Most Graphics Cards have just become (kind of) Obsolete thanks to Direct X 12 Ray Tracing Extension and Nvidia RTX with GameWorks 2.0

[AlTech]

Up Until now, graphics cards have been unable to properly do ray tracing at an acceptable level of performance.

 

Microsoft has announced an extension to Direct X 12 called DXR which supports Ray Tracing using dedicated hardware. Microsoft has also worked with Nvidia to develop a GameWorks feature called RTX.

 

Nvidia RTX is an AI driven Ray Tracing Technology developed by Nvidia for use in GameWorks enabled games and performs roughly 2-3x faster than DXR.

 

Most Current generation graphics cards are unable to perform Ray Tracing due to a lack of dedicated hardware.

 

Yes, your GTX 10 Series or Radeon RX VEGA series or older GPUs are now obsolete. They can't handle Ray Tracing and Ray Tracing is coming to games soon.

 

The first GPU architecture to support Nvidia RTX is expected to be Volta. GeForce Turing/Ampere (11/20 Series) will be the first GeForce series to support Nvidia RTX and DX12 DXR. It would be fair to assume that Radeon Navi will support DXR

 

Nvidia RTX will be available in GameWorks 2.0 SDK from Nvidia.

 

Back to the title and why current GPUs are obsolete: Ray Tracing is what is needed to make  the most realistic looking scene. Older GPUs (and most current GPUs) are unable to do this and will likely struggle in the upcoming years as Ray Tracing becomes more prevalent.

 

DXR and Nvidia RTX will be coming to the following game engines: EA Frostbite, Unity, Unreal, and a few other game engines.

 

As a side note: AMD are also working on a Ray Tracing Technology but not many details have been released regarding it.

 

This is really cool. That being said, I can't help but feel that consumers have been blindsided by this all of a sudden and the fact that this effectively makes basically all GPUs obsolete. Well, except if you're a baller and have the monies for Nvidia Titan V .

 

Source:

 

[Glennieboyyy007]

guess i can sell my 1070 now for more than i payed for it and wait untill next gen

[MyName13]

Obsolete? Maybe in 4 years.

[mr moose]

Just like T&L and hairworks, if my card can't handle RT I'll just turn it off until I am ready to upgrade.

[emosun]

If my current gpu runs crysis , then i've already achieved peak master race. 

[emosun]

Also keep in mind it took almost 9 years for the 2004 era Xenos gpu in the xbox 360 to be replaced by its successor. So ray tracing is a long ass way from being mainstream

[Coaxialgamer]

I didn't like money anyway

[Arika]

thread title: All GPUs are now obsolete

 

reality: there are no Games, engines or GPUs that use this tech and will be years before it becomes the standard.

 

the clickbait is real.

 

EDIT: i dont look forward to all the replies to "what GPU should i get" Simply being "WaIT foR RaYTraCING GpUS eveRyThinG ElsE iS ShIT"

[TechyBen]

They already did Quake in Raytracing. Looked exactly the same, but better water reflections.

[Nicnac]

maybe that is the reason for the delay in new cards from nvidia? (aside from maximising profit on the mining craze...)

Sounds like cool tech to improve gaming, has all that progress with shaders been for nothing now? Is ray tracing going to be the new standart? It certainly sounds like it could, just a shame that nvidia is trying to lure everyone into their exclusive developers "club" with game works...

[GoldenLag]

10 minutes ago, Sierra Fox said:

thread title: All GPUs are now obsolete

 

reality: there are no Games, engines or GPUs that use this tech and will be years before it becomes the standard.

 

the clickbait is real.

 

EDIT: i dont look forward to all the replies to "what GPU should i get" Simply being "WaIT foR RaYTraCING GpUS eveRyThinG ElsE iS ShIT"

Even FrostBite that EA uses probably wont use it in the upcoming battlefield. im seeing 2020 as the year when there will be Widespread implementation for this. Even then its not uncommon to turn down the graphics setting a little bit to not hurt performance. i dont see how this sets a gtx 1070/Vega 56 obselete. you could argue an R9 280 is obselete, but its still plays 1080p games reasonably well. 

[Sauron]

I think I'll just turn ray tracing off and live with it. I also think DX12 should be left to die, hopefully Vulkan gets something similar soon and makes it retrocompatible (if at all possible).

[Majestic]

If only AAA games were still worth a damn, I'd be able to give a damn. But AAA is shit, Live Services can go to hell, I'll be over here playing retrogames on my obsolete GPU.

[Bouzoo]

Unless they can't run anything they're not obsolete. Edit that title man. 

[porina]

Where am I? Not WCCF...

 

It's a new feature, I'm not going to hold my breath before anything makes good use of it beyond "because they can" tech demo type use cases. 

[Dabombinable]

You're forgetting how lazy devs can be.

 

[Taf the Ghost]

I'm pretty sure they've been trying to do Ray Tracing approaches for over 30 years. We'll see it when we see it.

[GoodBytes]

If anyone is interested in some details:

https://devblogs.nvidia.com/introduction-nvidia-rtx-directx-raytracing/

 

EA made a demo of the technology in action:

 

[samcool55]

DX12 adoption is slow AF, same goes for vulkan, i don't expect this to be in a game anytime soon.

It's likely by the time this is available in a few good games my graphics card needs to be replaced anyway.

[Taf the Ghost]

5 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

back in my school days we took 15 minutes to render ONE FRAME with a mental ray raytracer on Maya!!!!!! /shakes cane

Ray Tracing is kind of like Fusion Power: it's the next big thing! Only it's been the "Next Big Thing" for a very long time.

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, samcool55 said:

DX12 adoption is slow AF, same goes for vulkan, i don't expect this to be in a game anytime soon.

It's likely by the time this is available in a few good games my graphics card needs to be replaced anyway.

For me its definitely not a big deal-my GTX 970 is slowly starting to show some weakness at maxing out games at 1080p, and since it has some thermal+PCIe lane issues it'll be getting replaced in a couple of years (and getting put in a spare parts desktop which has a Xeon X5450/Q9650).

[cluelessgenius]

dude whats with the readical agenda. nothings obsolete. its gonna be how it is and was with every new technology. all thats gonna happen when you play a game with RTX on a card that doesnt support it is that its not gonna look as pretty. remember how many games had and still have multiple dx versions. even back on call of duty 2 you could selected wether you wanted dx 9 or 10. and i believe the same goes for activating vulkan or nvidia physics. doesnt mean your card is obsolete just means that stuff is gonna look prettier on newer cards than on older ones.

[Taja]

"Obsolete"

Just like a 750ti is still pretty good (though not for everyone), no card EVER becomes obsolete just because something better shows up.

 

That said, if this new tech improves the industry as a whole, thats going to be really nice.

 

[ItsMitch]

Obsolete is a bit wccftrash don't you think?

[laminutederire]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

I think I'll just turn ray tracing off and live with it. I also think DX12 should be left to die, hopefully Vulkan gets something similar soon and makes it retrocompatible (if at all possible).

Given their philosophy, we might need to wait and know what the AMD open source raytracing tech looks like. Hardware wise, Sony might be the one setting the time frame, as they'll probably be the next one to release a console in allegedly 2020 if I remember right.

By the looks of it those tech will be obselete themselves really fast, since its a very active area of research at academic level.

To that, it will probably take some time for developers to adapt their processes and understand how it works. Issue will be that they'll have to readapt a lot since new techniques are published once every other weeks or month on that type of subject.