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A Plague Tale: Requiem looks WORSE with Ray Tracing, comparison screenshots

Asobo has just released a new update for A Plague Tale: Requiem that adds support for Ray Tracing. However, the game looks worse with them.

www.dsogaming.com

Asobo has just released a new update for A Plague Tale: Requiem that adds support for Ray Tracing. Now while Asobo claims that it has used Ray Tracing in order to enhance both ambient occlusion and shadows, the game only offers an option for ray-traced shadows. Not only that but these ray-traced shadows completely break the in-game ambient occlusion, making the game look worse.

Below you can find some comparison screenshots. The ray-traced version is on the left, whereas the rasterized version is on the right. As you can see, we do get more realistic shadows (some are sharper and others are softer) with RT shadows. However, the overall image now looks flat as there aren’t any AO effects.

Many more images comparing RT on vs Off on the article.
But considering it's around 20-30% heavier and looks worse, it's probably better to just keep it off.

RT-OFF

RT ON

 

[GymWolf]

I mean, they are probably gonna fix it with a patch.

 

[Skifi28]

"But does it run better?"

 

[Gaiff]

Let me guess, ray traced shadows? Probably the most useless rt effect. They should have gone for RTGI considering so much of the game is spent outdoors.

 

[Strider Highwind]

i'll do a video of me running it on my 4090 today sometime too and check it iut

 

[Gaiff]

I see a tiny difference but ray traced shadows look worse?

The blue and beige roof of the merchant stall to Amita's left seems to have less shadowing in its underbelly and it seems gone from behind it altogether.

The guy and the goats seem to have lost their shadows as well. The crevices above their heads are less shaded too.

For a 34fps, it sure as shit isn't impressive.

 

[Black_Stride]

Jesus this game is so frikken gorgeous.
Where did it rank in Digital Foundrys best graphics of the year?



On Topic.
Obviously a bug.
If they were supposed to bring in RTAO then it should look better than the screen space solution they were using before, the fact AO completely disappears could not have been intentional.
A hotfix should arrive in no time.


P.S:
How the fuck did we live without Ambient Occlusion?
We were frikken barbarians.

 

[3liteDragon]

I can't tell the difference to be honest.

When are they gonna add a 60FPS mode for this on consoles? I'm playing it rn & it feels clunky, part of it feels like it's because of it being 30FPS but it stutters every time I turn around quickly. And the lip syncing is horrendous.

 

[64bitmodels]

i'm convinced it's genuinely identical. there is 0 difference.

this is a terrible implementation and they should rework it ASAP.

 

[Gaiff]

Jesus this game is so frikken gorgeous.
Where did it rank in Digital Foundrys best graphics of the year?



On Topic.
Obviously a bug.
If they were supposed to bring in RTAO then it should look better than the screen space solution they were using before, the fact AO completely disappears could not have been intentional.
A hotfix should arrive in no time.


P.S:
How the fuck did we live without Ambient Occlusion?
We were frikken barbarians.

Has to be a bug. Look at the baskets at the feet of the guy to Amita's left. They don't have shadows in the RT mode. The vase to her immediate left also had its AO removed.

 

[squidilix]

Shadow / AO RT is the most boring RT

 

[Thief1987]

i'm convinced it's genuinely identical. there is 0 difference.

this is a terrible implementation and they should rework it ASAP.

They are not, AO is somehow missing in RT mode.

 

[rodrigolfp]

Looks worse or more accurate? Because more shadows not necessarily "looks betters" if the shadows are all inaccurate.

 

[Black_Stride]

i'm convinced it's genuinely identical. there is 0 difference.

this is a terrible implementation and they should rework it ASAP.

You do know what Ambient Occlusion looks like yeah?
Well you should spot that the AO is missing or greatly greatly reduced in the RT on shots.

 

[Zathalus]

If it's bugged then a comparison is a bit pointless is it not?

 

[64bitmodels]

You do know what Ambient Occlusion looks like yeah?
Well you should spot that the AO is missing or greatly greatly reduced in the RT on shots.

ahhh ok, looked more for it and yeah the AO is missing.
you'd think that it'd be more accurate since Ray Tracing by nature has ambient occlusion but i guess not....

 

[Kacho]

RT has been a massive improvement in the games I played so either they botched the implementation here or there’s a bug.

 

[TheRedRiders]

RTX Baby! You can hardley see the difference!

 

[Black_Stride]

ahhh ok, looked more for it and yeah the AO is missing.
you'd think that it'd be more accurate since Ray Tracing by nature has ambient occlusion but i guess not....

Nah.
Raytraced Shadows take direct light and very little to no indirect light they dont make even passable AO by themselves.
RTGI however gets Ambient Occlusion as a byproduct.
Thats why in games or renderers that let you have the full bevy of effects simply selecting RTGI will give you decent AO so you dont need to also activate RTAO.....but RTAO is so cheap you might as well.
You can check this in Dying Light 2, when you turn on RTGI and nothing else, you still have pretty good AO even if RTAO and SSAO are switched off.
Thats cuz the light bounces naturally end up missing areas where objects would occlude the light.

This has to be some sort of error, the RTAO setting is correctly switching off the Screen Space AO, but it for some reason isnt activating the RTAO.

 

[SportsFan581]

Shadows around pots? Shadows around planks? Who needs them.

 

[RoboFu]

This is one of those cases were the dramatic fake AO shadows is more appealing than the more realist RT in some situations. I guess it’s the reason a lot of RT shadow games on pc give the option to keep AO on at the same time.

 

[Xdrive05]

This is not exactly a Minecraft RTX treatment. Yeah, just shadows, and the raster solution is apparently good enough and of course more performant.

 

[Mister Wolf]

The only raytracing worth the hit is Raytraced Lighting. Look how raytraced lighting transforms Fortnite.

 

[remember_spinal]

Itsthesamepicture.jpg

 

[yamaci17]

yeah ray tracing is weird on this one

Imgsli

Imgsli

Imgsli

However, I was surprised my trusty old 2700 at 3.7 ghz could handle 30+ FPS with ray tracing in this location with rats.(even though the ray tracing seems to be broken, the BHV cost is still there on both GPU and CPU lol)

Imgsli

the game looks stunning without any ray tracing. i dont think this game needs ray traced gi tbh. i would be okay with ray traced reflectiosn tho

 

[DR3AM]

PC only?

 

[Agent_4Seven]

They should've added RT local shadows and nothing else. The game even without other RT effects looks mind-blowing, but raster local shadows are an effin' curse in every modern game no matter the platform, RT can fix this np. You can see the difference in CP2077 when you look at shadows casting by characters on themselves be it head, hands, legs, clothes, accessories etc. with and without RT local shadows.

 

[Hot5pur]

Seems to me this RT stuff will ultimately benefit developers more by cutting down their dev time with RT-only games. Until then this whole RT business is mostly meaningless, but hey, Nvidia has to sell the 40xx somehow.

 

[Hugare]

RT makes sense in dynamic environments (day and night cycle) where a RTGI system can truly shine, like Cyberpunk, Dying Light 2, Metro Exodus and etc.

Linear singleplayer games usualy have baked lighting, which is just as good (if static) and infinitely less expensive. Games such as Plague Tale.

RT in a game like this has no reason to exist.

Asobo deactivated HBAO when using RTAO, but RTAO is bugged right now, so the game has no AO at all.

Its like the newer version of The Witcher 3 with RTAO deactivated, it looks really flat.

 

[Arsic]

This is the only game in recent memory without ray tracing that looks better than any and all games with it maxed out. It’s an absolutely staggering visual achievement in the medium .

It isn’t worth the performance cost at all. 4K 60fps maxed out on a 3080 for me. If RT added some spectacular enhancements I’d be all for it, but it’s too hard to see any improvements on a game that’s already leagues ahead of the competition.

 

[aries_71]

Is this “feature“ impacting consoles too?

 

[sloppyjoe_gamer]

Does it make Amecia's nonstop whisper talking less noticable?