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I recently upgraded to a 1060 6GB card (at inflated prices, because it didn’t look like there’d ever be a break in the storm). I got to thinking, I doubt I’ll

I recently upgraded to a 1060 6GB card (at inflated prices, because it didn’t look like there’d ever be a break in the storm). I got to thinking, I doubt I’ll ever feel much need to upgrade the screen I game on from 1080p to 4k, mostly because I sit across the room and my eyes naturally antialias things at distance... Given that combination of factors, I have to wonder what it’ll take to make me want to upgrade from my modest 1060. I can’t imagine what sort of incremental improvement video hacks will make this card too slow at 1080p. I have to wonder if 4k gaming and VR are the stopgaps that’ll keep some demand for improved gaming performance until some paradigm shift happens, such as the mainstreaming of realtime raytracing. It’s crazy to think that since my first Voodoo video card until now, it’s just been a steady evolution and layering of graphical hacks. We’ve known since before then that eventually raytracing would be an optimal case. I wonder how far away from a total revamping of 3D graphics we are... two generations of GPUs? Three?

bitL 8y ago
Raytracing is faking it as well, but the illusion is a bit better ;-)
- peatmoss 8y ago
  I suppose if the universe is in fact a hologram as some scientists have hypothesized, and we’re just living in a 3d projection then we could say reality is faking it :-) But the current gen video hacks and future raytracing are pretty hard to compare. Raytracing can be an accurate simulation of the physics properties of light. I suppose the biggest caveat is whether you’re doing forward or backward raytracing. Backward raytracing simulates only the photons relevant to the observer. Forward raytracing simulates photons from various light sources, a small fraction of which are observed by the camera. Both are still based on the physical path of virtual photons, which as far as models go, is a pretty solid illusion!
  - dgacmu 8y ago
    We still fake the surface properties. Skin, for example, involves a lot of subsurface scattering, and we're very far from that. So texture maps it will be for a long time.
mrguyorama 8y ago
I got in on an RX 580 8GB for about $320 and it handles most VR games pretty damn well. I was upgrading from an R7 270 so it was a great value and would only need to be replaced if I decide I'm willing to burn ~$1500 for the Vive pro. Depending on what you had before the 1060, you may have gotten a super bad break on the upgrade. My point I guess is, the VR stopgap is already over. Expensive laptops can now do some VR. IE, why would I pay between 800-1000 dollars for the vega line or 1080ti line for a somewhat mild improvement? It takes last gen stuff to run VR well, so the profit margins are shrinking
jdietrich 8y ago
>Given that combination of factors, I have to wonder what it’ll take to make me want to upgrade from my modest 1060. I can’t imagine what sort of incremental improvement video hacks will make this card too slow at 1080p. What made you want to upgrade to your 1060? New, more graphically demanding games. Why are those new games more demanding? Because people bought newer, faster GPUs. That steady evolution of graphical hacks will march on for as long as hardware improves. Ambient occlusion is a hack, ray tracing is a hack, the rendering equation is a hack. There will be no revolution, just another generation of GPUs and another generation of APIs, with developers trying to squeeze the most out of them. Nvidia are fairly bullish about real-time raytracing, but that's just another incremental step. It's potentially a backwards step in many cases, because a lot of other tasks are competing for GPU resources. Illumination is only one aspect of simulating a realistic 3D scene.
andrewmcwatters 8y ago
I'm glad you mentioned this, because it reinforced some of my feelings on the state of the industry from the consumer end. Fill rate is a tremendous part of GPU performance, so barring any big, relevant demand for 4K resolution or above with VR, I just don't see the need. Game engines have this tremendous opportunity, that's now available with technology like Vulkan and Metal, to provide high performance rendering, but I think more people are concerned with games that frankly, are just fun. We're at a really exciting intersection in technology right now, no doubt. But as far as the hardware goes, you almost have to check prices like the damn stock market.
GuB-42 8y ago
I've heard about realtime raytracing for decades, and it regularly shown off in demos, but it never materialized in commercial engines. Even now, when we have realtime graphics that look better than movies from 20 years ago, we are still using rasterization, and it shows no sign of stopping. Raytracing doesn't mean better. It is just a different solution to the rendering equation, and what it does better than rasterization (mostly refraction) is not worth the additional cost. Especially considering that it won't help with global illumination, which is the big thing right now. The closest thing we have to a "perfect" rendering technique is pathtracing, but for something that isn't a sphere or 8 cubes in a box, we are far, far from realtime rendering.

bitL 8y ago

Raytracing is faking it as well, but the illusion is a bit better ;-)

peatmoss 8y ago
I suppose if the universe is in fact a hologram as some scientists have hypothesized, and we’re just living in a 3d projection then we could say reality is faking it :-) But the current gen video hacks and future raytracing are pretty hard to compare. Raytracing can be an accurate simulation of the physics properties of light. I suppose the biggest caveat is whether you’re doing forward or backward raytracing. Backward raytracing simulates only the photons relevant to the observer. Forward raytracing simulates photons from various light sources, a small fraction of which are observed by the camera. Both are still based on the physical path of virtual photons, which as far as models go, is a pretty solid illusion!
- dgacmu 8y ago
  We still fake the surface properties. Skin, for example, involves a lot of subsurface scattering, and we're very far from that. So texture maps it will be for a long time.

mrguyorama 8y ago

I got in on an RX 580 8GB for about $320 and it handles most VR games pretty damn well. I was upgrading from an R7 270 so it was a great value and would only need to be replaced if I decide I'm willing to burn ~$1500 for the Vive pro. Depending on what you had before the 1060, you may have gotten a super bad break on the upgrade. My point I guess is, the VR stopgap is already over. Expensive laptops can now do some VR. IE, why would I pay between 800-1000 dollars for the vega line or 1080ti line for a somewhat mild improvement? It takes last gen stuff to run VR well, so the profit margins are shrinking

jdietrich 8y ago

>Given that combination of factors, I have to wonder what it’ll take to make me want to upgrade from my modest 1060. I can’t imagine what sort of incremental improvement video hacks will make this card too slow at 1080p. What made you want to upgrade to your 1060? New, more graphically demanding games. Why are those new games more demanding? Because people bought newer, faster GPUs. That steady evolution of graphical hacks will march on for as long as hardware improves. Ambient occlusion is a hack, ray tracing is a hack, the rendering equation is a hack. There will be no revolution, just another generation of GPUs and another generation of APIs, with developers trying to squeeze the most out of them. Nvidia are fairly bullish about real-time raytracing, but that's just another incremental step. It's potentially a backwards step in many cases, because a lot of other tasks are competing for GPU resources. Illumination is only one aspect of simulating a realistic 3D scene.

andrewmcwatters 8y ago

I'm glad you mentioned this, because it reinforced some of my feelings on the state of the industry from the consumer end. Fill rate is a tremendous part of GPU performance, so barring any big, relevant demand for 4K resolution or above with VR, I just don't see the need. Game engines have this tremendous opportunity, that's now available with technology like Vulkan and Metal, to provide high performance rendering, but I think more people are concerned with games that frankly, are just fun. We're at a really exciting intersection in technology right now, no doubt. But as far as the hardware goes, you almost have to check prices like the damn stock market.

GuB-42 8y ago

I've heard about realtime raytracing for decades, and it regularly shown off in demos, but it never materialized in commercial engines. Even now, when we have realtime graphics that look better than movies from 20 years ago, we are still using rasterization, and it shows no sign of stopping. Raytracing doesn't mean better. It is just a different solution to the rendering equation, and what it does better than rasterization (mostly refraction) is not worth the additional cost. Especially considering that it won't help with global illumination, which is the big thing right now. The closest thing we have to a "perfect" rendering technique is pathtracing, but for something that isn't a sphere or 8 cubes in a box, we are far, far from realtime rendering.