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PCGamer: Ray tracing is a Scam; also PCGamer: Ray tracing isn't a Scam, it's just a tool.

Kalentan

Kalentan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
44,997
So uh... both of these articles were posted within 1 hour of each other.

www.pcgamer.com

Ray tracing has failed to deliver on its promise

If I'd bought a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, I would be so pissed off right now.
www.pcgamer.com www.pcgamer.com
www.pcgamer.com

Actually, ray tracing is just getting started

You can be pissed off you spent $1,200 on an RTX 2080 Ti, but be honest you didn't really buy it for ray tracing, did you?
www.pcgamer.com www.pcgamer.com

It just seems very odd? Like I guess they're trying to explain both sides? Is this an issue with multiple sides?

 
DanteMenethil

DanteMenethil

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,083
Different authors with diferent takes. Not that hard to understand. "PCGamer" doesn't have one singular opinion
 
UnluckyKate

UnluckyKate

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,601
Ray Tracing is today what was HDR 15 years ago. Its an expensive tool but easily marketable and hyped so everybody will slap it every and anywhere but it will take time to see a true artistic benefit without costing half the frame rate in perf
 

sheaaaa

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
1,556
Regardless of the quality of the articles, running two opposing opinion pieces is completely normal journalistically.
 

Deleted member 29682

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 1, 2017
12,290
They've done this a few times, posting two seemingly contradictory opinion articles one after another. It's just a style they go for.

It's deliberate, framed as a discussion, but there's no reason they couldn't compile them into a single article except for clicks.
 
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TubaZef

TubaZef

Member
Oct 28, 2017
3,570
Brazil
I don't think it's the first time PC Gamer does that. I think it's a cool way to show divergent opinions and let the readers think for themselves.

Also, a reminder that each publication has a staff full of different people with different opinions and you shouldn't think about their website as one monolithic thing.

As for raytracing... it is a big leap but we're still at the start of it.
 
Simon-chan

Simon-chan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,045
Italy
ECjWUdp.jpg
 
Shoichi

Shoichi

Member
Jan 10, 2018
10,545
I remember some youtubers do this (two vids, opposite takes) as it sparks clicks and views on their vids with an argumentative title
 
Joseph Joestar

Joseph Joestar

Member
Jun 19, 2020
1,142
Its the first generation that has it. Once the cards have enough power for full raytraced games and not this mixed mode they do right now. Thats where RT will truly shine. Its comparable to the first generation that had 3d or the first gen of card that had pixelshaders.

One of the first games with pixelshaders was Morrowind:

maxresdefaultjikyg.jpg


Things need time and RT is here to stay.

Also the thing Raytracing has going for it is this:

12k05.png


Rasterizer rendering is linear. the more complex the scene the more GPU time is needed,

Raytracing is more like a logarithmic scale which means there is a threshold that once your GPU power is over that the curve stays pretty flat.
So you can have more complex scenes without much GPU performance issues.

And once we have the full RT games the developers can spend less time on faking the RT effects. UE5 basicly brings a lot of these features to rasterizer rendering but RT would still do it better.
 
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AshenOne

AshenOne

Member
Feb 21, 2018
6,238
Pakistan
PCGamer..... why do you shame us all 'PC Gamers' with your poor clickbait bs... :(. I really wanted to love this site some years ago, especially once they started doing the PC Gaming Show.. and they used to do the weekly Twitch livestream with discussing the various games they were playing but its all turned to shit in the past couple of years... idk why.

EDIT: Before any of you tell me that its presenting a counter argument, this isn't the right way also its not the first time PCGamer have posted a weird or bad article...so i don't give them the benefit of the doubt or anything.
 
BoredLemon

BoredLemon

Member
Nov 11, 2017
1,004
UnluckyKate said:
Ray Tracing is today what was HDR 15 years ago. Its an expensive tool but easily marketable and hyped so everybody will slap it every and anywhere but it will take time to see a true artistic benefit without costing half the frame rate in perf
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It will always cost half the framerate. Just like modern shading technics have never became cheap compared to PS2-era simple shading. GPUs just got powerful enough and complex shading became integral part of any modern game, so we just accepted it as new standard and moved on.
Same will happen with raytracing. It will never be cheap, but progress will push it through.
 
collige

collige

Member
Oct 31, 2017
12,772
Both of these articles are bad and presenting them like this is an obvious ploy to get more clicks.

UnluckyKate said:
Ray Tracing is today what was HDR 15 years ago. Its an expensive tool but easily marketable and hyped so everybody will slap it every and anywhere but it will take time to see a true artistic benefit without costing half the frame rate in perf
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think this post is conflating HDR displays with HDR render pipelines. We didn't have "HDR" in the sense that we do today back then and I don't remember it tanking the framerate in Source engine games either.
 
Adulfzen

Adulfzen

Member
Oct 29, 2017
3,624
Could someone please give a summary of the articles ? I'd rather not give those kind of obvious baits a click.
 

Deleted member 13560

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
3,087
It would have been better if they presented both sides of the argument within a single article. But from what I'm gathering this makes for more clicks?
 
kurt

kurt

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,747
I agree on ray tracing is disapointing. Only a few older games are shining like minecraft or quake2
 
nekkid

nekkid

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
21,823
It's intentional to present both sides of it. They could have created a single article to discuss, but that's not nearly clickbaity enough.
 
Nzyme32

Nzyme32

Member
Oct 28, 2017
5,286
No point reading PC gamer. It's consistent clickbait at this point, lacking any journalistic qualities and discussion that's meaningful enough to be worth reading, at least since the past year.
Also the rather fantastical Epic Game Store coverage slapped disjointed into so much content with bias towards its promotion is bizarre, if not sponsored. There is plenty of excellent discussions to be had on pros and cons of it, Steam, GOG etc and so much of PC marketplace in general, and consistently PC Gamer has no interest in representing or investigating evenly or thoroughly without bias. Much like this Ray tracing discussion across counter-argument posts, it's blog spam now
 
Jamesac68

Jamesac68

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,437
How many times do we have to do this? "New Tech Not Everything It Was Promised to Be"

3 years later- "Maturing Tech Changing Face of Gaming Forever!"
 
Burt

Burt

Fight Sephiroth or end video games
Member
Oct 28, 2017
8,191
This is an incredibly minor and odd thing to get chafed over
 
MrCibb

MrCibb

Member
Dec 12, 2018
5,349
UK
I don't see an issue. It's not accidental or odd in any way, it's a deliberate way to present two differing opinions and get some clicks. Just went on PC Gamer and the two articles are literally beside each other, with the second one being a direct rebuttal of the first. All intended. Not read both articles so can't comment on the quality of either, but I don't see an issue with how they've done it.
 
Atolm

Atolm

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,846
I agree with one of the takes of RT is bad.Had I paid 1300€ for a 2080Ti I'd be pissed because new cards promise 4x efficiency for RT.
 
danhz

danhz

Member
Apr 20, 2018
3,258
If they are written by different people each having their perspective i guess its ok, if its from the same, its just clickbait
 
DeaconOfTheDank

DeaconOfTheDank

Banned
Mar 22, 2020
96
Joseph Joestar said:
Also the thing Raytracing has going for it is this:

12k05.png


Rasterizer rendering is linear. the more complex the scene the more GPU time is needed,

Raytracing is more like a logarithmic scale which means there is a threshold that once your GPU power is over that the curve stays pretty flat.
So you can have more complex scenes without much GPU performance issues.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Interesting, do you have a source for this? I had assumed that ray tracing introduced more of an exponential growth where the the number of rays is determined by...
  • Resolution
  • Number of bounces
  • Rays produced at point of intersection (shadow, refraction, reflection)
  • Triangles facing the screen
 
Joseph Joestar

Joseph Joestar

Member
Jun 19, 2020
1,142
DeaconOfTheDank said:
Interesting, do you have a source for this? I had assumed that ray tracing introduced more of an exponential growth where the the number of rays is determined by...
  • Resolution
  • Number of bounces
  • Rays produced at point of intersection (shadow, refraction, reflection)
  • Triangles facing the screen
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yes this is correct all of those increase the GPU requirements but its still a nearly fixed amount of performance to do this.
 
toy_brain

toy_brain

Member
Nov 1, 2017
2,211
I see the 'Pro' article is going for the 'makes development easier' angle.
I've never quite understood this. I mean, games will still need lighting engineers for the same reason you still need a lighting engineer on a movie set.
Even though the lights 'just work', you still need someone to light a scene, to make sure important stuff is highlighted and the correct mood is conveyed.
Just slapping in a global sun, and a light wherever a lamp is, is never enough to cut it.
 
ShapeDePapa

ShapeDePapa

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,957
toy_brain said:
I see the 'Pro' article is going for the 'makes development easier' angle.
I've never quite understood this. I mean, games will still need lighting engineers for the same reason you still need a lighting engineer on a movie set.
Even though the lights 'just work', you still need someone to light a scene, to make sure important stuff is highlighted and the correct mood is conveyed.
Just slapping in a global sun, and a light wherever a lamp is, is never enough to cut it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I guess it's still easier and less time consuming than baking lighting in textures, hand placing light sources and stuff.
 
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