Software Ray-Tracing?

[OMGITSAMACGAMER]

Hey guys...so me and my friend are working on a game (it pretty simple) but im wondering if there is any way to simulate something like ray tracing even if i don't have the hardware. I'd like the lighting  effects to look a bit fancier. So im just wondering...to implement ray tracing, do i need an rtx gpu?

Thx

[mariushm]

No, you don't need a GPU, but raytracing using CPU is extremely expensive, you'll probably won't get reasonable fps above 640x480 these days.

It depends on the number of rays per pixel you're casting (you could cast only a few rays for each group of pixels and using anti-aliasing or blurring or other effects to hide your tricks)

I suspect it's not raytracing what you need, there are plenty of other techniques when it comes to lightning in games.

[Mira Yurizaki]

No, you don't need RTX hardware to use ray tracing. If you were using DirectX 12, DXR has a fallback layer for GPUs that don't have hardware accelerated RT:

 

However keep in mind that "proper" ray tracing (or path tracing as it seems to be called) requires you to shoot a lot of rays to get a reasonably accurate picture.

 

You could do the simplest form of ray tracing which is ray casting. The original Wolfenstein 3D used this.

[OMGITSAMACGAMER]

5 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

No, you don't need RTX hardware to use ray tracing. If you were using DirectX 12, DXR has a fallback layer for GPUs that don't have hardware accelerated RT:

 

However keep in mind that "proper" ray tracing (or path tracing as it seems to be called) requires you to shoot a lot of rays to get a reasonably accurate picture.

 

You could do the simplest form of ray tracing which is ray casting. The original Wolfenstein 3D used this.

Ok, thx guys...so what would be the best looking but also best performing type of lighting technique to use?

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

Just now, OMGITSAMACGAMER said:

Ok, thx guys...so what would be the best looking but also best performing type of lighting technique to use?

Conventional rastering and shading, because so much of our technology has been designed around it.

[OMGITSAMACGAMER]

Thx guys!