show anything good out of it.
But at least, 3D was bringing new gameplay. Ray Tracing is not even bringing new gameplay idea so it feels really unwanted currently.
But I believe for the next generation of console, it should be good enough to avoid huge performance penalty and improves graphics eventually.
But at least, 3D was bringing new gameplay. Ray Tracing is not even bringing new gameplay idea so it feels really unwanted currently.
But I believe for the next generation of console, it should be good enough to avoid huge performance penalty and improves graphics eventually.