Will Raytracing become a huge leap forward for gaming visuals or will be discarded as a performance hog?

Yogi · Jan 22, 2020

Gurgelhals said:
Regardless of the question whether it is the future or not, the problem I see at the moment is that it comes at the worst possible moment for consoles. On the one hand, there's still that push towards native 4K rendering and current high-end GPUs are more or less managing this by now, so 4K@30fps on next-gen consoles seems to be a realistic goal, overall (4K@60fps is already looking dicey though).

...in comes raytracing and throws a whole bunch of spanners into the works with its massive hardware requirements.

...and if that wasn't bad enough, TV manufacturers are already starting to gear up for 8K displays and you can bet your ass that they'll be hyping the shit out of those a few years down the line.

So in short, yeah looks neat and everything, but I just don't see the hardware capable of providing the necessary rendering power for 4K@60fps *with raytracing* for another ... I don't know, 6-8 years perhaps.

And is that all you want from next-gen? If we look at the GodFall thread, you can see the dissappointment in peoples' posts about how it doesn't look next-gen enough. People want to see huge changes, they always do going into next-gen. Will raytracing as it's currently used be enough going into next-gen for the average gamer.

Even the Dec 2019 official reveal trailer which shows some pretty cool lighting effects did not really rock the community.

Yautja_Warrior · Jan 22, 2020

With the right optimization, graphical settings and things like dynamic resolution / checkerboard rendering etc, I'm sure consoles will be fine.

Depending on how powerful the new consoles actually are, they might not do RT at native 4k / 60fps all the time but I could see devs giving some graphical options.

A graphically demanding game might offer something like

High Quality Mode = 4k @ 30fps
Performance Mode = 4k CB @ 60fps
RT Mode = 1440p @ 60fps

criteriondog · Jan 22, 2020

Can someone explain me like I'm five what rayteacing is? It's like mirrors and reflections/light shining off of things?

Saint of Killers · Jan 22, 2020

I don't know if it deserves to. I've heard that while faking it takes more lines of code (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJpPO6eBsr4 - ignore clickbait video title) the difference is negligible, and that they'll still have to fake it for the crossgen games anyway. And if what that video says is true, consoles won't have the oomph to do raytracing justice anyway. So, yeah, I'm not fussed about it. ALSO I was never all that impressed with the end result of those raytracing updates to Quake - the realistic lighting removed the game's trademark grim atmosphere.

DarthBuzzard · Jan 22, 2020

Gurgelhals said:
Regardless of the question whether it is the future or not, the problem I see at the moment is that it comes at the worst possible moment for consoles. On the one hand, there's still that push towards native 4K rendering and current high-end GPUs are more or less managing this by now, so 4K@30fps on next-gen consoles seems to be a realistic goal, overall (4K@60fps is already looking dicey though).

...in comes raytracing and throws a whole bunch of spanners into the works with its massive hardware requirements.

...and if that wasn't bad enough, TV manufacturers are already starting to gear up for 8K displays and you can bet your ass that they'll be hyping the shit out of those a few years down the line.

So in short, yeah looks neat and everything, but I just don't see the hardware capable of providing the necessary rendering power for 4K@60fps *with raytracing* for another ... I don't know, 6-8 years perhaps.

There's always going to be something more to push, at least for decades to come.

Once we have 4K 60 FPS fully raytraced games, maybe the next step is 4K 120 FPS. Maybe pathtracing is next. Now some audio propagation and spatialization. Now some fluid simulations and other complex physics. Now some extra AI work.

There is never a perfect time for these things. Everything just has to evolve naturally over many years.

Deleted member 3010 · Jan 22, 2020

Ray Tracing is a really impressive and interesting feature.

Yes, it's a performance hog RIGHT NOW, but in 3-4 years from now you'll be more than glad to check that checkbox, assuming you upgraded your GFX card accordingly. There probably will be a bunch of mods to have RT in older games too, à la Quake 2 RTX.

Deleted member 11626 · Jan 22, 2020

Seeing developer response should tell you all you need to know. It's the future, and if it makes their jobs easier then I support it. I personally don't give a shit about gaming above 60 FPS when I use my PC, so seeing the thread sentiment "it can cost 50% of performance!" and then watching that video for Control still running 80ish, really makes me feel like there is some straw grasping here. Once the games are built for it from the ground up, the performance hit won't be so high.

werezompire · Jan 22, 2020

As someone who knows very little about raytracing, isn't the general selling point not just that it looks better, but that it requires a lot less work on the part of the developers to make look good compared to traditional methods? If that's the case, then it definitely isn't going to be discarded.

kadotsu · Jan 22, 2020

criteriondog said:
Can someone explain me like I'm five what rayteacing is? It's like mirrors and reflections/light shining off of things?

Right now Devs are "cheating" how lighting works in games. Raytracing is an actual approximation of lighting.

Dictator · Jan 22, 2020

Saint of Killers said:
. ALSO I was never all that impressed with the end result of those raytracing updates to Quake - the realistic lighting removed the game's trademark grim atmosphere.

It does not though - you can tweak the lighting to make it pretty much exactly like Quak 2s original lighting - it has many options to use the games original aesthetic while also using full path tracing.

ILikeFeet · Jan 22, 2020

if it wasn't the game changer it was, why do all films use it?

Timu · Jan 22, 2020

Ploid 6.0 said:
For now it's a resource hog, but in the future it may be as ok as putting MSAA at x8, maybe x4 after seeing the below GTA4 comparison. Hmm.

That's GTA 5, plus GTA 4 doesn't have MSAA options.

Yogi · Jan 22, 2020

ILikeFeet said:
if it wasn't the game changer it was, why do all films use it?

The films can use it turned up like crazy, we can't do that in real time currently, probably not for ages.

We're not going to get pixar quality games on the PS5. The PS10 maybe.

Zips · Jan 22, 2020

Raytracing was a visual and technological marvel when it was something that took hours to render a static image. A ten-second animated scene that a friend and I made in high school took literally days to render to completion with simple objects, raytracing, caustics, and physics. And this was almost two decades back.

Seeing some of it done in realtime is insane. It's undoubtedly the future of gaming visuals. But the fact is, it's still going to be a long time before we ever get to a point where the hardware is powerful enough that using real-time raytracing won't have a "significant" perceived impact on performance.

Saint of Killers · Jan 22, 2020

Dictator said:
It does not though - you can tweak the lighting to make it pretty much exactly like Quak 2s original lighting - it has many options to use the games original aesthetic while also using full path tracing.

They must have had it on max rays or something then, because the videos I saw, it looked stupidly bright. But yeah, if what you say is true and the raytracing can be adjusted so the original aesthetic is kept, then that's fine.

ILikeFeet · Jan 22, 2020

criteriondog said:
Can someone explain me like I'm five what rayteacing is? It's like mirrors and reflections/light shining off of things?

here's a good video on it (yes it's path tracing, but the concepts are the same)

Yogi said:
The films can use it turned up like crazy, we can't do that in real time currently, probably not for ages.

We're not going to get pixar quality games on the PS5. The PS10 maybe.

what I mean is, video games follow the fim/VFX industry. what they do, games will try to eventually do in real time. so with films using ray tracing, that just means RT in video games is an inevitability

Ploid 6.0 · Jan 22, 2020

Timu said:
That's GTA 5, plus GTA 4 doesn't have MSAA options.

Haha I was thinking GTA5 but hit 4.. It's not nearly black and white, there is no way it could be GTA4.

Dictator · Jan 22, 2020

Saint of Killers said:
They must have had it on max rays or something then, because the videos I saw, it looked stupidly bright.

The reason it looked different in videos primarily is because people were using the simulated stroggos or earth atmospheres and suns to light the game scene, not because the amount of light bounces made it overly bright. If you light the game scene without an star or sunlight, and instead use the original skybox, it basically just looks like Quake 2.

T002 Tyrant · Jan 22, 2020

LCGeek said:
2 Gens if we are talking minimum fps and next easy if we are talking peaks.

We already are near it and with optimizations don't see why we can't. Hardware has caught up to the point the industry isn't giving the feature to us as a marketing gimmick for consoles but as feature games will actually be able to use. Gaming hardware has made huge strides in a 20-30 year span on this topic.

A solution that uses compute and hardware RT to give me the best look and performance would be a start.

Why be cynical?

Most consoles devs worth a damn have proven they will get a lot done with a little the past two gens with no rt hardware and hacks. You don't think the best 15 studios that make console games won't adjust to superior lighting model that will leave them with less problems and guess work or optimizaiton eventually? I could easily name 40 devs who will no problem enjoying rt and what it allows when they feel it's approriate.

The consoles next gen will have strong cpus, some form of rt solution and gpus that easily are 2060 levels or more. 4k 60fps is out of the question but not 1080p or 1440p in a console environment.

I'd rather not go into it, because I have very negative feelings towards next gen already and talking about my feelings on this forum is a bad Idea.

KennyL · Jan 22, 2020

It's here to stay but I feel there are still room to push current non-raytracing rendering further.

Like Hitman2 has fanstatic reflection on many surfaces. What if you apply that on everything? It'll be slower for sure but I'm guessing not rt level slow down on non rt cards.

Jiraiya · Jan 22, 2020

Saint of Killers said:
I don't know if it deserves to. I've heard that while faking it takes more lines of code (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJpPO6eBsr4 - ignore clickbait video title) the difference is negligible, and that they'll still have to fake it for the crossgen games anyway. And if what that video says is true, consoles won't have the oomph to do raytracing justice anyway. So, yeah, I'm not fussed about it. ALSO I was never all that impressed with the end result of those raytracing updates to Quake - the realistic lighting removed the game's trademark grim atmosphere.

Minecraft with raytracing is is barely different from the non traced version? Checks out.

meenseen84 · Jan 22, 2020

If Ray Tracing became the standard, would it make it easier or take less time to develop games?

Saint of Killers · Jan 22, 2020

Dictator said:
The reason it looked different in videos primarily is because people were using the simulated stroggos or earth atmospheres and suns to light the game scene, not because the amount of light bounces made it overly bright. If you light the game scene without an star or sunlight, and instead use the original skybox, it basically just looks like Quake 2.

Ah, okay. Wish they'd have put that in the videos too. (...maybe they did and I just didn't get around to it because I hated what I saw at the start >_<) Thanks for setting the record straight, though. Appreciate it.

pksu · Jan 22, 2020

Well, we're seeing the first iteration of consumer HW RT and it sure can feel gimmicky at this point. But the problem is quite complex in terms of circuit design and there will be more efficient chips in the future and clunky APIs will become easier to use. I wouldn't draw too much conclusions from the current state and the way games use RT at the moment.

Compute capabilities already kinda revolutionized the way computer graphics can be done and it wasn't some specific "effect" gamers could easily spot but what happened behind the curtains changed a lot. In the same way I think HW RT will probably be just one tool more for the future gfx toolbox.

devSin · Jan 22, 2020

Ray tracing will simply be the future of lighting tech in game engines. It won't really be a huge leap forward (it is on a technical level, but the tools and tricks to simulate lighting are already fairly advanced and give good artistic results, just with a lot of limitations; style and artistic direction are greater than technical accuracy).

meenseen84 said:
If Ray Tracing became the standard, would it make it easier or take less time to develop games?

It will change some workflows, but I don't think it will make things that much easier or faster. There are so many moving parts to game dev that eliminating a few steps (and probably a few jobs) isn't going to dramatically speed things up.

Poison Jam · Jan 22, 2020

Screen-space reflections and shadowing is just the worst. Even if we just use RT for those, it's one giant leap forward in my eyes. I hate panning the camera and seeing detail come in and disappear at the edges.

Deleted member 4869 · Jan 22, 2020

I saw Digital Foundry's video on Wolfenstein Young Blood and all I thought was "that's it? That's the revolutionary improvement in graphics?". Seemed kind of disappointing to me, and definitely a resources hog.

eso76 · Jan 22, 2020

In most examples I've seen so far it wasn't really worth it.
Static lighting and scenery where light bouncing doesn't really make a huge difference and could have been baked or approximated in other ways anyway and reflections that could have used ssr and cubemaps without impacting visuals all that much.

It's game changing in stuff like Minecraft, where you can change the landscape and place light sources anywhere yourself, though.
Minecraft is RT killer app for sure.

ThreepQuest64 · Jan 22, 2020

Graphic features don't get usually discarded. It's pretty normal that new features demand more power. So the natural process is tech develops further with enough power to allow those features. So no, it's not gonna be discarded. It's the next advanced step, like when going to real-time physics, from baked to dynamic lighting and dynamic shadows etc.

Saint of Killers · Jan 22, 2020

Jiraiya said:
Minecraft with raytracing is is barely different from the non traced version? Checks out.

I'm assuming they're saying it's possible to fake but the work still has to be put in. Did someone go out of their way to fake the lighting in Minecraft so it's similar to the raytraced version? (What little I played of MC – which was a few years ago now and on the PS4 – it didn't have realistic lighting) If not then I wouldn't expect it to look the same.

Mercador · Jan 22, 2020

TheYanger said:
It's literally a game changer. Right now they're also implementing non-ray traced solutions to problems that they simply won't have to once it's just the standard.

Also, Control on PC really opened my eyes, that's the absolute most gorgeous game I've ever played with Ray Tracing. It runs at over 60 fps on my 2080 still too, so I'm not too miffed about any performance hit there might be.

Yeah, I guess, I haven't see it firsthand. But I don't think it will be game changer as, let's say, 2D to 3D. That's why I used the shadow example.

ResetEraVetVIP said:
Lol. Its not as simple.

I never say it was simple.

VariantX · Jan 22, 2020

Its far more work to fake raytracing than it is to actually have it. Its not something thats throwaway like wearing 3d glasses or something like that.

Potterson · Jan 22, 2020

I don't know but I hope devs will learn to tone it down. Like, anyone thinks it looks good in BF5? Because it's definietely not natural when you have super-polished-shiny floors in a city consumed by II world war :P

TaySan · Jan 22, 2020

It's the future pretty much.
Just need more powerful gpus

Jiraiya · Jan 22, 2020

Saint of Killers said:
I'm assuming they're saying it's possible to fake but the work still has to be put in. Did someone go out of their way to fake the lighting in Minecraft so it's similar to the raytraced version? (What little I played of MC – which was a few years ago now and on the PS4 – it didn't have realistic lighting) If not then I wouldn't expect it to look the same.

I don't understand why you need a version that approximates ray tracing to see the difference between real tracing and Minecraft vanilla visuals.

It's proof that it does make a serious difference in video games.

Saint of Killers · Jan 22, 2020

Jiraiya said:
I don't understand why you need a version that approximates ray tracing to see the difference between real tracing and Minecraft vanilla visuals.

It's proof that it does make a serious difference in video games.

I'm saying if the approximation is close enough then I'll take it over hardware rt if hardware rt means a hit to other aspects of the game. Also I'm looking at it from a next gen console perspective.

Trice · Jan 22, 2020

It's already a huge leap forward. There's no debate if it looks better than what we've had thus far. The only issue is performance, but that will get solved sooner than later.

Deleted member 41638 · Jan 22, 2020

Isn't there supposed to be improved AI with the RTX technology? I'd rather have smarter enemies that react more realistically than reflections in puddles.

Mesoian · Jan 22, 2020

It'll be important, but the wider implementation of it will likely still be stunted by the prohibitive cost of hardware that uses it.

Like if the 3080 is 1400 dollars, expect the adoption of the tech to be slowed.

Storybook · Jan 22, 2020

Will Raytracing help in eliminating objects/cloth clipping? This is one of things I'm interested in for nextgen

Tovarisc · Jan 22, 2020

Potterson said:
I don't know but I hope devs will learn to tone it down. Like, anyone thinks it looks good in BF5? Because it's definietely not natural when you have super-polished-shiny floors in a city consumed by II world war :P

That has a lot more to do with materials and surfaces they are using than RT technology.

Edit: Not the best example, but here is Control with RTX enabled

StrappingYoungLance · Jan 22, 2020

AAA games regularly sacrifice framerate for visuals, I don't see why they wouldn't regularly do so for raytracing.

Saint of Killers · Jan 22, 2020

Storybook said:
Will Raytracing help in eliminating objects/cloth clipping? This is one of things I'm interested in for nextgen

I think that's one of those things they could sort this gen but they don't think is worth the resources. But no, I don't think rt would solve that.

Tovarisc · Jan 22, 2020

Storybook said:
Will Raytracing help in eliminating objects/cloth clipping? This is one of things I'm interested in for nextgen

Saint of Killers said:
I think that's one of those things they could sort this gen but they don't think is worth the resources. But no, I don't think rt would solve that.

From 2015...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj6KC57Jhcw

Saint of Killers · Jan 22, 2020

xD Welp.

edit: Thanks. Learning is fun!

inner-G · Jan 22, 2020

Everyone always puts ray tracing on ULTRA for benchmarks. For playing BFV or something, you can put RTX on medium or high w a card like a 2060 no problem

shuno · Jan 22, 2020

I guess you don't understand what ray-tracing means, otherwise you wouldn't ask such a silly question.

SharpX68K · Jan 22, 2020

Yes, raytracing, in its various forms, will be a huge leap forward in game visuals.

What I'm really looking forward to, is not so much what the 2020 consoles will do, but the generation after it, when raytracing increases and rasterization decreases (even then it won't go away, but more and more elements will move to raytracing).

It'll be interesting also to watch Nvidia, as they move from Turing (2018) to Ampere (2020) to Hopper (2022?) and beyond, how far raytracing will go in the first half of the decade.

Multiverse Moo · Jan 22, 2020

Storybook said:
Will Raytracing help in eliminating objects/cloth clipping? This is one of things I'm interested in for nextgen

Path tracing can definitely benefit calculations of distances between surfaces, and thus help guide the 3D meshes along each other's surfaces rather than clipping.

Of course, it requires more math to be happening, so its not very prevalent yet - but you can see it in action in Uncharted 4 when Nathan Drake's fingers slide across uneven surfaces, and for things like Ellie (in TLOU2) dodging an attack from an enemy and triggering a "slam into vehicle / object" animation as it calculated her body's distance from those surfaces.

Hopefully we see more of it next gen. We are already getting RT powered audio, which is something I love to hear. Few games have pushes acoustic simulation as much as they could, and I still think stuff like Killzone 2/3's audio simulation was super cool for it's day.

Example of pathtracing for audio:

scabobbs · Jan 22, 2020

Seems pretty clear to me that it's going to be the next big thing given consoles are supporting it. Nvidia has to feel good about their RTX bet now.

Will Raytracing become a huge leap forward for gaming visuals or will be discarded as a performance hog?

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