Linus Tech Tips: The video discusses the evolution and challenges of real-time ray tracing in gaming, highlighting its potential for realism but also the high hardware costs and performance issues.
Linus Tech Tips - Ray Tracing is MANDATORY Now
Ray tracing, a technology used for realistic lighting in games, has been around for decades but is now being implemented in real-time thanks to powerful GPUs. The video examines the performance of ray tracing in the game 'Indiana Jones and the Great Circle,' comparing high-end and entry-level GPUs. While the RTX 490 performs well, the RTX 2060 struggles, highlighting the high hardware demands of ray tracing. Despite its potential for realism, ray tracing increases hardware costs for gamers and developers, who face challenges in optimizing performance on early-generation cards. The video suggests that while ray tracing offers significant visual improvements, its implementation is still in its infancy, requiring further optimization and development.
The video also discusses the differences between rasterization and ray tracing, explaining that ray tracing simulates light paths for more realistic visuals. However, the transition to ray tracing has been costly and challenging, with developers needing to balance visual quality and performance. The video argues that while ray tracing is inevitable, it will take time to become mainstream, and current solutions involve AI-assisted upscaling and optimizations. The video concludes by suggesting that ray tracing will eventually lead to more realistic and visually stunning games, but the transition will require patience and further technological advancements.
Key Points:
- Ray tracing offers realistic lighting but requires powerful GPUs, increasing hardware costs.
- The RTX 490 performs well with ray tracing, but the RTX 2060 struggles, showing the technology's demands.
- Ray tracing is still in its early stages, needing optimization for better performance and visual quality.
- Developers face challenges in balancing ray tracing's visual benefits with performance issues.
- Ray tracing is inevitable in gaming, but its widespread adoption will take time and technological advancements.
Details:
1. 🎮 New Game Excitement vs. Hardware Reality
- Modern games require modern hardware with capabilities such as real-time ray tracing, which relies on powerful GPU accelerators.
- Ray tracing is an older technology now implemented in real-time due to advances in GPU technology, allowing for more realistic graphics.
- Upgrading to a GPU capable of real-time ray tracing is considered expensive, indicating a significant investment for enhanced gaming visuals.
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- Failure to upgrade hardware can result in a suboptimal gaming experience, lacking the enhanced visuals that modern games offer.
2. 🖥️ Understanding Ray Tracing in Modern Gaming
- "Indiana Jones and the Great Circle" is the first game developed with ray tracing as a core component, not just an optional enhancement.
- Two test systems were used: Nvidia's RTX 490 and 2060.
- RTX 490 can maintain over 60 frames per second at 4K resolution with maximum settings except for path tracing.
- RTX 2060 struggles with performance, achieving around 20 frames per second even at lower resolutions.
- Indiana Jones performs a VRAM test at boot, setting graphics to low if 12 GB or less is detected.
- Using a custom executable bypasses the VRAM check, but attempting higher settings can crash the game.
- Despite lower performance, ray tracing is still possible on older hardware, indicating some level of future-proofing.
- Ray tracing impacts game design by enhancing realism and visual detail, potentially altering player experience.
- The adoption of ray tracing suggests a shift towards more immersive gaming experiences, impacting future game development.
3. 💡 The Evolution and Technical Challenges of Ray Tracing
3.1. Overview and Evolution of Ray Tracing
3.2. Technical Challenges and Solutions
3.3. Future Trends and Implications
4. 🔍 Developer and Gamer Perspectives on Ray Tracing
- Developers initially expected time savings with ray tracing due to less manual lighting work, but this was offset by the need for more testing and optimization on early-generation graphics cards.
- Optimizations often required lowering visual settings, resulting in image quality that wasn't significantly better than traditional rasterization.
- Compromises in ray tracing led to issues such as noise and artifacts, with low ray counts causing a boiling effect due to inadequate lighting information accumulation and suboptimal denoising.
- Developers are still mastering ray tracing implementation both technically and artistically, with tools currently more rudimentary than for rasterization.
- Key features like light linking are not as straightforward in ray-traced scenes compared to rasterized ones.
- Ray tracing can enhance older games significantly through remasters, mods, or tools like NVIDIA's RTX Remix, despite potential performance hits.
- Full ray tracing can improve performance, as seen in Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, and may lead to reduced GPU die space for raster performance, allowing for cost savings.
5. 🚀 The Future of Ray Tracing: Challenges and Opportunities
- Nearly 1 in 30 PC gamers still use the GTX 1060, a 2016 graphics card, showing slow adoption of new technologies necessary for ray tracing.
- Ray tracing is becoming an essential part of gaming technology, much like mesh shaders, once seen as gimmicks but now beneficial.
- Games like Alan Wake 2 show that impressive visuals can be achieved on lower-end hardware if it supports modern features.
- Future ray tracing improvements will likely focus on optimizations and proprietary solutions like DLSS and ray reconstruction instead of native rendering without AI.
- In professional CG rendering, optimized shortcuts are favored over brute force methods, relevant for achieving high frame rates in gaming.
- Developers face challenges in ensuring compatibility and performance across diverse hardware specifications.
- The transition to newer technology is gradual, requiring careful balancing of performance and visual fidelity to appeal to a broad audience.
6. 💡 Conclusion and Sponsor Message
- Real-time rate tracing and AI upscaling are in early stages; users are currently covering initial costs.
- Future advancements expected in cinematic realism with r traced motion blur, depth of field, and hardware support for bidirectional path tracing to reduce noise.
- Optimism exists for easier developer-side implementation in the future.
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