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CryEngine 5.5 to support Non-RTX ray tracing

Dictator

Dictator

Digital Foundry
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
4,935
Berlin, 'SCHLAND

Technology Reveal: Real-Time Ray Traced Reflections achieved with CRYENGINE. All scenes are rendered in real-time in-editor on an AMD Vega 56 GPU. Reflections are achieved with the new experimental ray tracing feature in CRYENGINE 5 - no SSR. Neon Noir was developed on a bespoke version of CRYENGINE 5.5., and the experimental ray tracing feature based on CRYENGINE's Total Illumination used to create the demo is both API and hardware agnostic, enabling ray tracing to run on most mainstream, contemporary AMD and NVIDIA GPUs. However, the future integration of this new CRYENGINE technology will be optimized to benefit from performance enhancements delivered by the latest generation of graphics cards and supported APIs like Vulkan and DX12.
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This looks to be a compute version (maybe DXR fall back layer, maybe not) of real time ray traced reflections running on a Vega 56 in the video. That card has no dedicated ray tracing hardware. Based upon the description text, I think it is safe to say the final version of this will be ported to DXR/VK and utilised TUring's RT hardware.

Some neat stuff there, and inspite of the description I do not think it is voxel tracing just by looking at the relfections which seem to respect detail that is pixel sized (voxels would not of course). Also, to see how it functions at a playable framerate at all, you can see ghosting in every frame from when an object casting reflection or giving off the reflection moves:
Ghosting:
nonbdxrraytracingpyke4.png

This ghosting looks really really different than the stuff we have seen from any RTX presentations or how it works in battlefield V for example.

Exciuting times ahead !
 
Baccus

Baccus

Banned
Dec 4, 2018
5,307
More developments like this are what we need to get lucky and strike software based raytracing in next gen consoles. Just imagine!
 
bsigg

bsigg

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,570
The ray tracing announcements coming over the next week are going to be super exciting.
 
Xx 720

Xx 720

Member
Nov 3, 2017
3,920
Is nvidia's ray tracing proprietary? Will they still be able to do raytracing if its done another way?
 
Hey Please

Hey Please

Avenger
Oct 31, 2017
22,824
Not America
Wow! So nVidia might have monopoly on ray tracing for long. Definitely am interested to see the scope, flexibility and performance penalties incurred when using this.

Would be absolutely staggering if next gen games could use a combination of SSR and ray tracing.
 
OP
OP
Dictator

Dictator

Digital Foundry
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
4,935
Berlin, 'SCHLAND
mario_O said:
What sorcery is this?
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We do not know how it functions or its visuals and performance, so not much sorcery I am afraid.
Xx 720 said:
Is nvidia's ray tracing proprietary? Will they still be able to do raytracing if its done another way?
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It is stated in the OP and from Crytek themselves, but this CryEngine ray tracing will support Ray Tracing through DX12 and VUlkan, which means it supports the way NV does it by default.
 
Dr. Caroll

Dr. Caroll

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
8,111
Remarkable work. Hope we learn more soon. Hopefully Crytek implement this tech in Hunt ASAP. Hunt suffers from conspicuous, lacklustre screenspace reflections in the swamps.
 

Deleted member 20831

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
1,951
That's really exciting, the question now is how does it compare to Nvidia RTX solution in terms of quality and performance?

Also showcasing CryEngine Ray Tracing for global illumination will be something to look forward.
 
Trieu

Trieu

Member
Feb 22, 2019
1,774
I wish I could but I just can't get my hopes up for any amazing Raytracing technology that would work this well on a card like the Vega 56 (which is like 1/4th of the price of an RTX 2080 Ti).
I just know my hopes and dreams would get burned down leaving me scarred of expecting RTX hardware to be unnecessary and Nvidia backtracking on it.
 
Briareos

Briareos

Member
Oct 28, 2017
3,043
Maine
There's nothing new or novel about compute-based ray-tracing, we've had "software" implementations of both DirectX RT as well as bespoke solutions for years.
 
Swenhir

Swenhir

Member
Oct 28, 2017
521
I should have known you would be the one to post this :p.

This looks amazing and I love that it's manufacturer and API-independent. The ghosting seems like tell-tale temporal reprojection, it makes me wonder if they use depth/position. It also hints at and begs the question of performance. This scene is very small-scale. How would it fare with, say, Star Citizen? :)
 
OP
OP
Dictator

Dictator

Digital Foundry
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
4,935
Berlin, 'SCHLAND
mario_O said:
What do you mean? You don't trust the video?
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Nah not what i am talking about hehe, we just do not know what resolution that footage runs at or at what framerates since it is a capped 30 fps video. Unless you can tell that from the video, which even then, may be a rendered out sequence (you can do that in CE and is how all those super cool Crysis Barrel videos were made back in the day) and was also the way Metro Exodus' RT GI was shown off the first time. I am not gonna run frame analysis on it, that is for certain!
 
gabdeg

gabdeg

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,976
🐝
Stuff like this and the comment from the Metro dev make me think raytracing will be a thing on next gen consoles in some way.
 
dynamitejim

dynamitejim

Member
Oct 25, 2017
886
I mean, base PS4 (1.84TF) was doing real time path tracing in The Tomorrow Children at 1080p30. Reflections weren't as sharp, but it didn't need all the denoising trickery RTX uses either.
 
Pein

Pein

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,259
NYC
Not trying to be a dick but I didn't know crytek were still around.

Are they just an engine studio now?
 
Kaako

Kaako

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,736
Looking forward to much better software raytracing implementations in games next gen. I'll take all the raytracing I can get especially in GI, as long as the performance hit is not astronomical.
 
Spence

Spence

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,119
Sweden
Wow that's really impressive, wonder if it will be easy to implement. Hope we get some sort of bencmark we can run soon.
 
Vanta Aurelius

Vanta Aurelius

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,896
ATL
Dictator said:
It is stated in the OP and from Crytek themselves, but this CryEngine ray tracing will support Ray Tracing through DX12 and VUlkan, which means it supports the way NV does it by default.
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I need some clarification on this front personally. So do developers target the DXR/Vulkan api, then nvidia's drivers handle translating various api calls and accelerating them via the RT cores?

Edit: This is a great demonstration non-the-less. I'm curious to know if this ray-tracing implementation is only good for reflections, or if it can extend to shadows and ambient occlusion?
 
Vash63

Vash63

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,681
This looks really nice when reflecting a somewhat static angle/geometry. Some much smarter temporal data re-use for the reflections vs. what DICE is doing maybe? I'd imagine it has to be a lot higher performance to run decently without the RT hardware.
 
FSavage

FSavage

Member
Oct 30, 2017
562
More evidence that next gen consoles games will have ray tracing and the consoles won't need dedicated RT hardware baked in to get it done.

I think all large third party engines will have RT tech and why AMD doesn't need to make RTX competitor GPUs..
 
low-G

low-G

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,144
Definitely some weird things going on in that video. Like some of the bullet casings are reflected and some are not. Some angles really really looked like environment maps as well.

But it seems like a reasonable stopgap before accelerated raytracing. Better than no improvements.

Also this made me really wish there was a new Unreal Tournament coming. Remembering those city street levels in UT99...
 
Gestault

Gestault

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,402
In the frame at 1:33, I wonder why some bullet casings are reflected and others aren't.

casingsfhk63.jpg
 
EchoSmoker

EchoSmoker

Member
Jan 29, 2018
928
So this implies next gen consoles will have ray tracing in some capacity, right? Next week is going to be very interesting.
 
Moebius

Moebius

Member
Oct 28, 2017
5,403
Very cool to see this tech move forward. It's going to be huge for next gen (at least on pc).
 

Harlequin

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,614
Gestault said:
I don't think that's the answer.
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I think it might be, actually. If you look at the bullets whose reflections can be seen, the surface around them looks very smooth, like a water surface, whereas the surface around the bullets whose reflections don't show up looks a good deal bumpier. Now, of course, that's the normal map but it's not much of a stretch to assume that the roughness map would be rougher in those places, as well.

Dictator said:
Maybe like BFV reflections on Low there is a roughness cut off and/or maybe it is selective about which objects are part of reflections based upon some heuristic we do not know.
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Yeah, roughness cut-off would make a lot of sense, looking at that screenshot.
 
Gestault

Gestault

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,402
Harlequin said:
I think it might be, actually. If you look at the bullets whose reflections can be seen, the surface around them looks very smooth, like a water surface, whereas the surface around the bullets whose reflections don't show up looks a good deal bumpier.
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I've gotta respectfully disagree that your explanation is what we're looking at:


The roughness cutoff can explain part of it, but we're seeing mirror-finish areas with no reflection during the pass.
 
OP
OP
Dictator

Dictator

Digital Foundry
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
4,935
Berlin, 'SCHLAND
Gestault said:
I've gotta respectfully disagree that your explanation is what we're looking at, they're simply missing:

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THanks for making that - 3 of the 7 seem to not be a part of the reflection there. I wonder why? It could be aa bug or perhaps a reflection (har har har) of an optimisation they do about which objects are included. BFV culls distant objects from RT reflections based upon some metrics and you can see them snap in if they are offscreen and not in screen space.
 

Harlequin

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,614
Gestault said:
I've gotta respectfully disagree that your explanation is what we're looking at:


The roughness cutoff can explain part of it, but we're seeing mirror-finish areas with no reflection during the pass.
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Again, all the bits of surface that lack reflections appear to be considerably bumpier than those that have them. I truly don't think that this is about those bullets being excluded from the ray-tracing process and more to do with the properties of the surface in that area. Maybe it's a roughness cut-off or maybe they also take normals into account to decide which surfaces receive ray-traced reflections or maybe there's sth else going on but to me, it really looks like it's to do with the surface, not the bullets.
 
Gestault

Gestault

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,402
Dictator said:
THanks for making that - 3 of the 7 seem to not be a part of the reflection there. I wonder why? It could be aa bug or perhaps a reflection (har har har) of an optimisation they do about which objects are included. BFV culls distant objects from RT reflections based upon some metrics and you can see them snap in if they are offscreen and not in screen space.
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The results here are still fascinating, and this (relatively) early footage may be the best insight into how they optimize this solution that we'll ever get. Presumably, optimizations will be better and better hidden given more time. The stagecraft around these sorts of render advancements is brilliant.
 
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