Quake 3 with Ray Tracing technology - real time demo

[purbeast0]

I came accross this link in the newest gamepro.

For those of you who don't know, Ray Tracing is a technology that calculates exact beams of light. It can take hours or even days to render ray traced scenes. And this was a technology that sony promised the PS2 would be capable of before it was released lol.

Anyways, in that link, it shows Quake 3 running in real time with ray tracing. They discuss the hardware used to run it - 20 Athlon XP processors that total i think 64Ghz cpu power. So I don't think we will be seeing ray tracing any time soon in video games. Maybe some day games will look the way Shrek 2 looks.

The link has some videos and screen shots. It's pretty cool stuff. I wasn't a quake 3 fan so I don't know what to compare it to, but the lighting effects and reflections are amazing.

 

[n7]

Downloading...

 

[quakefiend420]

downloading now

EDIT: ok, i don't see what the big deal is here...i mean a few of the textures are pretty badass...but thats about it imo

 

[chuckywang]

64 Ghz? Doesn't that exceed the speed of light?

 

[MaxDSP]

Originally posted by: n7
Downloading...

 

[SportSC4]

Originally posted by: purbeast0
I came accross this link in the newest gamepro.

For those of you who don't know, Ray Tracing is a technology that calculates exact beams of light. It can take hours or even days to render ray traced scenes. And this was a technology that sony promised the PS2 would be capable of before it was released lol.

Anyways, in that link, it shows Quake 3 running in real time with ray tracing. They discuss the hardware used to run it - 20 Athlon XP processors that total i think 64Ghz cpu power. So I don't think we will be seeing ray tracing any time soon in video games. Maybe some day games will look the way Shrek 2 looks.

The link has some videos and screen shots. It's pretty cool stuff. I wasn't a quake 3 fan so I don't know what to compare it to, but the lighting effects and reflections are amazing.

It takes that long if done inefficiently.
Interesting slashdot link
basically a 90mhz 3d raytracing card that's 3-5 times faster than a 2.7 ghz P4. It was rendering a 350 million polygon boeing in realtime.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: chuckywang
64 Ghz? Doesn't that exceed the speed of light?

I assume this is sarcasm but I'll explain anyway for those that might take that comment seriously
A) The speed of light is in m/s not in Hz (Hz has no distance implied)
B) There's nothing actually working at 64 GHz; it's a number of low GHz processors working symmetrically.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Originally posted by: quakefiend420
downloading now

EDIT: ok, i don't see what the big deal is here...i mean a few of the textures are pretty badass...but thats about it imo

imagine doom3/hl2/unreal3 with raytracing :Q

 

[Sphexi]

This doesn't really have much to do with the textures, more so with the light/shadows. Most shadows in todays games are inaccurate and take so much of your GPU's processing power that it normally isn't worth dealing with them. These shadows are all realistic and accurate as far as how they'd look in real life, which is very mathematically intensive to figure out.

Edit:

The stainglass window effect about 2 minutes in is just amazing...plus they have shadows on top of it, very nice stuff.

 

[myusername]

The lava was nice, and the reflections were awesome, but overall that demo looked like poop. There was kind of a stop-frame miniature animation quality to it, which I guess indicates the shadows were pretty accurate. Not sure if that would enhance gameplay or not. What's with the flashlight effect, the crappy movement of the models, and what the hell was that going on in the RL room? :Q

 

[everman]

Waiting for the HL2 Lost Coast HDR level myself, looks amazing. I'm sure my system will go up in flames.

 

[Tab]

Originally posted by: everman
Waiting for the HL2 Lost Coast HDR level myself, looks amazing. I'm sure my system will go up in flames.

Meh, I wasn't impressed.

 

[Excelsior]

Originally posted by: Tab

Originally posted by: everman
Waiting for the HL2 Lost Coast HDR level myself, looks amazing. I'm sure my system will go up in flames.

Meh, I wasn't impressed.

Really? I thought it was pretty badass.

 

[CHfan4ever]

Where i am supposed to be impress with this raytrace?????The quake 3 screenshot look not even as good as doom 3 wtf???

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: ifesfor
Where i am supposed to be impress with this raytrace?????The quake 3 screenshot look not even as good as doom 3 wtf???

It's Quake 3, what did you expect?
RayTracing is probably not what you were thinking (whatever that was).
Read the OP, and then re-read it, just to make sure.
And it's 36GHz equivelant of power (20 1800+'s)

 

[SilentRavens]

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: quakefiend420
downloading now

EDIT: ok, i don't see what the big deal is here...i mean a few of the textures are pretty badass...but thats about it imo

imagine doom3/hl2/unreal3 with raytracing :Q

A very pretty looking slide show I imagine.

 

[chuckywang]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: chuckywang
64 Ghz? Doesn't that exceed the speed of light?

I assume this is sarcasm but I'll explain anyway for those that might take that comment seriously
A) The speed of light is in m/s not in Hz (Hz has no distance implied)
B) There's nothing actually working at 64 GHz; it's a number of low GHz processors working symmetrically.

Well, I should have been more clear, but I don't remember the exact details. It has something to do with the processing time being limited by the speed of light propogation time. Computers can only process so fast with one CPU, no matter how fast that CPU "theoretically" can be.

 

[Dubb]

Originally posted by: SportSC4

Originally posted by: purbeast0
I came accross this link in the newest gamepro.

For those of you who don't know, Ray Tracing is a technology that calculates exact beams of light. It can take hours or even days to render ray traced scenes. And this was a technology that sony promised the PS2 would be capable of before it was released lol.

Anyways, in that link, it shows Quake 3 running in real time with ray tracing. They discuss the hardware used to run it - 20 Athlon XP processors that total i think 64Ghz cpu power. So I don't think we will be seeing ray tracing any time soon in video games. Maybe some day games will look the way Shrek 2 looks.

The link has some videos and screen shots. It's pretty cool stuff. I wasn't a quake 3 fan so I don't know what to compare it to, but the lighting effects and reflections are amazing.

It takes that long if done inefficiently.
Interesting slashdot link
basically a 90mhz 3d raytracing card that's 3-5 times faster than a 2.7 ghz P4. It was rendering a 350 million polygon boeing in realtime.

this is very true. cpus just can't keep up with hadware specialized for this stuff.

also, picky point, but no cg motion picture has ever been rendered with raytracing. takes too bloody long. instead, they hire talented people who know how to fake the effect.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Originally posted by: Excelsior

Originally posted by: Tab

Originally posted by: everman
Waiting for the HL2 Lost Coast HDR level myself, looks amazing. I'm sure my system will go up in flames.

Meh, I wasn't impressed.

Really? I thought it was pretty badass.

Me neither. Q3A looks much better on my PC than that video did.

 

[Nebben]

Well, it's not really about the overall graphics quality... it's a demonstration of the lighting technology. I think it looks pretty impressive.

 

[sonambulo]

Originally posted by: Sphexi
The stainglass window effect about 2 minutes in is just amazing...plus they have shadows on top of it, very nice stuff.

fcuking kills me. really, really impressive.

 

[Rock Hydra]

I saw this in one of the replies:

So, the question is: Can these guys get ATI or nVidia to buy their chip?

I'm sure both ATI and nVIDIA have to resources to research and manufacture their own variant.

Ha ha ha...or maybe INTEL EXTREME GRAPHICS WITH RAYTRACING.

 

[0roo0roo]

yea probably somehow running in software rendering mode right? its to show the effect of realistic light rendernig. all the other frilly stuff probably can't be done along with it real time. seemed jerky enough as it was just at that quality.

 

[gabemcg]

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: quakefiend420
downloading now

EDIT: ok, i don't see what the big deal is here...i mean a few of the textures are pretty badass...but thats about it imo

imagine doom3/hl2/unreal3 with raytracing :Q

They would have used one of those engines, the problem is, this thing has probably been rendering since Quake 3 was released...

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: chuckywang

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: chuckywang
64 Ghz? Doesn't that exceed the speed of light?

I assume this is sarcasm but I'll explain anyway for those that might take that comment seriously
A) The speed of light is in m/s not in Hz (Hz has no distance implied)
B) There's nothing actually working at 64 GHz; it's a number of low GHz processors working symmetrically.

Well, I should have been more clear, but I don't remember the exact details. It has something to do with the processing time being limited by the speed of light propogation time. Computers can only process so fast with one CPU, no matter how fast that CPU "theoretically" can be.

Now I know what you're trying to say. You're talking about getting a signal from point A in the CPU to point B within a clock cycle. With a 64 GHz clock light only travels about 4.7 mm during one cycle. Measuring signal propagation time is a little more complex than that because of various physical effects (mostly capacitance) but the max theoretical distance the signal can propagate is 4.7mm. For argument's sake let's assume a square 100 mm^2 die, so 10mm a side. Obviously at 64 GHz the signal can't go all the way accross the chip in one cycle.

In a properly designed chip however, the signal will never have to go across the entire chip. The layout is such that signals stay local as much as possible, and that critical path lengths are minimized. Keep in mind that with this we have only considered signal propagation time, not transistor switching time, which is likely to be the biggest concern when figuring out maximum frequency.