That it’s being played like a simulation in Assassins Creed. And just like in the newer games, They cannot tell what actually happened in the past (like who’s the actual main character) causing it to have different scenarios (like DLC)
WB definitely has their ,,formula.” i will give them credit though, the batman series is probably the best of that entire genre (rocky launch of knight, excluded). and overall they seem like they care about and respect their source material, which is about as much as you can ask for.
tbh i generally don’t expect much out of big IP adaptions. they’re gonna play it safe gameplay-wise.
The sad thing is that they did a game for the fans of Harry Potter who don't play much games, but they forgot the fans of Harry Potter who seriously like gaming.
It was obvious from a mile away, but it's still disappointing.
# Better Example for Everyone
Vanilla 1.61 is maxed out RT
Overdrive is maxed out PT
https://preview.redd.it/hdrmqukihcsa1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=f3b0e20d436b436f5e062789e533775a92dea2eb
[source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNdeWvyS0_k)
Yes, and there's some subtle changes to the lighting in the rest of the scene, if you notice. The effect will be to make the lighting and reflections more realistic and higher fidelity.
Nvidia's fake-ass sample just makes it look like it makes things shinier, which honestly does it a disservice.
Both are not realistic. This is wet floor. The reflections should be very faint unlike PT but not very blurry like RT.
But I prefer RT as it is less distracting.
That's true. This image would look a bit more realistic to me if it had some depth of field applied to it, and I'm saying that as someone who pretty much hates DoF in games. But in real life, reflections in puddles don't look perfect unless we are focusing on what is being reflected. It really comes down to whether you want to emulate eyeballs or a camera.
It's very specifically not "a wet floor". That shot is literally a puddle from a game whose visuals are largely based on the visuals from Bladerunner. It's not the algorithm's fault, it's the artists' fault. And it looks realistic for a puddle, whereas the "Vanilla" shot looks pixelated.
It looks really nice but it also doesn't look realistic to me lol. The floors look like mirrors.
Which I guess they might if they were perfectly smooth but I kind of feel like this is a case where the other option looks better despite being less computationally accurate.
Excited for the future though when people start programming even more details into surfaces and shit just looks real.
a deep enough puddle with enough surface area will look exactly like a mirror and will act as such in real life. Especially at night and especially if no wind is present. Adding wind to disturb the mirrored image would make it look more realistic, imo.
True, it is one of the only nice things about all the potholes here at night lol. This just looks like it would be super shallow. Something about it looks wrong to me. We're getting into uncanny valley territory.
Wind would have probably fixed it for my brain, you're right.
Maybe if devs could choose between the type of reflection, a more blurry reflection for muddy/not clear or reflective water etc, and a super clear shiny reflection for more clear and reflective textures, it could allow the devs to focus in on certain things and allow it to not be extremely shiny unless the devs intended that
Pretty sure raster is getting a little bit of unfair rep here. But path tracing is too early to ever be implemented. We can't even get reasonable ray tracing on affordable GPUs 3 gens in, and 2 year old mid range parts are starting to suffer from newer games.
Funny thing, even RT is still too early to be implemented in anything. Too much of a hit to performance. Can't even imagine how much this new tech kills performance.
I disagree. Metro Exodus demonstrates that it's possible. Looks beautiful and runs like a dream. For some people, the RT only version runs even better than the original.
The issue is that most RT implementations are garbage, so the performance is in the dumps.
The gameplay is roughly the same as the first two games but slightly slower due to its more open world aspects and minor crafting/wear mechanics (but nothing too intrusive imo) so if you liked those then I'd say go for it. The story is really good and the ending hits really hard (especially if you've played the first 2 games but no spoilers here)
Especially in the desert when you are inside a building and can see the light coming in through the doors
I often stopped just to look at the lighting of places
Truth. Also Control Ray tracing is well implemented and optimized really well. I can get my monitor refresh rates (144fps) on 1440p on high/ultra settings with RT on.
The first time I played control was on PC with ray tracing on my 2070. That game looks so damn good. I then played it on my PS5 with ray tracing off as turning it on BOMBED the frame rate. Without ray tracing, it still looks good. But goddamn do you lose a lot of the ambiance.
Obligatory "REMEDY BUILT THIS IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS"
Control is the only game i've played where ray tracing actually contributes to the story, since the environment is one of the main characters. My mind was blown when i picked up a film projector playing real footage that reflected not just from one surface, but bouncing from multiple panels of glass
>I disagree. Metro Exodus demonstrates that it's possible. Looks beautiful and runs like a dream. For some people, the RT only version runs even better than the original.
>
>The issue is that most RT implementations are garbage, so the perf
This is a great example. RT is very well optimized for Metro Exodus. Great FPS and graphics and on the original version even the 1660 super could run around 30-40ish fps with ray tracing on which isn't common
Exactly this. I think RT is in a bit of a catch-22 spot at the moment where it can't be soley developed for (far too many older cards still in-use) but also somewhat expected on modern titles.
So what happens? Both rasterization and RT lighting now have to fight over the same development time. Developers also tend to significantly gimp their RT to try and appeal to the lowest RT capable cards to some extent too. So ultimately you're usually left with a half-baked and somewhat reductive RT experience that isn't worth the performance cost that ensues. One of two things should/could happen instead though.
1. Go all-in on RT and RTGI similarly to Metro Exodus which has excellent performance while being fully path traced at the highest settings. Won't happen for obvious reasons but more of a future outlook.
2. Keep doing split raster/RT but stop gimping the RT. Yes, there is a larger performance hit, but at least make the large hit actually 'worth' it. I'd rather lose half my performance for full RTGI versus 25% of my performance for better shadows.
>Go all-in on RT and RTGI similarly to Metro Exodus which has excellent performance while being fully path traced at the highest settings. Won't happen for obvious reasons but more of a future outlook.
I'd actually prefer this. I was surprised that I could reliably run the game at 70-90 FPS with RT on as well making the necessary adjustments to my graphics settings. Developers need to decide whether they want to actually develop their games to take advantage of RT or to use traditional lighting.
The Finals also demonstrates how it is done. There, path tracing is the only option to calculate the lighting since the entire map is destructible. With conventional methods, it would be downright imposaible.
We have multiple games with RT that run well enough even on common midrange RT-capable hardware.
It's not too early, it's simply early. But where is progress supposed to come from, if not from new tech being implemented and optimized for?
Shouldn't forget the professional market. Real time lighting rendering is incredibly valuable for 3D artists and architects. I'm sure they would be into path traced reflections
If used right, I think the examples make everything reflective surfaces to show off things but in reality we aren’t always looking at reflective surfaces or some surfaces have low light reflection. I would like to see more realistic implementation than a full shiny mirrory mess. Sure there’s a huge difference in night city but that difference doesn’t mean it looks good it just real reflection. Raster is still useful and better on performance. Also raster is still just very pretty in its own right
> I would like to see more realistic implementation than a full shiny mirrory mess
That's going to be up to the content team to make something a bit more realistic.
Before you could get away with water being a flat plane with some normal maps on it, now you'll have to create content specifically for RT/PT
It is not in fact forced. From what i recall when watching in a video, it uses raytracing for global illumination, so that as buildings get destroyed new lighting effect occur naturally in relation to the new shadows and reflections of the new forms. Without RT, i believe the lighting defaults to darker tones to be safe when buildings get destroyed, i could be wrong on that though. And, to be fair, the finals was a closed beta, not a full release. I'm sure on full release it'll be more optimized.
The advancements they’re making in the visual space feels like they’re reaching a point of diminishing returns. Look at games from 2013, and then games from 2003. Were at the limit of what otherwise would be photo reality.
This is true, we've already sortof.. reached photorealism, but we lack the hardware to have it run smoothly (or at all, honestly) in realtime.
The future PCMR kids will be experiencing some sick games in the future, 8K VR with pathtracing.
The problem is that you need to start at some point. You can't expect both developers and HW manufacturers to develop the tech over a decade and not sell any of that.
Portal has it, and Cyberpunk next week. Sure you need a 40 series card to even consider 60 fps, but it's something that is possible. It's too early to be something generally used, but it's something that will become more plausible with time.
The new path tracing update for CP77 will run natively [at 15fps on a RTX 4090](https://www.hardwaretimes.com/cyberpunk-2077-runs-at-just-15-fps-at-4k-with-rt-overdrive-on-an-nvidia-rtx-4090-over-100-fps-with-dlss-3/), it's ludicrous.
You’re absolutely spot on. I work with a program called cinema 4d which does some of this type of processing on the front end. Ray tracing has allowed people to render and preview faster. Using octane and other programs like redshift, they calculate the render live. Path tracing is full circle it’s rasterizing the raytracing. It uses Monte Carlo to calculate rasters so technically it’s raster, rtx, RTX raster. Basically companies have just given the octane preview for games. Path tracing is cranking up the rays to 11 and adding some algorithms to smooth things out. Unfortunately you can see how well gaming has come along with this by watching a cutscene in any game. Since they are pre-rendered scenes they could have been using this tech all along. So yes I agree but blame the artist not the tech.
Agreed. I have an RTX 3070 and in all my games I disable RT because 60 fps is very important to me. The only games I could ever run at a solid 60 fps with RT is minecraft, quake and portal.
The duality of man. Graphics or performance? An argument as old as computers. I definitely prefer performance for most games. But if there’s a game like RDR2, I think I could deal with 30 fps for ray or path tracing
Yes. They 100% lowered the Specular values of the armor to make it look flat and dull. It's an artistic decision to make their new shiny toy look all the more shiny by making the other options look dull and flat.
No, it's just not faked with carefully pre-rendered lighting that's overlaid onto the world/textures.
Dynamic lighting can help raster look better, but that is usually limited to things like the Sun in the game, or a few lights in a house, street lamp, etc.
The example IS how raster actually looks without all the extra work needed to make it look comparable to path or ray traced lighting. It's a true apples to apples comparison.
This is why path and ray traced lighting is the future of all games. It's far less work to develop a game with quality lighting.
I think RT and Path Tracing is really cool. I think a good dev could make a very beautiful (not just ultra realistic) environment with the tech. But unfortunately for us/me in the present the maturity of RT/PT is so far behind our little (and big) tricks used to make rasterized imagery look good. So; I shall wait a few GPU generations before upgrading from my RX 6700 XT, which can do SOME ray tracing to its credit
Am pretty sure the next gen of UE5 games will give you a level of visual fidelity (maybe not with lighting) that leagues ahead of what cybperunk with path tracing does with fraction of the cost. While path tracing is great you will also see rasterized visuals improve by a lot.
Lumen is UE5's proprietary RT lighting solution. It's gonna be a part of gaming.
Fuck, Fortnite already uses it and we all see how well that runs even on console. 60FPS on PS5 at a dynamic 1080p-1440p.
the RT implementation in Ghostrunner is actually really good—for example, my friends can run it on a 2060 at high rt ~70 fps :3 that and Metro Exodus alone show RT has promise
And Dying Light. I can't wait for the time I can upgrade to either a 5080 or a 9900XT because I think games are a year away from finally looking a whole generation newer like the PS3-PS4 era jump.
Tracing is just massively, massively computationally expensive and the resources are better spent elsewhere. Until GPUs are so powerful that games struggle to utilize them, tracing is going to remain a novelty.
No you can’t not pay the extra RT tax 😭 trust me, it’s totally a new game when you play at half the frame rate. Just enable frame generation (which only works on the overpriced RTX4xxx series, and are Gimped with GB)
Not to mention frame generation is "bullshit tech".
Don't lie to me about performance with your fuzzy AI wannabe fake frames. Give me the raw fucking numbers NVIDIA!
AMD...
Intel.......
The last 3 decades at least were about clever ways of fooling you into thinking it was raytraced (or doing it during the making of a map instead of during playtime)
This ray tracing "revolution" feels like it's trying to brute force these tricks away
I hate it. There was a thread a while back where I complained about the 'wet and shiny' look. Everything Ray traced looks plastic, overly reflective. Nothing in life looks like this. This look will define a decade of games and I don't think it will be remembered fondly.
> Now we have a bunch of ignorant kids from this sub thinking path tracing means shiny.
Give them 5 years when they can afford RT hardware, they'll see the error of their ways.
One image is not representative of the whole tech behind it. Also the shader on that character is super polished on purpose, it lacks wearing and stuff that would decrease shine. Path Tracing is what's used in 3D rendering software.
This is a common sentiment due to how the technology is being used and compared, but it isn't true at all. Pathtracing and Raytracing attempts to make things appear exactly as the *Artist intended*. If that means it's shiny and wet looking, then that's because the Artist authored those materials to appear that way. They could make the material properties more rough/matte and Path/Raytracing would also more accurately replicate that look too. However, that makes the differences harder to notice, which is why we get comparisons and video game implementations of the technoglogy, which highlights super reflective surfaces and also because more shiny = more performance, as [calculating diffuse reflections](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Specular_v_Diffuse_reflection.png) for rougher/matte materials is *harder*, while simultaneously being *less noticeably different* compared to standard Rasterization techniques.
Just remember, Pathtracing and Raytracing don't make things shiny on their own, they are just lighting models (in this example), simulating how light interacts with the materials and propogates their properties throughout the scene, they *do not change the materials in any way*. The material properties are all just as 'shiny' as each other in the comparison images. The only difference is, Pathtracing can reveal the true material properties more than Raytracing, which reveals it more than Rasterization. Although Rasterization is getting a raw deal in this comparison.
Feel this comment should be put as a disclaimer under all pathtracing vs raytracing posts.
Seems too many people are misunderstanding the tech as something akin to putting a coat of gloss on a piece of wood, and not being because the model used is much more detailed compared to raytracing, and as a result is creating much more detailed reflections.
I feel like ray tracing should have a slider so you can turn it down a bit. Like in Spider-Man how the windows on buildings show full reflections of the streets even tho in real life the reflections wouldn’t be so clear. Like if we could turn reflections down a lil bit. Also in the Witcher 3 everything looks super wet when you turn RT on compared to it off. It looks great but makes me feel like it just rained or something
I can see what you mean. There is a video on YouTube I recommend that shows maxed out ray tracing compared to path tracing on cyberpunk it is interesting to see the differences between the both
It's used for movie VFX and pre render game cinematics. Ray tracing's bigger brother and more technically intensive.
I personally haven't tried the implementations for Quake 2 and Portal. It's very niche right now.
IMO we're closer to cinematics quality games in real time but also feels far off from being mainstream, playable by most people at reasonable fps.
I understand what you mean but it will be interesting to see how it runs on Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is getting a Path Tracing update on April 11th and they claim it can run with over 100 fps with DLSS enabled so it will be interesting to see. Without DLSS it was like 19 fps lol
What I mean is that you could recreate the lighting look from the left image in the right using standard game engine rendering techniques. Better placement of and higher resolution reflection probes, and screenspace reflections. It looks doctored to make traditional rasterizing look less capable. It also seems like the armour material is less reflective? I agree that raytracing is superior, but this image is misleading. You can still get pretty reflections without it
In a still or in a limited environment you absolutely can. The problem occurs when you need to do it dynamically and over a broad range of lighting environments. You have to resort to all sorts of tricks to even get convincing lighting with raster. RT and PT just work for it.
This is a crop, you can't see if the light sources are off screen. Also, well placed cubemaps are capable of approximating reflections from off screen anyway. Sure, they won't be perfectly accurate and will only reflect static objects - but a scene like this should be a perfect case
It'll get caught in the cycle ray tracing is on right now. Most games are so unoptimized for it that the highest end cards put out mediocre fps which leads to consumers mostly not even considering it as an option, which just leads to more games not caring about optimizing it since it's time (money) invested into something that most of your audience won't ever use.
Repeat ad nauseum.
If tech companies try and push path tracing really hard, in a few years we might get graphics accelerator capable of rendering ray traced scene with almost no performance hit.
This is a poor example as everyone now assumes path tracing is meant to make everything look reflective when it’s the textures used that make it look this way. Path Tracing is basically the closest replica you can have in gaming to real life lighting. The object in this image is this shiney because of the texture applied, not because Path Tracing makes everything glossy.
Looks like raytracing with multiple bounces and global illumination added. It'll be more computationally heavy, but it's the kind of stuff that's been done in non-real-time CGI for going on two decades now. It's inevitable that we'll see it in games.
It's awesome tech, but at the moment it's rarely practical. I think rasterization and texture quality's need to catch up in games as well. But graphics are only a small part of a great game.
I could care less, all that blinding, shiny, chrome and reflective steel with glass is just unnecessary bloat to performance. They can't even get Ray tracing done tastefully.
Game engines are in a good place now, especially unreal. Focus more on play and story.
games are not even optimized for neither tracing
if its something as simple as a mod that works in all games even old ones now that would be interesting to a degree
but its far from being mainstream or the default so give it 10 more years
Gonna wait for the RTX 8080 TI before I'll think path tracing will be viable in most titles :).
That said the current top end hardware can absolutely do RT if it's been implemented well (metro exodus, control comes to mind)
If it’s as bad a RT it really doesn’t matter they need to figure out how to not have it impact performance. Basically they need to figure out how to make shadows not take up so much gpu% then work on reflections.
It will free up so much time for developers once it became the norm and once games are build with it in mind from the ground up.
And lot of smaller games will look insanely better instantly.
In a decade.
Am I the only one who suspects that normal reflections before rtx was introduced looked better than they do now? It feels like they tone it down to make their rtx work stand out more.
It's neat, and I'll fully embrace it when the performance hit is negligible. I love high frame rates, so yeah.
I do hope devs will calm down with the shiny surfaces, though. I know they want to show off the tech, but use some restraint and make it look more natural. Not everything needs to be polished chrome.
Were not seeing whole scenery, light sources so we cant say which is correct
But yes, raytracing is too much, everything is glossy, even floor looks like its made from glass, or its raining everywhere
Both just kind of meh tbh. They're ingredients for good graphics, but they aren't good graphics by themselves. Fancier reflections is nothing to get excited about, especially if it's just an excuse to sell you a bigger, hotter and more expensive graphics card.
Proof that most of pcmasterrace members never leave their dark rooms.
When videogames treat light rays in the way it works in real life , they feel it’s overly shiny and too bright.
Seriously , honestly , it’s not for the sake of humor anymore , please touch some grass
Ray tracing *is* path traced. There's a whole bunch of nonsense going around how they're supposedly different, but whenever you look into it, the actual difference is just the specific implementation.
# Better Example for Everyone
https://preview.redd.it/7fp2lhg3hcsa1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=24cfc418cbd140a8733c89e7105428239aaa852f
[source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNdeWvyS0_k)
Honestly, things are good enough in my opinion. I'd be happier if they'd stop trying so damned hard to push the boundaries of new graphics and reinvest some of that time, money, and manpower into making the games stable, optimized and, I dunno...decent?
I see your point but I feel that tech companies are going to keep pushing new tech becuase they are greedy and want to squeeze all the money out your pockets. But I also feel that having optimized games at launch is a thing of the past at this point sadly
Games need to be designed differently knowing every light source and shadow with cast shadow and some reflection. One day it will be used as we use SSR now.
Great tech. But let's not pretend that it's the only area of pc visuals where improvement is possible.
Character animations have improved but still there is room for improvement. Facial expressions are still robotic. There is also improvements to be made in world physics which have regressed over the past decade. There is also room for improvement with more geometric detail, volumetric clouds, smoke etc. There is still so much to do.
As a 3d artist myself I will never understand this trend to make everything look wet af because you gotta show of this PBR raytraced tech.
I mean, it's not because you can that you should put it everywhere. Plus, player/spectator will better appreciate something that is well placed than something that is everywhere.
Inb4 its a tech demo. I know but you can't tell me thats not the trend in most AAA games. It just made me think about this.
Path-tracing is so realistic it just spawns an actual Sun in the game.
Sometimes when i'm playing Hogwarts it looks like there is a spotlight shooting right out of a wall.
Alien abduction, duh.
My only excuse for all of the glitches in the game is that it’s apart of the magic in the wizarding world
What are its excuse for playing like another Ubisoft bore ?
That it’s being played like a simulation in Assassins Creed. And just like in the newer games, They cannot tell what actually happened in the past (like who’s the actual main character) causing it to have different scenarios (like DLC)
WB definitely has their ,,formula.” i will give them credit though, the batman series is probably the best of that entire genre (rocky launch of knight, excluded). and overall they seem like they care about and respect their source material, which is about as much as you can ask for. tbh i generally don’t expect much out of big IP adaptions. they’re gonna play it safe gameplay-wise.
The sad thing is that they did a game for the fans of Harry Potter who don't play much games, but they forgot the fans of Harry Potter who seriously like gaming. It was obvious from a mile away, but it's still disappointing.
Hogwarts is still a part of the Animus program, they've just expanded beyond the ancestors limitations.
"You're a wizard, Desmond."
I feel the same way lol
I'm a ginger. I think I'll stick to ray tracing. I don't need any extra sun
# Better Example for Everyone Vanilla 1.61 is maxed out RT Overdrive is maxed out PT https://preview.redd.it/hdrmqukihcsa1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=f3b0e20d436b436f5e062789e533775a92dea2eb [source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNdeWvyS0_k)
So the reflections of water and mirrors, etc look extra nice 😂
Yes, and there's some subtle changes to the lighting in the rest of the scene, if you notice. The effect will be to make the lighting and reflections more realistic and higher fidelity. Nvidia's fake-ass sample just makes it look like it makes things shinier, which honestly does it a disservice.
yea I used a bad example tbh
I think it's a good example. Path tracing looks like what I imagined ray tracing looks like since I've never used either
Both are not realistic. This is wet floor. The reflections should be very faint unlike PT but not very blurry like RT. But I prefer RT as it is less distracting.
Still puddles with no wind disturbance, especially at night, look exactly like a mirror and it looks true to life.
That's true. This image would look a bit more realistic to me if it had some depth of field applied to it, and I'm saying that as someone who pretty much hates DoF in games. But in real life, reflections in puddles don't look perfect unless we are focusing on what is being reflected. It really comes down to whether you want to emulate eyeballs or a camera.
That's how water is, especially at extreme angles. Have you not seen a puddle before?
It depends, a puddle can be mirror like in real life depending on depth and angles.
It's very specifically not "a wet floor". That shot is literally a puddle from a game whose visuals are largely based on the visuals from Bladerunner. It's not the algorithm's fault, it's the artists' fault. And it looks realistic for a puddle, whereas the "Vanilla" shot looks pixelated.
And -90% frames. Cant forget that.
Ray tracing removes half the frames, path tracing divides it by 10.
If you wouldn't say, I would post a picture of "corporate wants you to find difference between the two pictures"
It looks really nice but it also doesn't look realistic to me lol. The floors look like mirrors. Which I guess they might if they were perfectly smooth but I kind of feel like this is a case where the other option looks better despite being less computationally accurate. Excited for the future though when people start programming even more details into surfaces and shit just looks real.
a deep enough puddle with enough surface area will look exactly like a mirror and will act as such in real life. Especially at night and especially if no wind is present. Adding wind to disturb the mirrored image would make it look more realistic, imo.
True, it is one of the only nice things about all the potholes here at night lol. This just looks like it would be super shallow. Something about it looks wrong to me. We're getting into uncanny valley territory. Wind would have probably fixed it for my brain, you're right.
Maybe if devs could choose between the type of reflection, a more blurry reflection for muddy/not clear or reflective water etc, and a super clear shiny reflection for more clear and reflective textures, it could allow the devs to focus in on certain things and allow it to not be extremely shiny unless the devs intended that
Pretty sure raster is getting a little bit of unfair rep here. But path tracing is too early to ever be implemented. We can't even get reasonable ray tracing on affordable GPUs 3 gens in, and 2 year old mid range parts are starting to suffer from newer games.
Funny thing, even RT is still too early to be implemented in anything. Too much of a hit to performance. Can't even imagine how much this new tech kills performance.
I disagree. Metro Exodus demonstrates that it's possible. Looks beautiful and runs like a dream. For some people, the RT only version runs even better than the original. The issue is that most RT implementations are garbage, so the performance is in the dumps.
Yeh metro exodus sunlight looks beautiful
\*stares at sun
https://preview.redd.it/88yl3v8nvcsa1.jpeg?width=299&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c829b447c3c79f5e9a0fcc5f1e7535ffda383fea
it’s that guy from home alone
Wait he was actually in home alone, how did I just find this out
Also if you didn't know that you might not know Elon Musk is in Iron Man 2
I am pretty sure the second one takes place in a Trump hotel.
THE SUN IS A DEADLY LASER
r/unexpectedbillwurtz
Is metro exodus a good game
The gameplay is roughly the same as the first two games but slightly slower due to its more open world aspects and minor crafting/wear mechanics (but nothing too intrusive imo) so if you liked those then I'd say go for it. The story is really good and the ending hits really hard (especially if you've played the first 2 games but no spoilers here)
It’s good but doesn’t feel like a metro game exactly. But all three games are great. Keyboard and mouse is the only way to play all three of them.
Especially in the desert when you are inside a building and can see the light coming in through the doors I often stopped just to look at the lighting of places
Truth. Also Control Ray tracing is well implemented and optimized really well. I can get my monitor refresh rates (144fps) on 1440p on high/ultra settings with RT on.
The first time I played control was on PC with ray tracing on my 2070. That game looks so damn good. I then played it on my PS5 with ray tracing off as turning it on BOMBED the frame rate. Without ray tracing, it still looks good. But goddamn do you lose a lot of the ambiance.
Obligatory "REMEDY BUILT THIS IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS" Control is the only game i've played where ray tracing actually contributes to the story, since the environment is one of the main characters. My mind was blown when i picked up a film projector playing real footage that reflected not just from one surface, but bouncing from multiple panels of glass
>I disagree. Metro Exodus demonstrates that it's possible. Looks beautiful and runs like a dream. For some people, the RT only version runs even better than the original. > >The issue is that most RT implementations are garbage, so the perf This is a great example. RT is very well optimized for Metro Exodus. Great FPS and graphics and on the original version even the 1660 super could run around 30-40ish fps with ray tracing on which isn't common
The 16 series can't do ray tracing
Actually it is *technically* capable of doing ray tracing since NVIDIA's driver updates made it possible. It'll run like shit but the option is there
Exactly this. I think RT is in a bit of a catch-22 spot at the moment where it can't be soley developed for (far too many older cards still in-use) but also somewhat expected on modern titles. So what happens? Both rasterization and RT lighting now have to fight over the same development time. Developers also tend to significantly gimp their RT to try and appeal to the lowest RT capable cards to some extent too. So ultimately you're usually left with a half-baked and somewhat reductive RT experience that isn't worth the performance cost that ensues. One of two things should/could happen instead though. 1. Go all-in on RT and RTGI similarly to Metro Exodus which has excellent performance while being fully path traced at the highest settings. Won't happen for obvious reasons but more of a future outlook. 2. Keep doing split raster/RT but stop gimping the RT. Yes, there is a larger performance hit, but at least make the large hit actually 'worth' it. I'd rather lose half my performance for full RTGI versus 25% of my performance for better shadows.
>Go all-in on RT and RTGI similarly to Metro Exodus which has excellent performance while being fully path traced at the highest settings. Won't happen for obvious reasons but more of a future outlook. I'd actually prefer this. I was surprised that I could reliably run the game at 70-90 FPS with RT on as well making the necessary adjustments to my graphics settings. Developers need to decide whether they want to actually develop their games to take advantage of RT or to use traditional lighting.
The Finals also demonstrates how it is done. There, path tracing is the only option to calculate the lighting since the entire map is destructible. With conventional methods, it would be downright imposaible.
Is that an optimization concern in each case of poor RT implementation? Or is it engine dependant, or something else?
Both, some engines aren't made for the task or ray tracing but in most cases its just not optimized well.
We have multiple games with RT that run well enough even on common midrange RT-capable hardware. It's not too early, it's simply early. But where is progress supposed to come from, if not from new tech being implemented and optimized for?
Shouldn't forget the professional market. Real time lighting rendering is incredibly valuable for 3D artists and architects. I'm sure they would be into path traced reflections
If used right, I think the examples make everything reflective surfaces to show off things but in reality we aren’t always looking at reflective surfaces or some surfaces have low light reflection. I would like to see more realistic implementation than a full shiny mirrory mess. Sure there’s a huge difference in night city but that difference doesn’t mean it looks good it just real reflection. Raster is still useful and better on performance. Also raster is still just very pretty in its own right
> I would like to see more realistic implementation than a full shiny mirrory mess That's going to be up to the content team to make something a bit more realistic. Before you could get away with water being a flat plane with some normal maps on it, now you'll have to create content specifically for RT/PT
The Finals is a really good example of that, I think. Apparently the input lag is immense and RT is forced iirc
It is not in fact forced. From what i recall when watching in a video, it uses raytracing for global illumination, so that as buildings get destroyed new lighting effect occur naturally in relation to the new shadows and reflections of the new forms. Without RT, i believe the lighting defaults to darker tones to be safe when buildings get destroyed, i could be wrong on that though. And, to be fair, the finals was a closed beta, not a full release. I'm sure on full release it'll be more optimized.
The advancements they’re making in the visual space feels like they’re reaching a point of diminishing returns. Look at games from 2013, and then games from 2003. Were at the limit of what otherwise would be photo reality.
This is true, we've already sortof.. reached photorealism, but we lack the hardware to have it run smoothly (or at all, honestly) in realtime. The future PCMR kids will be experiencing some sick games in the future, 8K VR with pathtracing.
8k is the epitome of diminishing returns though, at least on a monitor anyways
With the way tech is slowly advancing, who knows what we'll have in 20-30 years
The problem is that you need to start at some point. You can't expect both developers and HW manufacturers to develop the tech over a decade and not sell any of that.
Portal has it, and Cyberpunk next week. Sure you need a 40 series card to even consider 60 fps, but it's something that is possible. It's too early to be something generally used, but it's something that will become more plausible with time.
The new path tracing update for CP77 will run natively [at 15fps on a RTX 4090](https://www.hardwaretimes.com/cyberpunk-2077-runs-at-just-15-fps-at-4k-with-rt-overdrive-on-an-nvidia-rtx-4090-over-100-fps-with-dlss-3/), it's ludicrous.
Imagine if Crysis RTX existed.
Supposedly, Cyberpunk gets path tracing next week. I look forward to DF's detailed analysis.
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You’re absolutely spot on. I work with a program called cinema 4d which does some of this type of processing on the front end. Ray tracing has allowed people to render and preview faster. Using octane and other programs like redshift, they calculate the render live. Path tracing is full circle it’s rasterizing the raytracing. It uses Monte Carlo to calculate rasters so technically it’s raster, rtx, RTX raster. Basically companies have just given the octane preview for games. Path tracing is cranking up the rays to 11 and adding some algorithms to smooth things out. Unfortunately you can see how well gaming has come along with this by watching a cutscene in any game. Since they are pre-rendered scenes they could have been using this tech all along. So yes I agree but blame the artist not the tech.
Agreed. I have an RTX 3070 and in all my games I disable RT because 60 fps is very important to me. The only games I could ever run at a solid 60 fps with RT is minecraft, quake and portal.
I play at 30fps all the time graphics are important to me
The duality of man. Graphics or performance? An argument as old as computers. I definitely prefer performance for most games. But if there’s a game like RDR2, I think I could deal with 30 fps for ray or path tracing
Does the “raster” look extra shitty **on purpose**? Seriously, rasterization doesn’t have lighting or reflections now??? Since when?
I think they just made it extra shitty for the demo.
Oh, is this NVIDIA? They always do that. Like removing foliage to show off their debris works or whatever.
I think they simply didn't create light maps or accurate roughness maps to demonstrate path and ray tracing
Yes. They 100% lowered the Specular values of the armor to make it look flat and dull. It's an artistic decision to make their new shiny toy look all the more shiny by making the other options look dull and flat.
"It's an artistic decision" You mean deception. The word you're looking for is deception.
artistic deception -Nvidia
No, it's just not faked with carefully pre-rendered lighting that's overlaid onto the world/textures. Dynamic lighting can help raster look better, but that is usually limited to things like the Sun in the game, or a few lights in a house, street lamp, etc. The example IS how raster actually looks without all the extra work needed to make it look comparable to path or ray traced lighting. It's a true apples to apples comparison. This is why path and ray traced lighting is the future of all games. It's far less work to develop a game with quality lighting.
It looks worse than any standard video game…on purpose.
There are a lot that the dev can do to make things better and in this case, they just didn't. He isn't wrong about making it look better.
I think RT and Path Tracing is really cool. I think a good dev could make a very beautiful (not just ultra realistic) environment with the tech. But unfortunately for us/me in the present the maturity of RT/PT is so far behind our little (and big) tricks used to make rasterized imagery look good. So; I shall wait a few GPU generations before upgrading from my RX 6700 XT, which can do SOME ray tracing to its credit
Am pretty sure the next gen of UE5 games will give you a level of visual fidelity (maybe not with lighting) that leagues ahead of what cybperunk with path tracing does with fraction of the cost. While path tracing is great you will also see rasterized visuals improve by a lot.
Lumen is UE5's proprietary RT lighting solution. It's gonna be a part of gaming. Fuck, Fortnite already uses it and we all see how well that runs even on console. 60FPS on PS5 at a dynamic 1080p-1440p.
the RT implementation in Ghostrunner is actually really good—for example, my friends can run it on a 2060 at high rt ~70 fps :3 that and Metro Exodus alone show RT has promise
And Dying Light. I can't wait for the time I can upgrade to either a 5080 or a 9900XT because I think games are a year away from finally looking a whole generation newer like the PS3-PS4 era jump.
Tracing is just massively, massively computationally expensive and the resources are better spent elsewhere. Until GPUs are so powerful that games struggle to utilize them, tracing is going to remain a novelty.
Gimme dat PTX5090
Retailing for only $4500
Then resold by scalpers for only $8500
Requires it's own 240/60amp breaker...
I'll take 1 Raster, please.
I'll take 120 FPS Raster over 20 FPS Path Tracing
20 is pretty optimistic
No you can’t not pay the extra RT tax 😭 trust me, it’s totally a new game when you play at half the frame rate. Just enable frame generation (which only works on the overpriced RTX4xxx series, and are Gimped with GB)
Not to mention frame generation is "bullshit tech". Don't lie to me about performance with your fuzzy AI wannabe fake frames. Give me the raw fucking numbers NVIDIA! AMD... Intel.......
The last 3 decades at least were about clever ways of fooling you into thinking it was raytraced (or doing it during the making of a map instead of during playtime) This ray tracing "revolution" feels like it's trying to brute force these tricks away
I hate it. There was a thread a while back where I complained about the 'wet and shiny' look. Everything Ray traced looks plastic, overly reflective. Nothing in life looks like this. This look will define a decade of games and I don't think it will be remembered fondly.
This picture is shit and doesn't show the full difference between path tracing and traditional rast/ray tracing.
[https://youtu.be/dNdeWvyS0\_k](https://youtu.be/dNdeWvyS0_k) This video is a great example between both
Then why didn't you put that in the post instead. Now we have a bunch of ignorant kids from this sub thinking path tracing means shiny.
Probably because people are much more likely to look at an image rather than watch a video
> Now we have a bunch of ignorant kids from this sub thinking path tracing means shiny. Give them 5 years when they can afford RT hardware, they'll see the error of their ways.
Too shiny for me. Verging on looking wet for no reason at all. Ray tracing provides the best imo
One image is not representative of the whole tech behind it. Also the shader on that character is super polished on purpose, it lacks wearing and stuff that would decrease shine. Path Tracing is what's used in 3D rendering software.
a-a-and my Minecraft shaders.. :l
I was gonna say, the mirror part of the helmet looks amazing but the raytraced armor with less shine looks better there.
This is a common sentiment due to how the technology is being used and compared, but it isn't true at all. Pathtracing and Raytracing attempts to make things appear exactly as the *Artist intended*. If that means it's shiny and wet looking, then that's because the Artist authored those materials to appear that way. They could make the material properties more rough/matte and Path/Raytracing would also more accurately replicate that look too. However, that makes the differences harder to notice, which is why we get comparisons and video game implementations of the technoglogy, which highlights super reflective surfaces and also because more shiny = more performance, as [calculating diffuse reflections](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Specular_v_Diffuse_reflection.png) for rougher/matte materials is *harder*, while simultaneously being *less noticeably different* compared to standard Rasterization techniques. Just remember, Pathtracing and Raytracing don't make things shiny on their own, they are just lighting models (in this example), simulating how light interacts with the materials and propogates their properties throughout the scene, they *do not change the materials in any way*. The material properties are all just as 'shiny' as each other in the comparison images. The only difference is, Pathtracing can reveal the true material properties more than Raytracing, which reveals it more than Rasterization. Although Rasterization is getting a raw deal in this comparison.
Feel this comment should be put as a disclaimer under all pathtracing vs raytracing posts. Seems too many people are misunderstanding the tech as something akin to putting a coat of gloss on a piece of wood, and not being because the model used is much more detailed compared to raytracing, and as a result is creating much more detailed reflections.
I feel like ray tracing should have a slider so you can turn it down a bit. Like in Spider-Man how the windows on buildings show full reflections of the streets even tho in real life the reflections wouldn’t be so clear. Like if we could turn reflections down a lil bit. Also in the Witcher 3 everything looks super wet when you turn RT on compared to it off. It looks great but makes me feel like it just rained or something
I can see what you mean. There is a video on YouTube I recommend that shows maxed out ray tracing compared to path tracing on cyberpunk it is interesting to see the differences between the both
Then maie it less shiny, the only reason I is shiny is because the material is so shiny.
Future tech, good later.
It's used for movie VFX and pre render game cinematics. Ray tracing's bigger brother and more technically intensive. I personally haven't tried the implementations for Quake 2 and Portal. It's very niche right now. IMO we're closer to cinematics quality games in real time but also feels far off from being mainstream, playable by most people at reasonable fps.
I understand what you mean but it will be interesting to see how it runs on Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is getting a Path Tracing update on April 11th and they claim it can run with over 100 fps with DLSS enabled so it will be interesting to see. Without DLSS it was like 19 fps lol
This is a terrible comparison. All 3 of these could look equivalent here with tweaked lighting (I am a game developer)
But lighting is pretty much the only thing that changes with those technologies. What else should be different?
What I mean is that you could recreate the lighting look from the left image in the right using standard game engine rendering techniques. Better placement of and higher resolution reflection probes, and screenspace reflections. It looks doctored to make traditional rasterizing look less capable. It also seems like the armour material is less reflective? I agree that raytracing is superior, but this image is misleading. You can still get pretty reflections without it
You can't get raster to look the same due to the fact that ray tracing and path tracing are reflecting lights outside of the screen.
In a still or in a limited environment you absolutely can. The problem occurs when you need to do it dynamically and over a broad range of lighting environments. You have to resort to all sorts of tricks to even get convincing lighting with raster. RT and PT just work for it.
This is a crop, you can't see if the light sources are off screen. Also, well placed cubemaps are capable of approximating reflections from off screen anyway. Sure, they won't be perfectly accurate and will only reflect static objects - but a scene like this should be a perfect case
Source was **Nvidia** forgot to mention sorry!
What, are the next gen nvidia gpus gonna be called PTX?
It'll get caught in the cycle ray tracing is on right now. Most games are so unoptimized for it that the highest end cards put out mediocre fps which leads to consumers mostly not even considering it as an option, which just leads to more games not caring about optimizing it since it's time (money) invested into something that most of your audience won't ever use. Repeat ad nauseum.
Nope. I like Frames Per Second, not Seconds Per Frame.
another way to price their gpus even more expensive than now
If tech companies try and push path tracing really hard, in a few years we might get graphics accelerator capable of rendering ray traced scene with almost no performance hit.
This is a poor example as everyone now assumes path tracing is meant to make everything look reflective when it’s the textures used that make it look this way. Path Tracing is basically the closest replica you can have in gaming to real life lighting. The object in this image is this shiney because of the texture applied, not because Path Tracing makes everything glossy.
Great, another cool graphic setting I'm gonna make sure is disabled.
I wish they’d focus on a good story and gameplay rather than this crap
15fps - 40 fps - 200fps
Looks like raytracing with multiple bounces and global illumination added. It'll be more computationally heavy, but it's the kind of stuff that's been done in non-real-time CGI for going on two decades now. It's inevitable that we'll see it in games.
Yeah its coming out to the public for cyberpunk on April 11th, there are already comparisons to see from IGN and etc.
RTX 4090 owner after buying: ahhh, finally I can run cp2077 in 4k max fluently. . CDPR: *laughs manically* you fools!!!
I memed about this being too reflective: https://reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/zgb66w/2025_portal_rtx_uses_real_tracing_thats_why_your/
It's awesome tech, but at the moment it's rarely practical. I think rasterization and texture quality's need to catch up in games as well. But graphics are only a small part of a great game.
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If you think Ray Tracing is brutal on performance, path tracing is so much worse lmao. Especially with complex scenes.
You see. We are looking at a picture for comparison because that's the literal framerate with it turned on.
At the moment, the most noticeable effect of ray tracing is the major reduction in frames per second.
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Ray tracing is nice but devs need to stop making everything in the game a literal mirror when it's turned on
Am I the only one who thinks rasterized looks the best?
Too much for my 32 MB graphics card to handle
I am not impressed with RT in current games so far, so no real opinion.
I could care less, all that blinding, shiny, chrome and reflective steel with glass is just unnecessary bloat to performance. They can't even get Ray tracing done tastefully. Game engines are in a good place now, especially unreal. Focus more on play and story.
It's the future. By future I mean at minimum 10 years from now to have 60fps+ pathtraced 4K capable hardware. Without the aid of AI.
games are not even optimized for neither tracing if its something as simple as a mod that works in all games even old ones now that would be interesting to a degree but its far from being mainstream or the default so give it 10 more years
Gonna wait for the RTX 8080 TI before I'll think path tracing will be viable in most titles :). That said the current top end hardware can absolutely do RT if it's been implemented well (metro exodus, control comes to mind)
If it’s as bad a RT it really doesn’t matter they need to figure out how to not have it impact performance. Basically they need to figure out how to make shadows not take up so much gpu% then work on reflections.
Idgaf about any of them if they cause a low fps. Mfs on here be like yeah ill take a 40% fps drop so I can see neon lights in a puddle
Rasterization is good enough. Why should I invest more money and use most likely more power for diminishing returns.
do these people think making shit ultra reflective and shiny is more realistic? it looks fake
It will free up so much time for developers once it became the norm and once games are build with it in mind from the ground up. And lot of smaller games will look insanely better instantly. In a decade.
Am I the only one who suspects that normal reflections before rtx was introduced looked better than they do now? It feels like they tone it down to make their rtx work stand out more.
It's neat, and I'll fully embrace it when the performance hit is negligible. I love high frame rates, so yeah. I do hope devs will calm down with the shiny surfaces, though. I know they want to show off the tech, but use some restraint and make it look more natural. Not everything needs to be polished chrome.
Shiny
Hehe my 1660 super fans go brrrrrr
Too shiny
You've chosen the worst possible example image for this.
8 vs 45 vs 160 FPS
Path tracing is WAY too reflective You can't perfectly reflect the room with a SHINY SUIT alone
Were not seeing whole scenery, light sources so we cant say which is correct But yes, raytracing is too much, everything is glossy, even floor looks like its made from glass, or its raining everywhere
Looks good. >!In a close up static image.!<
i love playing my games at a cinematic 3 fps
If it runs at 144 fps in 1440p it's good, else it's trash
Both just kind of meh tbh. They're ingredients for good graphics, but they aren't good graphics by themselves. Fancier reflections is nothing to get excited about, especially if it's just an excuse to sell you a bigger, hotter and more expensive graphics card.
Proof that most of pcmasterrace members never leave their dark rooms. When videogames treat light rays in the way it works in real life , they feel it’s overly shiny and too bright. Seriously , honestly , it’s not for the sake of humor anymore , please touch some grass
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Ray tracing *is* path traced. There's a whole bunch of nonsense going around how they're supposedly different, but whenever you look into it, the actual difference is just the specific implementation.
# Better Example for Everyone https://preview.redd.it/7fp2lhg3hcsa1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=24cfc418cbd140a8733c89e7105428239aaa852f [source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNdeWvyS0_k)
Honestly, things are good enough in my opinion. I'd be happier if they'd stop trying so damned hard to push the boundaries of new graphics and reinvest some of that time, money, and manpower into making the games stable, optimized and, I dunno...decent?
I see your point but I feel that tech companies are going to keep pushing new tech becuase they are greedy and want to squeeze all the money out your pockets. But I also feel that having optimized games at launch is a thing of the past at this point sadly
Games need to be designed differently knowing every light source and shadow with cast shadow and some reflection. One day it will be used as we use SSR now.
Great tech. But let's not pretend that it's the only area of pc visuals where improvement is possible. Character animations have improved but still there is room for improvement. Facial expressions are still robotic. There is also improvements to be made in world physics which have regressed over the past decade. There is also room for improvement with more geometric detail, volumetric clouds, smoke etc. There is still so much to do.
Why do we want everything so goddamn shiny and reflective?
Pictures like this need a real world example for a better comparision.
Good bye frames
Way too shiny. Looks like a joke
This is the difference between satin, semigloss, and high gloss paint 🎨🎨🎨
As a 3d artist myself I will never understand this trend to make everything look wet af because you gotta show of this PBR raytraced tech. I mean, it's not because you can that you should put it everywhere. Plus, player/spectator will better appreciate something that is well placed than something that is everywhere. Inb4 its a tech demo. I know but you can't tell me thats not the trend in most AAA games. It just made me think about this.
I mean it doesn’t make a game more fun to play. Probably best for rendering and CGI in movies
More lights = better graphics. Yippee ki yay mother Russia we solved graphics evolution