Ray Tracing’s A Game Changer ,Call of Duty: Modern Warfare , and RTX review for "Control" ,Minecraft NEW Ray Tracing RTX Mode Hands-On And Tested

Page 5 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
14,387
480
126
There you go:

(Aus = Off, Mittel = Medium, Hoch = High)




Only mirror-like reflections on windows, glass and some shadows are noticeable, the rest looks similar... it's not worth it to sacrifice resolution and so much performance.
In case you can't translate German.
Quote.
Are you looking for a real showcase for your new RTX graphics card? A real game worth seeing instead of tech demos? Control fulfills this wish as the first title. While previous games enhanced by raytracing usually use only one or two effects, Control offers the full range: raytracing shadows, ray tracing reflections, and the very complex Global Lighting. PC Games Hardware spent the weekend with the final review version of Control to highlight the gameplay and raytracing performance of all RTX graphics cards.

Control with raytracing: technology
Like Quantum Break, Control relies on the Finn's in-house engine "Northlight". This has been thoroughly revamped to exchange the numerous Screen Space effects against Raytracing. Particularly worth seeing is the plastic lighting, which draws a realistic shadow and fine reflections. The dynamic lighting is also important when playing, because the areas are largely destructible and dismountable, thanks to the very sophisticated physics engine. Of course, the changing environment also has an effect on the lighting, because it has to be dynamic in order to take the changes into account. Old hands know that: Earlier games allowed sometimes the dislocation or disassembly of the inventory, but many a pre-baked shadow remained unaffected ...

Also clearly more accurate is the built-in global lighting integrated ambient occlusion. This is not only more accurate, but also shows no side effects such as the used without ray tracing screen space ambient occlusion, which due to their dependence on the visible on the screen area (screen space) can only consider those objects that are currently visible. With the raytracing shading, however, objects outside the visible area can cast shadows, while the shading shown by Screen Space fades out on the edge of the screen - you can also examine this effect in our video.
This also has an effect on the gameplay: standing in front of a glass or a glazed picture, you can see all things behind the protagonist Jesse - even some kitty, who wants to collar you. This quality is so far unique and a joy for every technology fan.
In addition to the chic lighting, the shadows reproduced by Raytracing also look good. These are much softer, more organic, and more believable than the standard shadow maps; The latter also show some unsightly pixel artifacts. However, the shadows are visually less significant compared to the Global Illumination. Even more eye-catching are the reflections, which have also been upgraded by raytracing, which decorate many of the smooth marble floors and the large window panes.These are high-resolution and unlike the (basically also send) Screen-Space Reflections show the entire scene and not just those elements that are in the image area. This is particularly noticeable in your own character, when reflected in windows and other smooth, vertical surfaces
As with every PCGH technical test, we first examined the game in question on several systems. A play through is usually not possible in time, but hours exploring the game world to get to know the fundamental performance. In the case of Control, we received 505 Games Review Keys from the publisher under embargo. The only condition was that nothing should be published before 15:00 on the 26th of August; Influence on the content of our article and video was of course not taken.

For the first benchmarks we have focused fully on the RTX performance, as it is the most technically important feature of the game. Our benchmark scene shows many reflections and volumetric effects and is therefore above average demanding, but still a bit gentler than some firefights. The performance can be summarized briefly and aptly: RTX is an expensive, but worth seeing fun. Further graphics cards follow.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Muhammed

Krteq

Senior member
May 22, 2015
991
671
136
Well, it can have lot of RT effects used, but those are barely noticeable except those I mentioned before.
Only mirror-like reflections on windows, glass and some shadows are noticeable, the rest looks similar...
 

Elfear

Diamond Member
May 30, 2004
7,097
644
126
There you go:

(Aus = Off, Mittel = Medium, Hoch = High)




Only mirror-like reflections on windows, glass and some shadows are noticeable, the rest looks similar... it's not worth it to sacrifice resolution and so much performance.

Thanks for posting the vids! The floor reflections are definitely better between no RT and medium. Some of the other reflections are actually missing (like the character running into the room with the telephone and seeing herself reflected in the glass wall). I know this is due to creating the reflections with RT but we've had similar quality using other techniques before.

And look at the performance hit with RTX
7Yc114L.jpg


wTXdcgTh.jpg


Even with RTX at medium, performance drops down to 52fps on average at 1440p with a 2080Ti. At 1080p with RTX at max, the 2060 can only manage 33fps.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Krteq

Juiblex

Banned
Sep 26, 2016
500
252
136
Control looks pretty... Sorta.... It looks different. But not necessarily better. It has this smokey volumetric thing going. Ran pretty good on my 2070 super in 3440x1440 resolution.

Unfortunately after 10 minutes of playing I was bored out of my mind. It reminded me of Deus Ex Human Revolution, the 2013 version. Very console-y.
 

Kenmitch

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,505
2,249
136
Control looks pretty... Sorta.... It looks

I think the word you're looking for is lazy people sit on it, while others pull predictions out of it.

I was trying to be impartial when viewing the videos, but it really didn't look to add much for me at least.

I wouldn't champion the game if I was to defend RTX.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Glo.

Glo.

Diamond Member
Apr 25, 2015
5,711
4,559
136
I think the word you're looking for is lazy people sit on it, while others pull predictions out of it.

I was trying to be impartial when viewing the videos, but it really didn't look to add much for me at least.

I wouldn't champion the game if I was to defend RTX.
So it is not only me who does not feel that Ray Tracing, in Control, is adding anything to graphics fidelity, and especially it does not blow minds, like someone here said in few last posts...

I mean, its nice. But is it mind blowing?

The only game that for me genuinely looks good with RT, and makes it imposible to go back is Minecraft. But anything else?

One thing is sure. That added reflections, and slightly enhanced lighting and shadows do not justify two things. Price, and performance hit.
 

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
14,387
480
126
Thanks for posting the vids! The floor reflections are definitely better between no RT and medium. Some of the other reflections are actually missing (like the character running into the room with the telephone and seeing herself reflected in the glass wall). I know this is due to creating the reflections with RT but we've had similar quality using other techniques before.

And look at the performance hit with RTX
7Yc114L.jpg


wTXdcgTh.jpg


Even with RTX at medium, performance drops down to 52fps on average at 1440p with a 2080Ti. At 1080p with RTX at max, the 2060 can only manage 33fps.
There is something funky with those charts why is the 2080ti faster at 1440p with no ray tracing, than at 1080p with no ray tracing? Same video card, same clocks.
 

Roger Wilco

Diamond Member
Mar 20, 2017
3,874
5,726
136
I would absolutely choose higher resolution over ray tracing, but I'm not in the market for a new monitor any time soon. I guess my situation is not a standard use case? At 1080p/60, I've got the extra frames to spare for the medium setting, and it's definitely a noticeable improvement for very little performance hit beyond Vsync, if any. However, it's definitely not a feature to rebrand flagship products over, yet.

Regardless, the RT hardware on Turing is completely unbalanced.
 

Elfear

Diamond Member
May 30, 2004
7,097
644
126
There is something funky with those charts why is the 2080ti faster at 1440p with no ray tracing, than at 1080p with no ray tracing? Same video card, same clocks.

I believe the 1080p results have AA/AF enabled where the 1440p results don't.
 

nurturedhate

Golden Member
Aug 27, 2011
1,743
676
136
Yeah, best way to show RTX effects is to stare at a wall for 60 seconds and call it a day. That's lazy work at it's finest! Wait for DF analysis or start seeing some screenshots from here:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/guides/control-graphics-and-performance-guide/
My first thought was "that's a whole lot of wax on that floor to make it that shiny" and then I wanted to know why a janitor would overbuff what appears to be a used lunchroom floor yet not pick up the mess of trays/plates/chairs.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Mopetar

maddie

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2010
4,744
4,683
136
My first thought was "that's a whole lot of wax on that floor to make it that shiny" and then I wanted to know why a janitor would overbuff what appears to be a used lunchroom floor yet not pick up the mess of trays/plates/chairs.
Oooh, so shiny. I thought it was a whole lot of water. Careful not to slip.

I find it amazing how some minds are so easily impressed. "The greatest leap ever in graphics". ??? Replace each ? with a letter starting with W.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ranulf

joesiv

Member
Mar 21, 2019
75
24
41
Yeah, best way to show RTX effects is to stare at a wall for 60 seconds and call it a day. That's lazy work at it's finest! Wait for DF analysis or start seeing some screenshots from here:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/guides/control-graphics-and-performance-guide/

Control-RTX-Comparison-6.jpg
I do find the screenshot above very interesting. The RTX one is more spectactular (or should I say specular, lol), but I'm impressed with the RTX off one, at least it has pretty good reflections actually.

One thing I do find about some RTX implementations is that the reflections are brighter than the actual thing they are reflecting, which NEVER happens in real life, there is always brightness loss when there is reflections. Take for example the reflection of the planter box on the top left of the screen, why is the reflection a brighter shade than the planter box its self? It's probably because of an order of operation thing, perhaps an optimization, to do the reflection before the rest of the rester shading, or something, but it looks off. Perhaps they just thought cranking RTX to 11 will give a better On/Off comparison?
 

Glo.

Diamond Member
Apr 25, 2015
5,711
4,559
136
Digital Foundry has been caught in skewing deliberately latest benchmarks towards Intel, by disabling HT in their CPUs.

Pay attention to what they say and how they say it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mopetar

MajinCry

Platinum Member
Jul 28, 2015
2,495
571
136
Yeah, best way to show RTX effects is to stare at a wall for 60 seconds and call it a day. That's lazy work at it's finest! Wait for DF analysis or start seeing some screenshots from here:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/guides/control-graphics-and-performance-guide/

Control-RTX-Comparison-6.jpg

RTX On the right looks just like a water shader with planar reflections. With Vulkan, that's a very trivial thing to accomplish as draw calls are many times less taxing. All we're seeing is a bog standard screen-space reflection shader against RTX. There's absolutely nothing spectacular, ground-breaking, revolutionary, or unique about it.

The best part? Planar reflections would perform magnitudes better in this scene than the RTX effect.
 

Stuka87

Diamond Member
Dec 10, 2010
6,240
2,559
136
DF will test Control RTX soon, it will blow your mind. RTX in this game is ESSENTIAL.

How is it essential? If the game unplayable with it off? No. Can the game be played in the exact same manner with it off? Yes.

All it does in this game is add some reflections. Which were already possible. We had reflections like the phone room ages ago. Was the RT one easier to implement? Most likely.

But the game developers clearly left RT off mode looking worse than what is possible.
 
  • Like
Reactions: uiremia

MajinCry

Platinum Member
Jul 28, 2015
2,495
571
136
How is it essential? If the game unplayable with it off? No. Can the game be played in the exact same manner with it off? Yes.

All it does in this game is add some reflections. Which were already possible. We had reflections like the phone room ages ago. Was the RT one easier to implement? Most likely.

But the game developers clearly left RT off mode looking worse than what is possible.

We've had interior floor planar reflections in the mainstream since GTA San Andreas.
 

Blockheadfan

Member
Feb 23, 2017
33
55
61
Oooh, so shiny. I thought it was a whole lot of water. Careful not to slip.

I find it amazing how some minds are so easily impressed. "The greatest leap ever in graphics". ??? Replace each ? with a letter starting with W.

Reminds me somewhat of PhysX in Arkham City. Every scene felt like it had 50 newspapers flying around just to "showcase" the feature. Are we going to have waxed + polished concrete floors and puddles in every scene now so RTX can shine!
 

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,709
2,971
126
I find it amazing how some minds are so easily impressed.
Ray tracing is totally a game changer, 'yo.

Totally worth dropping high resolutions, high refresh, native resolution, texture quality, AA, etc.

Totally. o_O

It's absolutely pathetic how reaching and desperate some of these arguments are. It seems any difference at all makes ray tracing "ESSENTIAL!!!!", like a slightly shinier floor. I bet you could run an ImageDiff with a single pixel being different, and we'd still see the same argument.

Exactly like PhysX back in the day. Tornado debris @ 25FPS was also a game-changer, 'yo.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Stuka87

Muhammed

Senior member
Jul 8, 2009
453
199
116
Totally worth dropping high resolutions, high refresh, native resolution, texture quality, AA, etc.
So I guess TOTAL reflections on any reflective surface are nothing?
Dynamic improved shadows everywhere are nothing?
Dynamic GI are nothing?

The only thing that matters to you obviously is 4K, which is pathetic, most people don't care about 4K or don't even own a 4K display, they will gladly take the increased IQ.

All we have here is a punch of high fps lovers who flex their psyche over the net on hating anything that enhances IQ.
 
  • Like
Reactions: happy medium

Kenmitch

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,505
2,249
136
The only thing that matters to you obviously is 4K, which is pathetic, most people don't care about 4K or don't even own a 4K display, they will gladly take the increased IQ.

Last time I looked PC gaming wasn't run by some communist nation that required the whole to act as one. It's one of those situations where we as PC gamers have the right to make choices that we as individuals see as the right one's for us. There really isn't any reason to get upset when their choices aren't the same as yours.

Just game on the way you choose and be happy!
 

Muhammed

Senior member
Jul 8, 2009
453
199
116
Just game on the way you choose and be happy!
That's what I am saying, but several members here post sweeping statments about the importance of 4K and 144Hz performance and completely ignore the IQ folks like they don't exist. Fact is: they do exist. Just check Resetera and NeoGaf ..
 

Kenmitch

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,505
2,249
136
That's what I am saying, but several members here post sweeping statments about the importance of 4K and 144Hz performance and completely ignore the IQ folks like they don't exist. Fact is: they do exist. Just check Resetera and NeoGaf ..

Ignoring works both ways last time I checked. You could always agree to disagree in the end.

Going into weird analogy mode....

Maybe if you view PC gaming and it's IQ as human relationships between man and woman you'll understand. Woman come in all shapes and sizes with different features that stand out, but in the end every man has his own preference for what he likes. You can run around and tell them that the taller, blond haired, blue eyed ones with big T&A are the best, but in the end he'll just shrug and say....I don't think so.

That doesn't make his choice or yours any different in the end as you'll both be content and happy in the end....Downside is women don't have a off button and aren't as easy to to upgrade.
 

Stuka87

Diamond Member
Dec 10, 2010
6,240
2,559
136
That's what I am saying, but several members here post sweeping statments about the importance of 4K and 144Hz performance and completely ignore the IQ folks like they don't exist. Fact is: they do exist. Just check Resetera and NeoGaf ..

You keep saying there are people that prefer IQ over frame rates, which is true. But then you turn around and call 4K "dumb". Which is laughable. 4K displays offer a HUGE increase in IQ. Its the only reason people use 4K displays is for the better image quality.