Does RT (ray tracing) in game even worth ?

[Winterlight]

I tried a lot games with RT ON and basically I not see any difference. Exception is RT reflection that make very clear visual difference in game. Anything else like shadows, ambient occlusion can't even tell difference.I think only RT reflection is worth and anything else is just worthless. I'm not even talk that most game not even use full RT in whole game world. For example RT reflection make huge difference but I still see in games that is combined with screen space reflection and only  part of game wrold  use RT not whole game world. Exception probably is mirrors that use RT reflection in whole game. Btw sometime I really not understand why games from 10+ year ago achieve way better reflection quality on flat ojects like ground, water than todays game even with RT can't achieve that level reflection quality.

[Latvian Video]

the only time ive properly used RT is in minecraft RTX. but outside of that ive never used it.

[Levent]

I turn it on in every game that supports it and I enjoy it thoroughly. So, for me absolutely.

[Winterlight]

5 minutes ago, Levent said:

I turn it on in every game that supports it and I enjoy it thoroughly. So, for me absolutely.

But I not see any difference except massive FPS drop even with 4070 Ti. Exception as I said is RT reflection that is really worth. That new path tracing that soon come to Cyberpunk 2077 looks just more bright over all. Why not just use photo filter in game for same result with way less cost.

[podkall]

1 minute ago, Winterlight said:

But I not see any difference except massive FPS drop even with 4070 Ti. Exception as I said is RT reflection that is really worth.

RT means instead of approximate fake reflection that looks real, you get even more realistic, more accurate or even more detailed reflections (or lighting)

 

reflexions and lightning was made in videogames before RayTracing and has been made quite realistic already, RayTracing is just something that takes it to the next level by being very precise basically, ofc at the cost of fps

[Winterlight]

2 minutes ago, podkall said:

RT means instead of approximate fake reflection that looks real, you get even more realistic, more accurate or even more detailed reflections (or lighting)

 

reflexions and lightning was made in videogames before RayTracing and has been made quite realistic already, RayTracing is just something that takes it to the next level by being very precise basically, ofc at the cost of fps

RT reflection is always welcome in game not like shadows, ambient occlusion that make no difference. Btw somtime really not understand why some game from 10+ year ago achieve way better reflection quality on flat object like ground, water clear as mirror and reflect everything even what is not in screen and they not use any RT at that times.

[tikker]

13 minutes ago, podkall said:

RT means instead of approximate fake reflection that looks real, you get even more realistic, more accurate or even more detailed reflections (or lighting)

 

reflexions and lightning was made in videogames before RayTracing and has been made quite realistic already, RayTracing is just something that takes it to the next level by being very precise basically, ofc at the cost of fps

I was just about to say that all the other techniques were honed to "cheat" while still looking realistic, so it makes sense that they can look great already.

  

27 minutes ago, Winterlight said:

Btw sometime I really not understand why games from 10+ year ago achieve way better reflection quality on flat ojects like ground, water than todays game even with RT can't achieve that level reflection quality.

For one games were much simpler 10+ years ago. This one is probably appropriate:

 

Ray tracing is like a cherry on top. We have already put tremendous effort into making lighting look realistic. Ray traced lighting adds that final detail to it that indeed you probably miss at first glance, but as a whole is subtly more accurate. Reflections will be most noticeable, because they are the most visually interesting and draw the most attention. You are much more likely to notice your character or the world being accurately reflected in a mirror or puddle than to notice that a beam of sunlight is actually accurately falling through a window instead of being a fake volumetric light.

 

It's also still computationally expensive which may drive the choice to only implement it where it will provide the most notable impact, such as reflections.

[WereCat]

Most games just have RT shadows or reflections so the difference is small and you need to know what to look for to appreciate it.

Few games have a global illumination RT and the performance hit in those is massive and the RT does look good. But that said if the game does a good job with baking in light and shadows into textures and there is not much movement in the environment (like in-door areas) then it's almost indistinguishable from RT with so much more performance it's not even worth to turn on RT.

Where RT shines are outdoors situations with a lot of stuff going on.

IMO, Minecraft has the best RT and I haven't played any other game where I would even consider to turn it on besides just trying it as I can't really appreciate the difference at the cost of performance since the performance hit actually bothers me and gets in the way of my gameplay.

[podkall]

1 hour ago, tikker said:

I was just about to say that all the other techniques were honed to "cheat" while still looking realistic, so it makes sense that they can look great already.

yep I mean, if you really want to say it very very very simply, it's simple geometry calculation for mirror, and then flip the graphics or something

 

1 hour ago, Winterlight said:

RT reflection is always welcome in game not like shadows, ambient occlusion that make no difference.

I actually see huge difference in shadows, and I see also huge difference in ambient on and off

[Winterlight]

2 hours ago, tikker said:

  

For one games were much simpler 10+ years ago. This one is probably appropriate:

 

But look this game not use any RT and it achieve very clear water reflections without any noise and most important it reflect everything not just what  you see in screen like screen space reflection do. Basically it looks like RT reflection but it don't use any RT to achieve that quality reflections. I understand that game graphic not look realistic but they solve screen space reflection problem that reflect only what you see on sreen and they don't need at all use RT to solve  that problem.

[tikker]

2 minutes ago, Winterlight said:

But look this game not use any RT and it achieve very clear water reflections without any noise and most important it reflect everything not just what  yousee in screen liek screen spcae reflection do. Basically it looks like RT reflection but it don't use any RT to achieve that quality reflections.

I don't recognise the game, but by this screenshot I would say this probably falls in the easier category to do reflections for. The geometry is relatively simple, there are no crazily highly detailed textures and the lighting doesn't look super complicated. I'm not argueing against non-RT reflections. The "looks like RT reflection" ties in to the earlier points made about how long we have spent perfecting "fake" reflections. They look really good, because the industry has put a lot of work into making reflections look good while not having to do expensive things like full on ray tracing.

[Holmes108]

Of course the quality of the implementation can vary wildly, but generally no, I don't think the visual change justifies the loss of frame rate. I think a good portion of people agree. But that doesn't mean RT shouldn't continue to be worked on. It's a fledgling feature. One day it will be even better, and the performance impact will be negligible (akin to how expensive AA used to be). 

 

So I still think it's a good and important technology to work on. 

[Tan3l6]

Wow Classic WoTLK with ray traced shadows looks cool.