In any event, none of those pictures change a thing. You can call it a waste, but that doesn't change what it does to an image.
Yes, but doesn't change what it does to performance either.
Would a "Remaster" of a game running at 4Kcb 60fps on regular PS5 allow RT features to be used on the same machine, on top of the work they already did, without sacrificing IQ and framerate?
I really don't think so. And what pictures don't show is the absolute mess of flicker, dithering and general artifacts RT GI and especially Path Tracing almost always bring due to unoptimal denoise/too low native RT/PT res. Metro Exodus can look absolutely
abysmal at times, and same goes for Cyberpunk. Some of the things I've seen in CB2077 path traced are the stuff of nightmare.
There's no doubt these techniques have been offering for years especially on PC a great preview of what's to come in the future of real-time rendering, and in many occasions already delivered perfect/close to perfect results (basically always on PC only). But pretending it's always the best approach and when a software house doesn't go this route is because of laziness.. well that's just not very bright/informed thinking.
Except that it can't, and if were that easy, it would be done.
Almost every single RT effect can be perfectly emulated in rasterization in a way or another. But no, it's not easy at all, and requires
ton of time and talent. Especially time.
I could post right this second hundreds of pictures/videos I have in my folder of rasterized scenes in games that would see no perceptible benefit whatsoever by RT/PT implementation of any kind, that would on the contrary only achieve to drastically drop resolution and tank performance.