GeForce 411.63 driver : Ray tracing support... for Pascal* (*with 8GB VRAM or more)

[agent_x007]

In latest release of the GeForce Forceware drivers (411.63), NV made an entry for Vulkan 1.1 support :

Quote

New extensions for Turing GPUs:
− VK_NVX_raytracing (also available for Pascal GPUs with 8GB or more video memory, and Volta GPUs)
− VK_NV_compute_shader_derivatives
− VK_NV_corner_sampled_image
− VK_NV_fragment_shader_barycentric
− VK_NV_mesh_shader
− VK_NV_representative_fragment_test
− VK_NV_scissor_exclusive
− VK_NV_shader_image_footprint
− VK_NV_shading_rate_image

Source : LINK

Few of my thoughts :
1) Not sure how much it means to us (Pascal users), because it's only one extension... 
2) I get the feeling it's a compatibility only thing - to show how "bad" Pascal is, and how "good" Turing can be.
3) Maybe AMD also enables support for this at a later date (?).
4) It probably be too slow to be of any use on Pascal GPUs (or effect will be VERY limited, to keep framerate above slideshow level).

[Jurrunio]

Maybe it's DX12 raytracing stuff only, without the RTX extras?

[Frankenburger]

That's a really interesting find. I figured Nvidia would try and lock down proprietary ray tracing to RTX. If they are adding support, I'm totally gonna test it out in SotTR when ray traced shadows become a thing.

[agent_x007]

@Jurrunio That's the thing, it's Vulkan 1.1 specific.
No new DirectX 12 extensions can be found inside the pdf.
Only one footnote :

Quote

Microsoft's DXR developer package, consisting of DXR-enabled D3D runtimes, HLSL compiler, and headers

Maybe they are waitng for M$ to make a move, before they release RTX capable DirectX 12 driver (with all new extensions listed) ?

[Fasauceome]

It's good to see that Nvidia saying RT is easy to implement is actually true, and that it's being made accessible like this. Also, glad to have a 1070 and have the very base requirements for it.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

OOH I have the best GPU on Pascal, SotTR here I come

[PlayStation 2]

So basically, the 1080 Ti and the Titan Xp?

[agent_x007]

4 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

So basically, the 1080 Ti and the Titan Xp?

They stated "8GB or more" in pdf.
So, everything above GTX 1060 6GB I guess ?
(ie. GTX 1070 / 1070 Ti / 1080 / 1080 Ti / "Titan XP" / Titan Xp / Titan V).

[PlayStation 2]

1 minute ago, agent_x007 said:

They stated "8GB or more" in pdf.
So, everything above GTX 1060 6GB (GTX 1070/1070 Ti/1080/1080 Ti/Titan XP/Titan Xp/Titan V).

Oh, that title is very confusing. Should change that to "(*8GB or more VRAM required)"

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

2 minutes ago, agent_x007 said:

They stated "8GB or more" in pdf.
So, everything above GTX 1060 6GB I guess ?
(ie. GTX 1070 / 1070 Ti / 1080 / 1080 Ti / "Titan XP" / Titan Xp / Titan V).

That's not confoozing at all, tho a 1080 Ti should be able to RT I doubt a 1070 will do much

[agent_x007]

2 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Oh, that title is very confusing. Should change that to "(*8GB or more VRAM required)"

Done. Thank you for pointing that out.