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Ray Tracing is a Waste

GymWolf

Member
Yes, it is most of the time if the production time and budget allows for more creative and less resource intensive ways...at least for now and i would dare say this whole generation. At some point it's gonna be cheap enough to make it worth the resource budget tho.

If used sparsely tho, even now can do some cool things in a cheaper way than other techniques, for example somewhat accurate reflections. The old way to do reflections like in Hitman it's way more resource intensive than some clever use of RT like in Spiderman on PS5.

Edit:

Isn't that using some form of neural networks and deep learning? if so, than the same RT type cores could be used as hardware acceleration for that, right? Turing RT cores are made for AI
I have no idea, but it looks far more advanced than anything we have today that is not even funny...
 
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Mister Wolf

Member
At first I just thought is is comparison of AO pass and only diffuse pass(too lit, too flat, hardly noticable shadows, ao).
Then I noted the fps counter)

metro-exodus-the-two-colonels-ray-tracing-screenshot-001-off.jpg

metro-exodus-the-two-colonels-ray-tracing-screenshot-001-on.jpg
 

oldergamer

Member
Reflection RT : yes its a waste .
Shadow RT :yes waste too .
RTGI : hard one but if non-RT GI have 60-70% RTGI quality but have better performance I take it .
RT Lighting vs Baked lighting : No idea, yet .
You don't know what you are talking about dude. How about leaving it up to graphics and vfx experts out there? Ray tracing is good, but needs to be used the right way to get the right performance tradeoff. end of story
 

BlackTron

Member
Before RT is really good we need to start somewhere. 3D looked like ass too when it was new, but the industry needed to start working with polygons to get where we are today.

Perhaps PS5 Pro will have 4k/60 with effective RT.
 

Newari

Member
I tried to remember if similar resitance to new graphics features existed when dx11 was introduced and it ran badly in some games (funnily enough, one of the games was Metro 2033) and found this gem on Steam forums
Pb8Js5N.png

There will allways be people who do not care for new things.
 

rnlval

Member
If done right and implemented well, raytracing is amazing and totally worth it.

Control looks bonkers and is a huge step up. Raytraced shadows and the reflections add so much.
Even only the reflections in WD Legion make the world more believable in motion. Sucks though that the puddles for example are static.

But again, we are at the total beginning and some implementations are not worth the performance hit yet.


Intel's BVH software raytracing for shadows via the CPU's wide 256-bit AVX SIMD units can guide the GPU's pixel color shading. World of Tanks' BVH software raytracing well on Ryzen 9 3900X (Zen 2), Core i9-9900K (CoffeeLake), and Core i7-7820X (Skylake X).

Game consoles have 8 core Zen 2 with each CPU core having dual 256-bit AVX-2 FMA3 capability.

My point, 256-bit AVX hardware capable CPUs can get involve in BVH software raytracing along with GPU's BVH hardware raytracing.
 
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cireza

Banned
I think it could make for nice games with simpler graphics, ray tracing and 60fps.

Otherwise, if it means reducing to 30fps, it is indeed a waste.
 
RT has not place in games that dont go for realism anyway. There is zero gain if your game has an artstyle like fortnite but wastes recources that make the game actually look worse with RT (no, RT is more realisitic doesnt count because the game doesnt even go for realism). Games like Minecraft or quake. RT looks stupid because it doesnt fit the games graphics at all and obviously the RT on RT off difference is big there because they didnt even have any lighting tech at all. Also most games that look better with RT on vs RT off are nvidia marketed games that artificial make the non RT ligthing terrible. Thats excactly the case with metro exodus. all picture of indoor lighting that everyone uses for showing off RT can be done with regular lighting without RT. That has been poofen by countless non RT games looking so good that noone even know if they support RT. and i dont even want to begin talking about puddles everywhere where they shouldnt even be and reflecting like a mirror. Thats not how real life looks like. RT can die as fast as possible.
 
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harmny

Banned
RT has not place in games that dont go for realism anyway. There is zero gain if your game has an artstyle like fortnite but wastes recources that make the game actually look worse with RT (no, RT is more realisitic doesnt count because the game doesnt even go for realism). Games like Minecraft or quake. RT looks stupid because it doesnt fit the games graphics at all and obviously the RT on RT off difference is big there because they didnt even have any lighting tech at all. Also most games that look better with RT on vs RT off are nvidia marketed games that artificial make the non RT ligthing terrible. That has been poofen by countless non RT games looking so good that noone even know if they support RT. and i dont even want to begin talking about puddles everywhere where they shouldnt even be and reflecting like a mirror. Thats not how real life looks like. RT can die as fast as possible.

if you like how pixar films look you like rt in things that dont go for realism. the performance cost will go down with time.
 
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azz0r

Banned
Why bother with shaders? Why bother with dynamic lighting at all? Why bother with displacement maps? Why bother with onbody physics? Why bother with high quality textures?

We can get the game to run at 1000fps then!
 

AgentP

Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
In general, yes it is a waste since it is so expensive. But like everything else, it is an artist decision. The devs get to decide where they spend their FLOPs. I just hope they have multiple modes so we can choose frame rate over RT.
 

Neo_game

Member
I will take RT for fps. But as others said it is always a compromise in resolution, fps etc... If the games is having impressive lighting already then RT resource can be used elsewhere. Just for fancy reflection, it is not worth it and should be an option for consoles as well.
 

Greirat

Member
Honestly most raytracing screenshots look the same as the normal shots, or worse (everything is usually too shiny). It's definitely not worth the performance cost in its current state.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
OP let me tell you about something great called dynamic lighting and dynamic time of Day. Baked solutions do not work for games with these ambitions.

They current do dynamic now with rasterization or cone tracing. Where RT makes a difference is in the GI accuracy of the light sources/shadows.
 
I dunno, as long as its added as optional, then im ok with it.

Like i wish watchdogs legion let you turn it off on XSX and play at 4k/60. This should always be optional.
 
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sobaka770

Banned
Shameless plug of my own thread where I look at WD RT implementation:

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/watch-dogs-rtx-beginners-edition.1574381/

Honestly, it's a nice to have, but so is anything in graphics. 8K textures, volumetric light, particle effects etc.. - we're no longer doing leaps and bounds like going from 2D to 3D. RT is the future but it will take longer to get there. The result however is very enjoyable imo and worth a tradeoff if you want to have the best picutre quality.
 

cryptoadam

Banned
Its a waste this gen of consoles and graphics cards. I mean you have to buy a 700 card and your still making sacrifices. On consoles we can see with a game like Spiderman where FPS is being halfed for RT, which is already doing optimization on the RT and lowering the rez and other tricks.

Eventually as power increases it will become standard, but the power just isn't there yet.
 
RT is great but if you have to sacrifice other spects in order to have good quality RT y will always prefer non RT game with a 60/120 fps 4K native or dynamic.

RT on consoles is a spect that will shine on PS6 or PS5 pro...not now.
This basically.
Ray tracing as a whole is great. It looks really good and much more realistic as a whole BUT right now the performance hit is generally not worth it in most games.

Something like Spider-Man I’m of 2 minds. The first game felt great so I’ll definitely try out both modes whenever I can get my hands on a PS5.
 

Lethal01

Member
RT has not place in games that dont go for realism anyway. There is zero gain if your game has an artstyle like fortnite but wastes recources that make the game actually look worse with RT (no, RT is more realisitic doesnt count because the game doesnt even go for realism). Games like Minecraft or quake. RT looks stupid because it doesnt fit the games graphics at all and obviously the RT on RT off difference is big there because they didnt even have any lighting tech at all. Also most games that look better with RT on vs RT off are nvidia marketed games that artificial make the non RT ligthing terrible. Thats excactly the case with metro exodus. all picture of indoor lighting that everyone uses for showing off RT can be done with regular lighting without RT. That has been poofen by countless non RT games looking so good that noone even know if they support RT. and i dont even want to begin talking about puddles everywhere where they shouldnt even be and reflecting like a mirror. Thats not how real life looks like. RT can die as fast as possible.

Nah, just because a game is stlylized doesn't mean the artist don't want soft, accurate shadows, global illumination or real reflections.
Whether it's a painting or anime you will likely want effects like theses, not to mention if you are going for something more like Pixar.

I agree that it's easier to see in realistic games though, there is no game with dynamic scenes that wouldn't be vastly improved by realtime RT.
Even if only the characters have it applied it would fix the infinite amount of cases where the characters glow due to the baked Gi not being accurate enough.
 

Lethal01

Member
This basically.
Ray tracing as a whole is great. It looks really good and much more realistic as a whole BUT right now the performance hit is generally not worth it in most games.

Something like Spider-Man I’m of 2 minds. The first game felt great so I’ll definitely try out both modes whenever I can get my hands on a PS5.

Depends on the game, I say in tons of games high framerates or native 4k aren't worth the sacrifice to visuals for the majority of the time. If the Majority of what you play is shooters maybe but I really don't need 120fps in RE:3 remake and enhancing the atmosphere is worth 10x more.

I dunno, as long as its added as optional, then im ok with it.

Like i wish watchdogs legion let you turn it off on XSX and play at 4k/60. This should always be optional.

I hope more games come out where it's the only option so devs don't have to worry about how it work without RT and can make the game totally designed around having the effects.
 
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Raytracing is like a space mission to Mars.

Some people will argue that it's a waste of money and that it would be better spent feeding the poor or something.

Raytracing is a cool effect. It may be taxing now but someday it will be a standard effect. Pushing technology forward is a good thing.
 
Depends on the game, I say in tons of games high framerates or native 4k aren't worth the sacrifice to visuals for the majority of the time. If the Majority of what you play is shooters maybe but I really don't need 120fps in RE:3 remake and enhancing the atmosphere is worth 10x more.
Yeah agreed. If I had to choose between RT and 60fps or higher in a shooter and more so in a multiplayer shooter then I would drop RT in a heartbeat.

I‘ve definitely chose 30 over 60 simply due to graphics in games. Hell I even used to choose 30 in Horizon 4 in order to bump up the graphics because I was used to 30 on Xbox. Only recently did I switch to 1440p to get 60fps just because I know it’ll be the standard forthcoming on Xbox as well so I might as well get used to it. I’m not a stickler for 60 FPS besides fighters and fps games, and with consoles also supporting VRR now small drops can more easily be forgiven.
 

harmny

Banned
We are nowhere near diminishing returns considering that Rasterization can't even handle having a with reflections without hours of tweaking for each one you add.


It jus works baybe

what's funny about this example is that with rasterization you'll never be able to get a result like that rtx on reflection.
but at the same time. you'll never be able to get a diffuse reflection like the rtx off example using rt (in 2020). too expensive. so they basically transformed those walls into mirrors.
 

Lethal01

Member
you'll never be able to get a diffuse reflection like the rtx off example using rt (in 2020). too expensive.

Not true at all, Results from just blurring the reflection have been done and proven to work perfectly for emulating reflections with high roughness.
I mean full raytracing would be better but the results are still far superior to rasterization.
 

kevm3

Member
From the performance hit that comes with ray tracing, the improvements that comes from ray tracing hasn't been worth it in most of the cases I've seen.
 

Keihart

Member
We are nowhere near diminishing returns considering that Rasterization can't even handle having a with reflections without hours of tweaking for each one you add.


It jus works baybe
Yeah, reflections are completly better with RTX , not only because they can look better and be more accurate but also they are cheaper. Doing accurate mirrors the old way it's really fucking expensive...on the other hand jamming reflections everywhere with RTX it also is, just less expensive(performance wise)
 
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harmny

Banned
Not true at all, Results from just blurring the reflection have been done and proven to work perfectly for emulating reflections with high roughness.
I mean full raytracing would be better but the results are still far superior to rasterization.

sure you can blur the reflection but that would be faking it. works great for most things though
 
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Lethal01

Member
sure you can blur the reflection but that would be faking it. works great for most things though

I got no problem with faking things, The problem is that without raytracing there are tons of things you pretty much can't do even if you fake it and faking it for just a moment can require huge time investments.
 

Polygonal_Sprite

Gold Member
Only if you really like static environments and scenes.

Any scene that is dynamic with alot of dynamic objects would need good GI.
If you still enjoy baked lighting with all the dynamic objects not being shaded correctly, thats fine its your opinion......but us living in a world where we want graphics to get better a good dynamic GI solution is godly, whether thats RT GI or some Voxel based solution I dont really care.

As long as its dynamic GI that works well that is all I need in my life.

What type of lighting does BotW use considering it's such a dynamic World?
 
Looking at Fortnite RT off looks better most of time here..



Using 20-30% of the resources on RT is a waste for some games that should just go for more res or FPS. Handcrafted baked lighting is better in situations. even in film the lighting is touched up and unnatural before filming and even more during editing. IMOO the best utilization is in photo realistic games. Another issue is that RT is at times over-implemented, in some games every surface is like a polished mirror, real life is not like that.

I think RT is overhyped and utilization will be softened after the fad phase.

It is starting to look like it
 

Jigsaah

Gold Member
A little off topic..can anybody argue the talent that is whoever composed Fortnite's theme music. It's eerie, calming and welcoming at the same time. It's up there with Apex Legends in my opinion.

On topic, Fortnite really doesn't need Raytracing because of it's art style. however in more realistic looking games like Control, I think it's a real treat
 
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