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Digital Foundry: Inside Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: The Ray Tracing Breakdown

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Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?



One of the most technologically impressive games of the year, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is one of the few games that requires hardware accelerated ray tracing in order to function. Looking good on everything from Xbox Series S to the maxed-out, path-traced RTX 4090 experience, RT takes centrestage. Alex talks with Machine Games about the technology behind the game.


00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:18 What does the Full RT addition entail?
00:02:41 How does the game's base RTGI function?
00:04:05 What paths are being traced?
00:05:20 How many bounces of light are traced?
00:06:00 What areas in game does one notice the Full RT the most?
00:07:48 Why are there still some shadow maps and SSR?
00:10:28 Does the Ray Tracing utilise Opacity Micromaps?
00:11:31 How is the BVH updated, culled and managed?
00:14:13 How was it being one of the first games to require Hardware Ray Tracing?
00:16:09 Where does it go from here for the industry and Machine Games?
00:17:22 When and how did the development for Full RT begin?
00:19:22 How and why integrate image upscaling like DLSS?
00:20:31 Is image reconstruction technology used as a crutch?
00:21:38 Where is DLSS Ray Reconstruction?
00:22:35 What areas of the game are particularly challenging to denoise?
00:23:35 What are things missing from the game's technology base that might be added in the future?
00:24:06 What is one of your favourite parts/aspects of your work on this Game that you are most proud of?
 

Xdrive05

Member
Good discussion. Hope they get DLSS Ray Reconstruction patched in soon.

PC folks who are picking a GPU specifically for this game, a note on VRAM usage with full path tracing: My 4060ti 16GB uses well over 14.5GB of VRAM at 1440p DLSS Balanced (so only 835p internal res!). This is with the Ultra preset and "Full RT", so not even the highest settings possible to configure.

This game is an absolute devourer of VRAM when you use Full RT and frame gen. I wouldn't even want 12GB even for lower resolutions like this because that wouldn't be enough to cut it. Nvidia makes a lot of way faster GPUs than mine, but with less VRAM, so that's something to watch out for if you're wanting to "future proof" with your pick of GPU.
 

intbal

Member
Another indiana RT video?!
I mean... I like the game and bought it... but cmon

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Apparently path tracing does not appear as a selectable option if your GPU's VRAM is under 12gb.

I played Indy on Game Pass with an RTX 3080 10gb. There is a mod to bypass the 12gb VRAM restriction for the Steam version but not for the GP version. Too bad, because folks were saying PT is playable on a 3080 so long as you drop your texture setting way down. I would've liked to have played it that way.
 

kevboard

Member
V-ram consumption if out of control with this game, they should have spend some time on that to improve it.

you should spend some time setting the texture pool to medium.

which will result in normal VRam usage with almost zero perceptible visual difference unless you play at 4k and look at every little distant detail 🙂
 
This is the first big XBox exclusive game with any kind of RT.

Of course they were going to PR it for years and showcase it like if this wasn't been done since 2020 on PS5.

How was it being one of the first games to require Hardware Ray Tracing?
That's ridiculous. Like if it wasn't been done since 4 years on numerous PS5 games.
 
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Filben

Member
Hair quality for some reason have little to no visual impact yet it increases VRAM usage... I find texture pool size at high high enough. See no difference beyond that.

Currently been playing with DLSS quality and full tracing at 3440x1440. It's pure joy, especially with the slower pace you can really take it all in. Distant LoD is a bit low (r_lodscale 3 helps a bit), but lighting, shadows, reflections... impeccable.
 

Zathalus

Member
This is the first big XBox exclusive game with any kind of RT.

Of course they were going to PR it for years and showcase it like if this wasn't been done since 2020 on PS5.


That's ridiculous. Like if it wasn't been done since 4 years on numerous PS5 games.
Do you also get annoyed when they do similar developer interviews with Sony studios? They have done quite a bit of those.
 

intbal

Member
I wonder if this interview was conducted prior to the patch a few days ago for Xbox that fixed the RT. There was no mention of it. That one shot of Series X they showed in the video looked like the pre-patch version.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
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Different releases and updates
 

Fess

Member
That was great. The game already looks amazing but the video got me activating RT, apparently they’ve patched FG now, it runs smoothly, framerate was galopping around pre-patch. Looks spectacular!👌
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
This is the first big XBox exclusive game with any kind of RT.
Forza has RT.
Of course they were going to PR it for years and showcase it like if this wasn't been done since 2020 on PS5.
It’s the full RT deep dive of the PC version. Why do you think they have an NVIDIA employee there? There are no games with full RT on PS5 or Xbox. You’d know this if you came into this thread to learn instead of console warring like an angry little fanboy.
That's ridiculous. Like if it wasn't been done since 4 years on numerous PS5 games.
Jesus Christ, do you actually think before posting? No Sony game REQUIRES hardware ray tracing. They all have a non-RT mode. You cannot play this game without hardware-acceleration for ray tracing because there is no software fallback for the lighting system. Even Alan Wake 2 has software ray tracing for non-RT enabled GPUs, so yes, it's one of the first games. The others are Metro Exodus, Quake RTX, Minecraft RTX, and Portal RTX, however, all of those games have a non-ray-traced version.
 
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intbal

Member
Plus 2 more videos about the Pro version. One on how they added PSSR support. Then another video about how the PSSR implementation in this game sucks.
Morgan Freeman Reaction GIF by MOODMAN
 

Stuart360

Member
you should spend some time setting the texture pool to medium.

which will result in normal VRam usage with almost zero perceptible visual difference unless you play at 4k and look at every little distant detail 🙂
Yep the game uses around 6.5-7gb vram usage on my 8gb 3070 after the patch (medium texture pool,, no path tracing obviously, everything else max). Funny thing is pre-patch the game used around 7.5gb vram on 'low' texture pool setting, so they def have done some optimization with the vram requirements.
 

Darsxx82

Member
I wonder if this interview was conducted prior to the patch a few days ago for Xbox that fixed the RT. There was no mention of it. That one shot of Series X they showed in the video looked like the pre-patch version.
It's clearly pre-patch material extracted of Alex previous video. Eigthet the interview Is pre-patch or when Alex edited the video he used material from his previous video and didn't worry about putting something updated.
 
Are you guys seriously bitching because it's the second RT-related Indiana Jones video in a couple of days?

Do you even read the OP or watch at least a few seconds of the video? It's an interview with developers.

And of course: if you don't care about something, just move on.

Back IT: I wish they would ask more tough questions (even though in this case the devs did a great job).
 
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