Is Ray-Tracing the biggest scam in gaming?
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GoldenEye98
posts news as their odd job
I think it's just the case that programmed lighting effects were close enough at a lower performance cost. So it's a tougher sell now.
GymWolf
Member
Rtx is gonna be good when games are not gonna have the raster method anymore.
Right now devs have to make double the work, rtx and raster both in the game.
If you consider that consoles must be always cheap and underpowered and on steam the most common gpu is probably a low-mid tier one, a lot of time is gonna pass before videogame can only have rtx without raster, ps6 and nex xbox are not gonna be more powerfull than a 5090 and you still have switch 2, good luck making game with only rtx for sw2.
Am i missing something?
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SnapShot
Member
Pretty much this. Anybody who thinks this is controversial, does not respect game development process, and should be dismissed
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mrMUR_96
Member
Yep exactly, I think people just legitimately do not understand what RT is, it's literally calculating lighting physically instead of manually faking it. RT itself is a tech that has been around since like the 70s, but is only finally being able to be possible in real time. Obviously, there are many optimisations in place currently, like lower-res upscaling, de-noising over time and using more of a hybrid approach but it is literally where rendering has always been heading. Like the other guy said about CG in movies, they use RT (obviously at a higher quality), they started off with more manual techniques before moving more towards RT only approaches. And as you can see from movies, it doesn't limit visual direction or freedom.
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mrMUR_96
Member
Yeah it's an awkward middle ground we're in, perhaps games will launch with RT only on console/pc then get ported later to switch 2? I mean, games like SW Outlaws is being ported to switch 2 and that is RT only.
The Cockatrice
I'm retarded?
I'm dismissive because in reality we are still getting games every 5-10 years. Nothing changed for the consumer. What they show to the public =/= behind the scenes. Ofc we're in a baked+traced development hell and they have to do both still, so while I am being unfair atm, I have some severe doubts about the future of game development.
Boss Mog
Member
What part makes me a boomer exactly? The fact that I want good graphics instead shitty mobile game graphics or the fact that I'm against fake frames and the egregious lies Jensen told?
mrMUR_96
Member
Yeah fair enough, I think RT is getting way too much hate and perhaps people just genuinely don't understand what it is. It's literally helping to streamline and simplify the rendering pipeline and makes it easier to iterate and allow things like destruction. I think this gen has been very poorly handled (especially from a 1st party) perspective, but I think that's more down to just genuinely poor management like focusing on GAAS and things like this.
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GymWolf
Member
Are you sure you can't disable rtx in outlaws?
But even with that in mind, disabling rtx to make a raster system for sw2 is still way more job than only have raster or only have rtx in your game.
So until we get rid of weak hardwares, rtx and less work for devs in the same phrase are not gonna be a thing.
Edit from reddit about outlaws: It uses software ray tracing, otherwise, cards like the 1060 on the video wouldn't be able to run it, so AMD cards will perform as in other non ray traced games, similar to UE5 games with Lumen.
(Not sure how true it is)
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mrMUR_96
Member
I think there's technically a way to force it off on PC, but it breaks the lightning completely, as in there is literally no lighting just base textures lol. It's the same for Avatar. Looks like Ubisoft at least are really pushing towards RT only and ID too. I'm looking forward to see how the port turns out. Edit: 4A games too (metro series), I reckon more and more devs will take an RT only approach.
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GymWolf
Member
So what they did for the sw2 version? They must have disabled rtx in some way and introduce some raster...
Wait, outlaws on sw2 is not even out?
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mrMUR_96
Member
Yeah that's why I'm curious lol, I reckon it will have RT. It's way too much work otherwise. The amount of planets plus it having a day night cycle and even being able to fly around in space, that would just be an insane amount of work. Switch likely has ok RT performance at low res and then they can just dlss it up to something usable. (iirc it's based on rtx 3000 tech)
Edit: I mean, Series S runs it fine, they'll probably just use something like those settings, maybe just lower the res a bit more and then dlss it up to 720p or something. FSR sucks ass on the current console versions, wouldn't be surprised if SW2 image quality actually looks ok in comparison lol even if the base resolution and settings are lowered.
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Knightime_X
Member
I have a modern GPU to handle modern technology.
Just like the days when you needed a gpu for transformation and lighting (T&L)
And just like T&L, ray tracing will be incredibly common as newer cards arrive.
I highly recommend NOT playing in 4k natively.
Use 1440p or DLSS up to 4k.
Performance \ Ultra Performance is your friend.
Also, DLSS 1080p on a 4k monitor also looks pretty good.
But eventually, you're going to want a gpu with more vram as 8gb isn't cutting it like it used to.
I have an RX 9070 XT OC and games run sexy af
Most of them I don't even need to use FSR
Just like the days when you needed a gpu for transformation and lighting (T&L)
And just like T&L, ray tracing will be incredibly common as newer cards arrive.
I highly recommend NOT playing in 4k natively.
Use 1440p or DLSS up to 4k.
Performance \ Ultra Performance is your friend.
Also, DLSS 1080p on a 4k monitor also looks pretty good.
But eventually, you're going to want a gpu with more vram as 8gb isn't cutting it like it used to.
I have an RX 9070 XT OC and games run sexy af
Most of them I don't even need to use FSR
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yamaci17
Member
pretty much
ray tracing makes things incredibly grounded, makes them feel like they're actual physical materials
it helps that i really don't care about 60 fps though. i'm still proud of my ancient 3070 though
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But but but it makes development easier
(Looks at development still taking long as fuck and game dev budgets ballooning)
The raytracing push made sense if we lived in a world where 4K wasn't shoved down everyone's throat. Modern GPUs just can't handle high graphical settings, ray tracing, AND 4k resolutions. If the industry can stave off 8k for three more generations I'm sure raytracing on PS7 will be amazing.
(Looks at development still taking long as fuck and game dev budgets ballooning)
The raytracing push made sense if we lived in a world where 4K wasn't shoved down everyone's throat. Modern GPUs just can't handle high graphical settings, ray tracing, AND 4k resolutions. If the industry can stave off 8k for three more generations I'm sure raytracing on PS7 will be amazing.
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nemiroff
Member
Through decades of evolving technology and videogame forums, op is a very familiar and regurgitated complaint.
People have been basically whining about every new gfx tech through history.
3D (!)
Polygons (!)
Texture mapping (!)
Anti aliasing (!)
Normal mapping (!)
etc etc etc
All now standard and expected in games and game engines (well, sometime left out for artistic reasons).
RT is just a tool for artists to reach their targets, as usual sometimes used right, sometimes used wrong. And as always it's those lucky enough to have high end hardware who are the first ones to get to join the parade to push it through to the mainstream and in the end normalize it.
The "Acceptance Loop":
(This is a typical general market acceptance loop, not all apply exactly the same to video game tech, but it's very similar.)
If tech wasn't pushed, we'd still be stuck on sprites.
People have been basically whining about every new gfx tech through history.
3D (!)
Polygons (!)
Texture mapping (!)
Anti aliasing (!)
Normal mapping (!)
etc etc etc
All now standard and expected in games and game engines (well, sometime left out for artistic reasons).
RT is just a tool for artists to reach their targets, as usual sometimes used right, sometimes used wrong. And as always it's those lucky enough to have high end hardware who are the first ones to get to join the parade to push it through to the mainstream and in the end normalize it.
The "Acceptance Loop":
(This is a typical general market acceptance loop, not all apply exactly the same to video game tech, but it's very similar.)
If tech wasn't pushed, we'd still be stuck on sprites.
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KuraiShidosha
Member
I've wanted ray tracing in game ever since I saw Toy Story back in the 90s and understood what it did differently than my 3D videogames. I knew that some day, if I lived long enough, I'd see it come to fruition and that time has finally come.
When implemented properly, it can truly take real time graphics to breathtaking levels. You'd have to be the most oblivious casual gamer not to notice some of these upgrades. Things like RTGI and RT reflections can have a substantial impact on the overall look of a game. I played the hell out of GTA 5 first on Xbox 360, then PS4, and finally PC in 2015 on a 3770k and GTX 780. I continued upgrading my PC but didn't really care to muck around in it at all since then. That is, until they finally ported the Expanded and Enhanced upgrades to PC.
Now, with a custom water cooled 9950x3D and RTX 5090 setup, all I do is drive and walk around the map paired with the Natural Vision Enhanced mod at 4k DLAA, all maxed out settings at over 100 fps (without frame gen!!!) taking in how beautiful the game world has become. Keep in mind, we're still talking about assets designed for a 20 year old console and released over 12 years ago. Yet with RTGI, RTAO, RT shadows and reflections, and the mod tweaking the time of day to really extract all that RTGI goodness from the engine, it has become one of my favorite gaming experiences currently. Honestly, it bridges the gap to GTA 6 at least in terms of render quality, and has me really excited for the day that comes to PC and I can see how these rendering techniques scale up to a modern game world designed for significantly faster consoles with much denser geometry and AI.
It's good to be alive!
When implemented properly, it can truly take real time graphics to breathtaking levels. You'd have to be the most oblivious casual gamer not to notice some of these upgrades. Things like RTGI and RT reflections can have a substantial impact on the overall look of a game. I played the hell out of GTA 5 first on Xbox 360, then PS4, and finally PC in 2015 on a 3770k and GTX 780. I continued upgrading my PC but didn't really care to muck around in it at all since then. That is, until they finally ported the Expanded and Enhanced upgrades to PC.
Now, with a custom water cooled 9950x3D and RTX 5090 setup, all I do is drive and walk around the map paired with the Natural Vision Enhanced mod at 4k DLAA, all maxed out settings at over 100 fps (without frame gen!!!) taking in how beautiful the game world has become. Keep in mind, we're still talking about assets designed for a 20 year old console and released over 12 years ago. Yet with RTGI, RTAO, RT shadows and reflections, and the mod tweaking the time of day to really extract all that RTGI goodness from the engine, it has become one of my favorite gaming experiences currently. Honestly, it bridges the gap to GTA 6 at least in terms of render quality, and has me really excited for the day that comes to PC and I can see how these rendering techniques scale up to a modern game world designed for significantly faster consoles with much denser geometry and AI.
It's good to be alive!
blastprocessor
The Amiga Brotherhood
Need to push forwards the invevitable, the gold standard.
Audiophile
Member
It's the future and the logical way forward for the vast majority of games, especially anything remotely dynamic or anything big. For them, it'll not only be the default soon enough, but it'll be the only option with games built from the ground up for it. You won't be able to turn it off. Hardware-accelerated RT will be the norm and maybe there might be a software RT fall-back. But if you can't do RT, the game doesn't run.
Rasterisation is almost entirely tapped out, there's barely any room for it to grow and as every other aspect improves, the flaws in baked lighting or half-way solutions only become more apparent. A prime example is the baked/probe lighting in Death Stranding 2; when the conditions are perfect the lighting and materials look amazing, when you go somewhere where conditions are not ideal it looks absolutely abysmal. This is also apparent in the Ghost Of Yotei trailers.
The issue right now is it's been introduced as a feature without current console hardware quite reaching the threshold required to do it well enough.....unless you have vast resources like R* with GTAVI which appears to be using comprehensive RTGI + Reflections as a core part of the game.
As it stands, a lot of games are just tacking it on as an optional feature, once we see ground up RTGI-based games scaled up for the next generation, the difference is not only going to be apparent in a given moment, but everything is dynamic, meaning no more of those ugly spots when the lighting isn't perfectly aligned, it allows for much more consistency.
It means devs don't have to waste lots of time and resources on re-baking their game over and over. It also means that you can reach a vastly superior quality of lighting without a tonne of baking data, freeing up space and b/w to be used to either make the game smaller/more efficient data-wise, or giving you a bunch of extra space to have more higher quality assets.
If you look at problem areas in AC Shadows, the difference between the baked lighting and the RTGI is considerable. To achieve a reasonable facsimile of that RTGI result with baked lighting would require your game to be >20x bigger; and even then, it wouldn't be fully dynamic and still would require a lot more work and bake time.
RT is win-win, but we just have to pass a threshold of adequate performance to get there. Judging its long-term potential and throwing the baby out with the bath water based on the first few outings and subpar solutions is short-sighted. Real time RT in games is a little over 6yrs old, it's been in consoles for less than 5yrs and their RT capabilities are very weak in the grand scheme of things. The fact that we're seeing what we are is kinda miraculous and I fully expect next gen console and the next couple gens of GPUs to be a vast step up when it comes to comprehensive RT functionality and performance, as well as being extremely efficient through ML as a supporting factor.
Same deal with virtualised microgeometry (like Nanite)...almost everyone will be shifting to something similar soon enough. It's another dynamic system that works on the fly, it simplifies dev work, simplifies the data, it results in not just a higher quality for the player but much greater consistency.
Lighting, geometry etc. The future is dynamic and on-the-fly.
RT is the furthest thing from a scam, it's just early days.
Rasterisation is almost entirely tapped out, there's barely any room for it to grow and as every other aspect improves, the flaws in baked lighting or half-way solutions only become more apparent. A prime example is the baked/probe lighting in Death Stranding 2; when the conditions are perfect the lighting and materials look amazing, when you go somewhere where conditions are not ideal it looks absolutely abysmal. This is also apparent in the Ghost Of Yotei trailers.
The issue right now is it's been introduced as a feature without current console hardware quite reaching the threshold required to do it well enough.....unless you have vast resources like R* with GTAVI which appears to be using comprehensive RTGI + Reflections as a core part of the game.
As it stands, a lot of games are just tacking it on as an optional feature, once we see ground up RTGI-based games scaled up for the next generation, the difference is not only going to be apparent in a given moment, but everything is dynamic, meaning no more of those ugly spots when the lighting isn't perfectly aligned, it allows for much more consistency.
It means devs don't have to waste lots of time and resources on re-baking their game over and over. It also means that you can reach a vastly superior quality of lighting without a tonne of baking data, freeing up space and b/w to be used to either make the game smaller/more efficient data-wise, or giving you a bunch of extra space to have more higher quality assets.
If you look at problem areas in AC Shadows, the difference between the baked lighting and the RTGI is considerable. To achieve a reasonable facsimile of that RTGI result with baked lighting would require your game to be >20x bigger; and even then, it wouldn't be fully dynamic and still would require a lot more work and bake time.
RT is win-win, but we just have to pass a threshold of adequate performance to get there. Judging its long-term potential and throwing the baby out with the bath water based on the first few outings and subpar solutions is short-sighted. Real time RT in games is a little over 6yrs old, it's been in consoles for less than 5yrs and their RT capabilities are very weak in the grand scheme of things. The fact that we're seeing what we are is kinda miraculous and I fully expect next gen console and the next couple gens of GPUs to be a vast step up when it comes to comprehensive RT functionality and performance, as well as being extremely efficient through ML as a supporting factor.
Same deal with virtualised microgeometry (like Nanite)...almost everyone will be shifting to something similar soon enough. It's another dynamic system that works on the fly, it simplifies dev work, simplifies the data, it results in not just a higher quality for the player but much greater consistency.
Lighting, geometry etc. The future is dynamic and on-the-fly.
RT is the furthest thing from a scam, it's just early days.
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Shifty1897
Member
I don't understand RT hate. Most games let you turn it off, the games that use it well are incredible looking. Consoles aren't powerful enough yet to take full advantage of it but maybe with the PS6 we'll get closer.
Buggy Loop
Gold Member
And that is why some games had to not have real-time day/night cycles but predetermined times of days for their map. Assassin creed unity here comes to mind. Amazing baked lighting, they made hard choices on the limitations.
Assassin creed shadows would have taken 2 years just to calculate the baking for full time of day plus all seasons for a massive map and take 2TB of data for light
It would take 2 years, and 2TB of data, to pre-bake the lighting of Assassin's Creed Shadows
As Ubisoft's Nicolas Lopez said in a GDC 2025 presentation, it would take 2 years to pre-bake the lighting of Assassin's Creed: Shadows.
www.dsogaming.com
RTGI is absolutely the future, we'll drag your ass to RT wether you want it or not, because if we listen to tech illiterate peoples on their opinions on tech we still wouldn't have shaders because in 2001 they didn't think it was worth upgrading nor a reason to install DX9, fucking nvidia and Microsoft forcing me to upgrade
wahhhh
Magic Carpet
Gold Member
Raytraced reflections are about the only good thing I have seen so far.
Replacing screen space has been a massive upgrade.
Thats about it.
Replacing screen space has been a massive upgrade.
Thats about it.
Griffon
Member
It's simply too early. I'm sure someday we'll have so much compute power in even the most modest machines that we might just as well path-trace everything. But we're far away from that.
Rasterization got so good that with a few tricks (quality baked lighting with a couple of good artifices) it is indistinguishable and runs 1000x faster.
Rasterization got so good that with a few tricks (quality baked lighting with a couple of good artifices) it is indistinguishable and runs 1000x faster.
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yamaci17
Member
i wish ac shadows was simply a better game in terms of story. gameplay is already there. it'd truly make more people see the value in ray tracing.And that is why some games had to not have real-time day/night cycles but predetermined times of days for their map. Assassin creed unity here comes to mind. Amazing baked lighting, they made hard choices on the limitations.
Assassin creed shadows would have taken 2 years just to calculate the baking for full time of day plus all seasons for a massive map and take 2TB of data for light
It would take 2 years, and 2TB of data, to pre-bake the lighting of Assassin's Creed Shadows
As Ubisoft's Nicolas Lopez said in a GDC 2025 presentation, it would take 2 years to pre-bake the lighting of Assassin's Creed: Shadows.
RTGI is absolutely the future, we'll drag your ass to RT wether you want it or not, because if we listen to tech illiterate peoples on their opinions on tech we still wouldn't have shaders because in 2001 they didn't think it was worth upgrading nor a reason to install DX9, fucking nvidia and Microsoft forcing me to upgrade
it also has incredible physics and a lot of destructible environment. all while pushing high quality ray traced global illumination with a decent denoiser that really produces a clean image even on a base ps5 at mostly 1440p/30 FPS which proves that decent ray tracing is possible on base consoles
all of it blends so well, nothing feels out of place and the game never looks flat, whether it is snowing, raining, foggy or sunny
hopefully gta 6 will finally make people see the value in it
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But you also have games that aren't raytraced looking pretty grounded too.pretty much
ray tracing makes things incredibly grounded, makes them feel like they're actual physical materials
it helps that i really don't care about 60 fps though. i'm still proud of my ancient 3070 though
Uncharted 4 on a PS4
Bernardougf
Member
And by then we will have another stupid advanced tech for selling 3.000+ dollar gpus that will keep making games perform like shit for two more gens.
Mister Wolf
Member
Nothing impressive about the lighting in this:
or this:
Attempting to say old lighting tech when done properly comes close to the realism of RTGI is a fucking joke.
or this:
Attempting to say old lighting tech when done properly comes close to the realism of RTGI is a fucking joke.
No it's not. Old lighting tech can get pretty close. What becomes the issue in huge open world games with ToD/weather is that you are streaming tiles and have dynamic lights so baking something amazing means absolutely massive amounts of data which simply doesn't make it viable in those specific scenarios. The games still looks amazing though. RT is good at getting something realistic without the manual effort and with lower data requirements. Some of the RT stuff doesn't even look good. Look at 1:44 in the stalker video, that looks kind of dreadful and the game in general is not known to run well.
yamaci17
Member
yeah playing spiderman 2, ray traced reflections in this game is great but i really wish they also pushed for ray traced global illumination. lighting feels so flat at times that it's crazy that this is a ps5 exclusive game
same for forbidden west, at times that game looked so flat that i couldn't believe what I was seeing. they tried to bake a lot of different time of day lighting and as such ended up looking worse than fixed ac unity lighting
that is why ray traced global illumination is the future. even if you include multiple lighting bakes in one game, then you end up with below mediocre lighting in all of them. at least uncharted 4 ships only one fixed baked lighting for its levels so it looks somewhat decent indeed. but if you're going to do open world games with rain, snow or fog effects and with day and night cycles, ray tracing is a must going forward
ac shadows meanwhile
UltimaKilo
Gold Member
It's an in-between period right now. Things will improve, likely at some point.
tkscz
Member
I wouldn't call it a scam, I would just say it was pushed sooner than it needed to be.
AMD's cards still aren't that good at it and we have devs already trying to push Path tracing, which is much harder and I can see next gen consoles supporting it the same way current gen supports ray tracing where it's there but it's not that good.
AMD's cards still aren't that good at it and we have devs already trying to push Path tracing, which is much harder and I can see next gen consoles supporting it the same way current gen supports ray tracing where it's there but it's not that good.
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
But what happens if you bump in to those curtains and move them? What if you draw them fully? When you walk over the clothes and they move are they still grounded? What if you drop a box on the floor? How does it look if you return when its dusk?But you also have games that aren't raytraced looking pretty grounded too.
Uncharted 4 on a PS4
You can have great lighting without real-time ray tracing but you have to limit what the player can do or spend inordinate amounts of time planning for every conceivable option.
Ray tracing or some variation is the future of gaming - whether you think it sucks right now is probably mainly based on the hardware you have.
mrMUR_96
Member
I think it's important to start implementing it early, devs need to get used to developing with it and integrating it into their engines in the best way and you can see how the tech has improved over time, especially in regards to upscalers and general performance. Yes, the hardware is only just about getting there and the consoles aren't maybe quite good enough, but if they'd left it until later, we'd it would take longer for them to resolve the teething problems with it.
Mister Wolf
Member
Post some VIDEOS of examples. No one is impressed with some small little rooms in Uncharted where nothing happens.
This is what the lighting looks like in Uncharted 4:
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mrMUR_96
Member
YES YES YES, hitting the nail on the head here. A core problem with baked lighting is consistency, all of those games can look good, and they often do in specific scenes, but it all falls apart in certain areas or if time of day changes. Horizon looks great one moment and then has ps3 level lighting as soon as you go indoors or the time of day doesn't work in the forest making it look super flat. DS2 has incredible cutscenes but a lot of levels the visuals fall apart and have very basic lighting.
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