Poll: Do you care about ray tracing / upscaling?

[marees]

Summary screenshot (i have not watched yet)

View attachment 110073

My TLDR after listening to this

• Path Tracing — transformative
• Global Illumination — doesn’t move the needle
• Shadows & ambient occlusion — meh
• Reflections — makes a difference when implemented well
• My takeaway — close this thread & start a new one on Path Tracing
• Future expectations — console ports should have better implementation because the ps5 pro has a GPU that costs $500 this year (hopefully $400 by this time next year & $300?? in the long run)

 

[Ranulf]

This 2 part series is to prepare for the 50 series launch. So they can show you how you wasted your money buying RTX 20-40 for ray tracing.

Heh, I saw the title and thought to myself... here we go, gotta talk up RTX yet again. They've been back and forth on this for 5 years now. It has been five years and I figured I'd get hosed on RTX performance but the 2060S has held up pretty well for 5 years at 1080p. It took 4 years to get anything near the value with a 6700XT last year at $300.

From that table posted above, Cyberpunk takes a $1500 card to run ultra and have it look pretty. Yay.

 

[Saylick]

I still think that RT is icing on the cake and in no way what sells games. If the gameplay is good and the game is fun, the game will sell itself. I personally won't care about RT, even if it makes the game look visually stunning, if the gameplay sucks and is overall a boring game.

 

[Steelbom]

So, I've found that the upscaling is critical for high resolutions -- so I think it's great tech. I have the 57" G9 Neo (7680x2160) and on ultra settings, without upscaling, it's 30-50 FPS in most games on a 4090. Upscaling can push that to 90-120 FPS depending on the game and I'd say the quality and frame rate is better than just running a lower resolution.

Raytracing is cool but the performance hit usually makes it not worth it unless you're running a lower resolution monitor with a powerful GPU. Even at 4k, my 4090 doesn't do too well with raytracing. I think it probably needs another 3-4 generations before it's more practical.

 

[Aapje]

Metro EE was interesting as it looks much better than the RT implementation in the OG. But, and this made me chuckle, it looks on the same level as Red Dead 2 on how the presentation with mist and sunlight influences visuals at certain times of day. Even god rays in Fallout 4 looks better than the RT in the OG IMO.

It's pretty obvious that Metro EE just looks so much better because it is a remaster. 95% of the graphics improvements are due to the remaster, and 5% due to RT.

If they would have would have remastered Metro Exodus with good rasterization, it would have probably have looked very similar to the RT version and then the RT-enabled version would have been in the 'Different image, unclear if beter'-category or such.

@coercitiv

The video takes the point across too: the only games where RT makes a clear difference are the ones built with RT in mind or heavily adapted afterwards.

And even then you have to like it wet. I think that the wet look of many RT-games doesn't look very realistic or nice, but that is personal preference of course.

 

[coercitiv]

And even then you have to like it wet. I think that the wet look of many RT-games doesn't look very realistic or nice, but that is personal preference of course.

I dislike the wet look as well, but I expect the number of games with this try hard approach will... dry up in the future.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

And even then you have to like it wet. I think that the wet look of many RT-games doesn't look very realistic or nice, but that is personal preference of course.

Indeed, it's all subjective. For my tastes we could have stopped with Red Dead Redemption 2 level of graphics but with higher quality textures and I'd be satisfied for a long long time. And as Tim rightly pointed out, some games suffer from having more realistic lighting and shadows.

The other gripe is the performance cost. It used to be there would be that one or two games every couple of years where you played them close enough to release that your hardware could not fully max out eye candy. You'd say to yourself - Here's one I can revisit in 5yrs in all its glory. Now, for most gamers, that is almost every AAA game. 👎

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I dislike the wet look as well, but I expect the number of games with this try hard approach will... dry up in the future.

You forgot the -

I like RT reflections a lot when they make sense e.g. Spiderman games and Control. Cyberpunk is excessive, and it comes at the expense of better textures IMO.

 

[marees]

How is the FG experience for owners of 8gb cards 🤔

noted few key points:

1. Ghost of Tsushima
   1. 0:00 Ghost of Tsushima 4K Very High - stuttery
   2. 4:35 Ghost of Tsushima 4K Very High DLSS P - 69 vs 39 avg & 62 vs 34 1%
   3. 5:58 Frame Generation uses more VRAM- Ghost of Tsushima 4K High DLSS Q FG - perf decreases for 8gb. 1% lows are 252% faster in 16gb
   4. 7:19 Ghost of Tsushima 1440p Very High DLSS Q FG - 16gb better
2. Horizon Forbidden West
   1. 8:14 Horizon Forbidden West 4K Very High - 21% faster avg, 58% faster 1% lows. Spikes in 8gb
   2. 8:41 Horizon Forbidden West 4K Very High DLSS P - 16gb doubles perf from above, 8gb can't
   3. 9:10 Horizon Forbidden West 4K High - 9% faster avg, 39% faster 1%
   4. 9:36 Horizon Forbidden West 4K High DLSS P - 16gb reaches 63fps but 8gb struggles
   5. 10:03 Horizon Forbidden West 4K Medium DLSS P - 13% faster in 1% lows
   6. 10:30 Horizon Forbidden West 1440p Very High - 13% faster avg, 42% faater 1% lows
   7. 10:57 Horizon Forbidden West 1440p Very High DLSS Q - 80 vs 67 avg & 68 vs 42 1% low
   8. 12:08 Horizon Forbidden West 1080p Very High.- diff in performance
3. Hellblade 2 (UE5 non-nvidia branch)
   1. 12:43 Hellblade 2 4K High - 8gb crippled
4. Avatar 4K (engine streams diff texture quality for diff vram)
   1. 16:17 Avatar 4K High - 24 vs 19 1%
5. Alan Wake 2
   1. 17:47 Alan Wake 2 4K High DLSS P - 8gb crushed
   2. 18:06 Alan Wake 2 4K Low DLSS P - 61 vs 49 avg, 45 vs 37 1%
   3. 18:29 Alan Wake 2 1440p RT High DLSS B - 17% avg, 35% 1%
   4. 18:56 Alan Wake 2 1440p RT High DLSS B FG - 57 vs 42 avg, 48 vs 33 1%
   5. 19:27 Alan Wake 2 1440p High - 10% better
   6. 19:47 Alan Wake 2 1440p High DLSS Q - 20% better
   7. 19:58 Alan Wake 2 1080p RT High DLSS Q - 17% faster 1%
   8. 20:13 Alan Wake 2 1080p RT High DLSS Q FG - 10% faster avg, 27% faster 1%
   9. 20:44 Alan Wake 2 1080p High - 10% better
6. Resident Evil 4
   1. 21:02 Resident Evil 4 Remake 4K Max - 76% faster 1%, 17% faster avg, massive stutters
   2. 21:40 Resident Evil 4 1440p Max - 5 fps 1% massive stutters
   3. 22:23 Resident Evil 4 1080p Max - massive frametime spike in 1% lows
7. Starfield
   1. 23:05 Starfield 4K Ultra DLSS P FG - 60% faster avg, 180% faster 1%
8. Cyberpunk
   1. 24:26 Cyberpunk 2077 1440p RT Overdrive DLSS P - 6% faster avg, 14% faster 1% low
   2. 24:57 Cyberpunk 2077 1440p RT OVerdrive DLSS P FG - 56 vs 26 1% low. Massive spikes/stutters
   3. 25:23 Cyberpunk 2077 1080p RT Overdrive DLSS Q - 52 vs 42 avg, 44 vs 34 1% -
   4. 25:50 Cyberpunk 2077 1080p RT Overdrive DLSS Q FG - 58% better 1% lows

 

[Ranulf]

THreat interactive has another vid, looking at optimization in Silent Hill 2 remake:

"In this video, we dive into how Unreal Engine 5 Nanite technology continues to drag down your game's performance In Silent Hill 2 Remake. Debunk misleading claims made in the community regarding performance and offer clear insight on what could have been improved. "

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Part 2 electric boogaloo

Without even watching, the comments were already blowing up with the answer - NO.

 

[Ranulf]

Top comments as of this posting, my favorite being "Short answer No. Long answer No its not." The first comment is a good example too, six years now and you need to spend $600-1k to really tell any difference. Combine that with the video I posted earlier on Silent Hill, where TI there says that UE5 is a big part of the problem with optimization, that it is meant to make things easier for devs but at the expense of performance, this is a entertainment form /hobby that is going to crash and burn even more than it already has.

They (nvidia especially) are going to have to up the PR game, the hype machines to convince more and more people to drop the kind of cash they and their investors want given how little we see improvements now or lack of price/perf and power usage. Let alone all the game design issues of the games themselves.

 

[WelshBloke]

I'm finding this difficult to answer.
Ray tracing should, in theory, make for much better visuals. But I haven't actually seen many examples where it makes things look incredibly better without tanking performance.
Frame gen I'm not enamored with at all. It works best when your frame rate is acceptable anyway, when you need it and your frame rate is low it makes the game feel a lot worse so you're better off lowering the settings anyway.
Upscaling I find better than frame gen but I'd still rather run at native resolution. It seems like you need the latest and greatest GPUs to take advantage of the best upscaling options and, in my opinion, the latest and greatest GPUs shouldn't need to be upscaling stuff!


If I had to make a choice I'd say that ray tracing would be the only positive tech there. The others are just ways of disguising hardware that isn't up to the job. Ray tracing at least has the potential to make things look better if it's implemented well, the other two make a game experience worse imho.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Upscaling I find better than frame gen but I'd still rather run at native resolution. It seems like you need the latest and greatest GPUs to take advantage of the best upscaling options and, in my opinion, the latest and greatest GPUs shouldn't need to be upscaling stuff!

Very true. They turned an option for previous gen plebs into a premium feature for the deep pockets and laughing all the way to the bank!

I kinda remember it started during the RX 580 era with some sharpening filter sort of thing (forgot the name). For a time, it was all I would read about everywhere.

 

[SolidQ]

They (nvidia especially) are going to have to up the PR game,

3 games! for me personnaly Control is more transformative, than AW2. For me AW2 more like it's better Some Surfaces only

 

[Saylick]

Hardware Unboxed is going to get their review samples of Blackwell cut off. Might we see "Stern Email 2.0"?

 

[coercitiv]

Hardware Unboxed is going to get their review samples of Blackwell cut off. Might we see "Stern Email 2.0"?

That's how you get RTX Off-ed.

 

[marees]

Is ray tracing worthwhile?​

Unfortunately, no, the desired benefits of ray tracing are just not our reality yet. More games would need to make use of ray tracing, with less impact on FPS during gameplay.

After 6 years in existence, you'd hope that we'd have at least dozens of ray-traced titles where turning the tech on delivers a night-and-day difference in visuals. However, there are arguably just 4 standout examples of such games — Cyberpunk 2077, Alan Wake 2, Control, and Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (also supported by Hardware Unboxed's ray tracing video).

to truly experience ray tracing at 1440p or 4K resolutions, you need at least an RTX 4070 Super, which costs $600. This prices out most gamers from experiencing the hyped ray-traced visuals of the latest titles.

Is ray tracing even worth it in 2025?

For a multitude of reasons, ray tracing remains a largely pointless luxury for most gamers.

www.xda-developers.com

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Hardware Unboxed is going to get their review samples of Blackwell cut off. Might we see "Stern Email 2.0"?

I don't think they care anymore. Be it pricing, RT, or anything else.

 

[jpiniero]

This thread is kind of funny because the whole value prop of the PS5 Pro is in Pisser. And maybe the better RT.

Granted the Pro doesn't seem to be selling all that much. But perhaps it might give devs more encouragement to make better use of RT.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

This thread is kind of funny because the whole value prop of the PS5 Pro is in Pisser. And maybe the better RT.

Granted the Pro doesn't seem to be selling all that much. But perhaps it might give devs more encouragement to make better use of RT.

It's been 6yrs already and RT still sucks. So maybe in a couple of years more devs will make use of RT in an effective way? Now THAT's funny. We will be a full decade in and RT will have arrived, if things go well? Great, that's when it should factor into purchasing decisions. Until then it really is an Nvidia editorial direction talking point that every reviewer including HUB pushes.

Tim tells everyone it's crap and not worthwhile yet. Now he can explain why he and Steve have been pushing the RT talking point in every single GPU review as a reason to choose Nvidia over AMD. I mean a reason that isn't obvious used car salesmen bad.

 

[marees]

Until then it really is an Nvidia editorial

*Until then it really is an Nvidia editorial advertorial (to sell the next gen xx90 gpu)

 

[marees]

This thread is kind of funny because the whole value prop of the PS5 Pro is in Pisser. And maybe the better RT.

Granted the Pro doesn't seem to be selling all that much. But perhaps it might give devs more encouragement to make better use of RT.

It raises the bar of consoles to 4070 or 4070 super from a 6700xt earlier

So amd sponsored / console based games could have better RT in future (that make use of FSR 4 for better upscaling)

 

[DAPUNISHER]

*Until then it really is an Nvidia editorial advertorial (to sell the next gen xx90 gpu)

My favorite part is they pimp the latest gen. Then when the next gen comes out they tell you how trash that gen is for ray tracing. 🤣 I was happy to see AMD and indy dev have taken the frame generation talking point away. I've read posts by RTX 20-30 owners that are kind of bent about that feature being paywalled.

So amd sponsored / console based games could have better RT in future (that make use of FSR 4 for better upscaling)

That won't make much difference on PC. Nvidia will simply keep paying to have RTX optimized for. A.I. based FSR is crucial of course. It just needs to be "trade offs" close and the last Nvidia marketing slide is killed off. Then we may get down to vram and bang for buck in the tiers most people shop, being the tie breakers.

EDIT: you did make the point about AMD sponsored, my bad.

 

[jpiniero]

It's been 6yrs already and RT still sucks. So maybe in a couple of years more devs will make use of RT in an effective way? Now THAT's funny. We will be a full decade in and RT will have arrived, if things go well? Great, that's when it should factor into purchasing decisions. Until then it really is an Nvidia editorial direction talking point that every reviewer including HUB pushes.

Probably. That's just kind of the reality of gaming right now when most of the games on the HWU list are crossgen.