Discussion AMD raytracing - will it ever improve or even beat RTX?

[igor_kavinski]

AMD Announces Radeon Raytracing Analyzer - Phoronix

The optimist in me says that AMD has released this to increase the value of their 6000 series cards so developers can make them perform better in raytracing scenes by utilizing hybrid raytracing instead of full-on raytracing.

My inner pessimist, however, tells me that AMD's 7000 series won't be able to improve raytracing power that much and since hybrid raytracing is the thing consoles are using anyway, AMD isn't too worried and just expects that developers porting console games with hybrid raytracing over to the PC will appreciate that they don't have to do too much work for supporting Radeons.

 

[amenx]

I think we're still in early stages of RT for it to be at its most effective and efficient of implementations. Give it another 3-5 years or so for us to see a worthwhile difference in effects and performance.

 

[sandorski]

I was not expecting this thread to go this direction, but I like it. Some of you cats can really hold a grudge. You have been grinding those axes so long they are just the haft now.

While we are all kicking the printer in the field, I will add that Sound Blaster was the scourge of PC system stability BITD. There were so many troubleshooting threads that came down to - So, you bought a Sound Blaster...

Guilty. I did buy an Audigy Gamer, reluctantly, when SQ2500 Drivers/Features became insufficiently supported, but after the nth issue with Creatives crappy Drivers I switched to Onboard Audio/USB/Wireless and have been using them ever since. No regrets by not considering Creative for a couple decades.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Guilty. I did buy an Audigy Gamer, reluctantly, when SQ2500 Drivers/Features became insufficiently supported, but after the nth issue with Creatives crappy Drivers I switched to Onboard Audio/USB/Wireless and have been using them ever since. No regrets by not considering Creative for a couple decades.

IIRC the reason most of us were using sound cards in the early 2000s was to have as few CPU cycles as possible stolen by audio. And woe be the DIY builder that put the card in PCI slot 1 next to the AGP GPU. Can't remember if that was a chipset or windows thing. I do remember manually assigning IRQs immediately after finishing a new build.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Played Red Faction Guerilla right now and lord almighty how the industry seems to have completely forgotten destructible structures and terrain. I still remember when physics was supposed to be the "next big thing". It's sad to see the industry regress so far on such a promising feature.

My son and I both had probably a 100 hours and several playthroughs of that bitd. Great game.

Yeah for some reason I remembered Havok being company that created PhysX. But you were right it was Ageia (least that is what wikipedia is telling me). But yeah PhysX was purchased to take advantage of low level compute, they got Cuda adopted, decide they didn't need a killer app for the spare compute capability and it just becomes barely existent in their Nvidia gameworks toolbox never to be mentioned again.

Every couple of years I play through the PC version of Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2006. It was the first major AAA game to feature support for the Ageia PhysX and add in card. This game holds up super well. I play max settings 1440p. Blowing up the vehicles looks better than many much newer titles. At the time, if you didn't have the expensive PhysX card, your CPU took a beating with all of the features turned on. I looked it up on Amazon years back and people were complaining it was too hard. Danged console kiddies are why games hold your hand now. Highest recommendation 10/10

The console version is very dumbed down, and the draw distance is garbage. Do not recommend 0/10.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I was not expecting this thread to go this direction, but I like it. Some of you cats can really hold a grudge. You have been grinding those axes so long they are just the haft now.

I still hold a grudge against Intel for moving away from Socket 7 to a slot where the competition was (apparently) not welcome to play. Gone was the true openness of the PC platform. Though I guess ROTT goes back even further than that.

Also

I had a Pro Audio Spectrum 16 (instead of an SB16) and later an Ensoniq Soundscape Elite. And an Ensoniq AudioPCI! Never once did I buy a Creative card. Never.

As far as RT goes . . . I'm kind of meh on it. I'm still looking for better raster performance.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Every couple of years I play through the PC version of Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2006. It was the first major AAA game to feature support for the Ageia PhysX and add in card. This game holds up super well.

I suppose a separate card isn't required for PhysX anymore since the single GPU is now fast enough to handle both physics and rendering at the same time in this game, right?

 

[igor_kavinski]

I still hold a grudge against Intel for moving away from Socket 7 to a slot where the competition was (apparently) not welcome to play.

The current mess Intel is in is just Karma for all the evil, dirty anti-competitive tricks they pulled off rather than fight fair with AMD.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I still hold a grudge against Intel for moving away from Socket 7 to a slot where the competition was (apparently) not welcome to play. Gone was the true openness of the PC platform. Though I guess ROTT goes back even further than that.

Also

I had a Pro Audio Spectrum 16 (instead of an SB16) and later an Ensoniq Soundscape Elite. And an Ensoniq AudioPCI! Never once did I buy a Creative card. Never.

As far as RT goes . . . I'm kind of meh on it. I'm still looking for better raster performance.

Yes sir. That was their first serious gut punch to AMD. I think I had an K6-2 and Cyrix that worked in the same super socket 7 board I was using. If memory serves, the board was from FIC.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I suppose a separate card isn't required for PhysX anymore since the single GPU is now fast enough to handle both physics and rendering at the same time in this game, right?

Oh yeah, definitely. That is a good ax to grind with Nvidia. They locked it to their cards.

 

[BoomerD]

The current mess Intel is in is just Karma for all the evil, dirty anti-competitive tricks they pulled off rather than fight fair with AMD.

Meh...AMD was/is just as guilty of lying and cheating as Intel.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Meh...AMD was/is just as guilty of lying and cheating as Intel.

AMD has never been in a position to engage in anti competitive practices the way Intel has.

 

[BoomerD]

View attachment 65468

AMD has never been in a position to engage in anti competitive practices the way Intel has.

To the degree Intel does? No...Intel is much larger and wields more clout in the market, but (as I remember) there have been numerous stories over the decades about AMD "stealing" employees who had specialized knowledge about Intel's manufacturing processes, and IP used in chip manufacturing.
I'm sure that kind of crap goes both ways in the biz like it does in every other industry...which is my point. It's not that AMD is MORE anti-competitive...they're not, but they BOTH play the game.

 

[Hitman928]

To the degree Intel does? No...Intel is much larger and wields more clout in the market, but (as I remember) there have been numerous stories over the decades about AMD "stealing" employees who had specialized knowledge about Intel's manufacturing processes, and IP used in chip manufacturing.
I'm sure that kind of crap goes both ways in the biz like it does in every other industry...which is my point. It's not that AMD is MORE anti-competitive...they're not, but they BOTH play the game.

Stealing seems to be a bit of a loaded term. Offering more money or a better position to a competitor's experienced / very skilled employees is, um, normal. Literally every company in the world with any kind of financial ability to do so, will do this. This is not what people have a grudge against Intel for.

 

[BoomerD]

I don't have a grudge againt Intel for anything. Like any business, they es3d their market share to leverage deals.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I don't have a grudge against Intel for anything.

Believe me, that is incredibly obvious.

 

[BoomerD]

Believe me, that is incredibly obvious.

I certainly hope so.

I don't consider myself an Intel fanboi, but I definitely prefer their processors over the two AMD's I've owned over the years. (one in a pre-built Dell for my wife, one in an HP laptop. Neither was particularly impressive)

 

[Leeea]

... AMD "stealing" employees who had specialized knowledge about Intel's manufacturing processes, and IP used in chip manufacturing. ...

Are you advocating slavery? Because that is what you get when you take a person and eliminate their right to work where they want to work.

People are free to work for whomever they want to. For what they are worth or any other reason.

That is not "stealing", that is free market capitalism allowing people to sell their services for the market price.



Lastly, clearly Intel does not feel the same as you do, as they have quite publicially employed Raja Koduri to make their new GPU. Raja, quite recently lead the development of the very successful RX6000* series GPUs for AMD. Good for Raja! Good for Intel! Good for consumers!

*https://www.pcgamer.com/amd-reunites-raja-koduri-with-his-baby-an-rx-6800-graphics-card/

 

[DooKey]

To the degree Intel does? No...Intel is much larger and wields more clout in the market, but (as I remember) there have been numerous stories over the decades about AMD "stealing" employees who had specialized knowledge about Intel's manufacturing processes, and IP used in chip manufacturing.
I'm sure that kind of crap goes both ways in the biz like it does in every other industry...which is my point. It's not that AMD is MORE anti-competitive...they're not, but they BOTH play the game.

Get with the program. AMD loves us and would sacrifice profit and technology to ensure we are happy. They would never submit to the draws of profit or industrial superiority. They are a moral company and deserve worship and admiration.

 

[coercitiv]

I wonder how "not stealing" looks like... oh wait, I do know how it looks like!

Apple, Google, others settle antipoaching lawsuit for $415 million

Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe will shell out $415 million to put to rest an antipoaching civil lawsuit that accused the companies of conspiring not to hire each other's employees.

 

[BoomerD]

Get with the program. AMD loves us and would sacrifice profit and technology to ensure we are happy. They would never submit to the draws of profit or industrial superiority. They are a moral company and deserve worship and admiration.

Oh my...I have seen the error of my ways. Team RED all the way!

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Get with the program. AMD loves us and would sacrifice profit and technology to ensure we are happy. They would never submit to the draws of profit or industrial superiority. They are a moral company and deserve worship and admiration.

As there is no profanity in the tech forums, I will just say that is a quality DooKey post right there.

 

[linkgoron]

Get with the program. AMD loves us and would sacrifice profit and technology to ensure we are happy. They would never submit to the draws of profit or industrial superiority. They are a moral company and deserve worship and admiration.

None of these companies are a charity, but Nvidia has been way more anti-competitive and anti-consumer historically. It might have been because of their market position, but it's still true.

 

[cmdrdredd]

...and let me add Guardians of the Galaxy too. I play it on a 3060ti and a GTX 1070, in different locations and there is a stark difference.

Haven't seen that title myself. I can only use examples i know. However this only further process the point that it can make a real visual impact.

 

[DrMrLordX]

None of these companies are a charity, but Nvidia has been way more anti-competitive and anti-consumer historically. It might have been because of their market position, but it's still true.

One of the reasons why I've been anti-RTX which I'll freely admit. Even though emerging standards of RT are less-dependent on NV hardware, the desperation with which NV has pushed this technology has made me immediately skeptical of its value. And there are still performance targets to hit in the rasterization pipeline that allow me to safely ignore fancy RT crap.

@BoomerD

There's a huge difference between poaching a few employees (which as @moinmoin pointed out is sometimes better than agreeing not to poach employees) and the things Intel has done. They effectively kicked all the cloners off their platform, ending the open PC era (to our detriment). They tried to wipe out the JEDEC DRAM market and force everyone on to RDRAM (and kill off any company without a license to produce an RDRAM memory controller - such as AMD). They bribed OEMs to not carry competitor's chips. They bribed OEMs to carry Intel chips (contrarevenue). And that's the stuff we know about for certain.

No AMD isn't your "friend". They're just a normal corporation that has managed to survive despite adversity. Not that it has anything major to do with the main topic which was supposed to be RT but eh whatever.

 

[biostud]

I'm glad this thread hasn't been completely derailed.