Ray Tracing: The New Gaming Standard

InfoThis is a summary of the following YouTube video:

Ray Tracing is MANDATORY Now

Linus Tech Tips

Jan 14, 2025

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Science & Technology

Intro

  1. The new Indiana Jones game requires modern hardware with Ray Tracing technology to run effectively. Ray Tracing is an old technology that has been adapted for real-time use in modern games, thanks to powerful accelerators in GPUs.
  2. Ray Tracing technology enhances the visual quality of games, making them look more realistic. However, this comes at a high cost, as modern GPUs capable of real-time Ray Tracing are expensive.
  3. For those who cannot afford new GPUs, finding a sponsor or looking for deals on refurbished or recertified hardware can be a solution. This can help gamers save money while still enjoying modern gaming experiences.

Testing a game that REQUIRES Ray Tracing…

  1. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is the first game developed to require ray tracing as a core component, not just an optional feature for enhanced lighting realism. This marks a significant shift in gaming technology, emphasizing the importance of ray tracing in game design.
  2. Two test systems were set up to evaluate the game's performance: one with NVIDIA's RTX 4090 and another with the RTX 2060. The RTX 4090, with settings maxed out, maintained over 60 frames per second at 4K resolution, showcasing its powerful capabilities even without path tracing enabled.
  3. Despite the impressive performance of the RTX 4090, there are still visual anomalies in ray-traced games, such as color changes in character hair, indicating that the technology is not yet perfect.
  4. NVIDIA's messaging around RTX and ray tracing is criticized for being misleading, as most games, including this one, only use global ray-traced illumination when path tracing is enabled.
  5. The RTX 2060 struggles to deliver the desired performance, achieving only around 20 frames per second at 1080p resolution with high settings. This highlights the challenges faced by older graphics cards in handling modern ray-traced games.
  6. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle performs a VRAM test at startup, setting the game to the lowest settings if the system has 12GB or less of VRAM. A custom executable can bypass this check, but enabling higher settings may cause the game to crash.
  7. Even with reduced settings, the RTX 2060 can still provide a ray-traced experience, albeit with significantly lower visual fidelity compared to the RTX 4090. This demonstrates the limitations of first-generation ray tracing hardware in terms of future-proofing.
  8. The discussion suggests that while NVIDIA's initial claims about ray tracing were ambitious, the technology has evolved, and newer generations of graphics cards offer better performance and visual quality.

What is the difference?

  1. Ray tracing, unlike rasterization, simulates light paths for realistic lighting effects, crucial for dynamic scenes.
  2. Rasterization converts vector graphics into pixel images, applying shaders for lighting and texture approximation.
  3. Path tracing, a form of ray tracing, tracks light rays through scenes, reflecting, refracting, or absorbing based on material properties.
  4. Ray tracing is conceptually simple, reducing storage needs and development time compared to pre-baked lighting maps.
  5. The shift to ray tracing in gaming is driven by its potential for realism and efficiency, despite increased hardware demands.
  6. High hardware costs for ray tracing fall on gamers, requiring powerful GPUs like the RTX 4090 for optimal performance.
  7. AI-assisted upscaling, such as DLSS, helps achieve better performance in ray-traced games, though challenges remain.

Why are Developers ANGRY?

  1. The transition to ray tracing in gaming has been perceived as rushed by some developers. While it promised time savings by reducing manual lighting work, it required more time for testing and optimizing performance on early generation graphics cards. This often led to reduced visual settings, resulting in image quality not significantly better than traditional rasterization.
  2. Compromises in ray tracing have led to issues like noise and artifacting, which appear as a boiling effect. These are caused by low ray counts needing to accumulate lighting information over multiple frames and suboptimal denoising techniques. YouTube compression and screenshots can sometimes hide these issues.
  3. Developers are still learning to implement ray tracing both technically and artistically, with available tools being more basic than those for rasterization. For instance, features like light linking, where lights affect certain objects but not others, are more complex in ray-traced scenes.
  4. The evolution of visual effects in gaming, such as bloom, motion blur, and depth of field, shows a pattern from being new and flashy to overused and then intelligently applied. Ray tracing is expected to follow a similar trajectory over time.
  5. Currently, the most compelling use of ray tracing is in older games, where it can create a dazzling effect through remasters, custom mods, or NVIDIA's RTX Remix tools. This can transform older titles, although it may impact performance, as seen with the original FEAR game.
  6. Hybrid rendering, combining raster and ray tracing, can impact performance. However, fully committing to ray tracing, as seen in games like Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, can improve performance. This suggests that as ray tracing technology evolves, it may enhance overall playability.
  7. The transition to full ray tracing could lead to GPU manufacturers reducing die space for raster performance in favor of ray tracing capabilities, potentially lowering costs. However, until the industry fully transitions, challenges will persist.

But what about the FUTURE?

  1. Ray tracing is becoming a necessary technology in gaming, with games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle requiring it as a core component. This marks a shift from optional to essential use in game development.
  2. Despite the advancements, many gamers still use older hardware, such as the GTX 1060 from 2016, which may not support ray tracing efficiently. This highlights a gap between current technology and consumer adoption.
  3. The debate on whether ray tracing is worth the investment continues, but its inevitability in future gaming is clear. The technology is advancing, and gamers will eventually need to upgrade to experience its full benefits.
  4. Historically, new technologies like mesh shaders were initially seen as marketing tactics but later proved beneficial. Similarly, ray tracing is expected to enhance gaming experiences significantly.
  5. Games like Alan Wake 2 demonstrate that recent hardware with updated features can handle ray tracing well, indicating progress in making the technology more accessible.
  6. The future of ray tracing involves optimizations rather than relying solely on AI or brute force methods. Techniques like DLSS ray reconstruction and better distribution rate tracing are key to achieving high frame rates.
  7. Even in offline CGI rendering, studios use optimized shortcuts to manage rendering times, suggesting that similar strategies will be necessary for real-time gaming to maintain performance.

There is HOPE!

  1. The text discusses the challenges and potential of real-time ray tracing and AI upscaling techniques, emphasizing that the current issues are part of their developmental phase. Once these challenges are overcome, technologies like ray-traced motion blur and depth of field could significantly enhance cinematic realism.
  2. Advanced features such as bidirectional path tracing could reduce noise without increasing render time, and easier implementation for developers might become a reality, making these technologies more accessible and efficient.
  3. The new Indiana Jones game is seen not as a burden on GPUs but as a sign of future advancements in gaming graphics, hinting at the potential for more realistic and immersive experiences.
  4. The text humorously transitions to a sponsor message about Server Part Deals, highlighting their offerings of recertified, refurbished, and new hard drives from well-known brands, with a focus on affordability and customer service.
  5. The text concludes by suggesting viewers watch a video where people test the visibility of ray tracing effects, hinting that the results might challenge common perceptions.