5 ms·

RDNA2’s anemic RT performance was such a letdown. RDNA3 wasn’t much better, hopefully AMD gets it together with RDNA4

metalliqaz 4y ago
That's largely Nvidia marketing spin. RT in games during RDNA2's lifetime, and even today, is little more than a gimmick that causes huge performance impact for fidelity that is barely noticeable while actually playing. It isn't even real ray tracing. And even further, even on the RTX parts, using RT usually requires rendering at a much lower resolution and then upscaling. With DLSS3, they just go ahead and start inserting extrapolated frames to get the FPS numbers up. It's hard to believe gamers are willing to make that trade to be honest. If it was pitched together as all one package many years ago, they'd have been laughed out of the room.
- xbmcuser 4y ago
  Yeah it will at the minimum take another 5-6 years before raytracing of current gen highend cards reaches med teir cards and maybe consoles as well. Then only will we get games made for and properly use ray tracing. Today it is great for the wow factor but most people disable it to get better fps while playing.
- pixelesque 4y ago
  While it might not be fully-ready for games yet, you can see from the Blender GPU rendering benchmarks (https://www.phoronix.com/review/blender-33-nvidia-amd https://www.phoronix.com/review/blender-33-nvidia-amd) that compare nvidia CUDA (no ray tracing hardware acceleration support, just done in software) vs OptiX the advantage hardware raytracing provides, and how AMD are at least one generation behind performance-wise.
- xbar 4y ago
  I could be wrong, but I always saw Nvidia's pitch about ray-tracing to be a publisher-targeted message. "You can fire all your lighting artists with RTX."
  - aPoCoMiLogin 4y ago
    still, with 99% of the available hardware without RT capabilities, someone has to handle it somehow, so the pitch in any way was pure marketing gymnastics at best
- RetpolineDrama 4y ago
  >That's largely Nvidia marketing spin. Hardly, every game I play now has RT and RDNA2 is crap at it. It was their first go at it sure, but RDNA2 is also what the consoles have to put up with so the subpar raytracing performance had an outsized effect on the industry. >RT in games during RDNA2's lifetime, and even today, is little more than a gimmick Absolutely, categorically false. >that is barely noticeable while actually playing. This is not true in the slightest. >It isn't even real ray tracing. It's true that raytraced effects is not _full path tracing_. It still makes an enormous visual difference via things like RTGI. >And even further, even on the RTX parts, using RT usually requires rendering at a much lower resolution and then upscaling. Yes, this is another area AMD was way behind and recently almost caught up. DLSS2.x is amazing, letting me render at 1440p scaled to 4K with an output that _exceeeds_ 4K native quality in many games/contexts (thanks to 4K native also running TAA, which has other issues). >With DLSS3, they just go ahead and start inserting extrapolated frames to get the FPS numbers up You're using outdated terms. DLSS3.x includes _both_ the 2.x image upscaling tech and DLFG (deep learning frame generation) that was previously called "DLSS3". DLFG is an optional feature of the 3.x SDK that's only supported on 4000 series GPUs. DLFG also works very well, and both initial reviews and user feedback on reddit has been overwhelmingly positive. >It's hard to believe gamers are willing to make that trade to be honest. What trade? >If it was pitched together as all one package many years ago, they'd have been laughed out of the room. This entire post just seems like AMD cope, rather than a fair evaluation of the current state of RT. RDNA3 upped RT performance significantly but it's still not enough.
  - smolder 4y ago
    > What trade? More input latency plus whatever quality loss is incurred to pull frames out of thin air. The latency is a big trade off for competitive reaction-time-based games. It's often true that people can't easily feel the difference of a few extra ms or tens of ms in input latency. It is nonetheless a statistical disadvantage, as a players reaction times will be too slow in a higher percentage of cases since they've had a bit of their reaction window robbed by input latency.
    - newZWhoDis 4y ago
- bee_rider 4y ago
  Sometimes I go to 30fps so I can have some nice bells and whistles on my older, weaker card. FPS isn’t really that big a deal outside of the competitive scene I think.
TheBigSalad 4y ago
The 4090 is the only GPU that does ray tracing well enough to bother to enable it.
- RetpolineDrama 4y ago
  Nonsense. I've been running RT since the 2080ti (2018) and Metro Exodus (2019) on every game that supports it, rendering 1440p to 4K via DLSS. RT has been "usable" for years. Granted, at the time I was only targeting 4k60 and now I target 4k120
  - izacus 4y ago
    The issue might be that AMD users don't get DLSS so the performance is necessarily worse... and FSR (as DLSS alternative) simply isn't up to par.
    - formerly_proven 4y ago
      Another example of poor software strategy hurting AMD.
- eropple 4y ago
  I dunno, my 2070 Super was usable with DLSS and my 4070 Ti (I'd have gotten a 3080 instead, but I have use of the new NVENC stuff) plays Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K60 with everything maxed out. It looks amazing.
hajile 4y ago
It remains to be seen how well RDNA3 actually works. Their biggest changes around making culling and intermediate ray calculations faster require software changes. Honestly though, I feel like most people would rather get higher framerates.

That's largely Nvidia marketing spin. RT in games during RDNA2's lifetime, and even today, is little more than a gimmick that causes huge performance impact for fidelity that is barely noticeable while actually playing. It isn't even real ray tracing. And even further, even on the RTX parts, using RT usually requires rendering at a much lower resolution and then upscaling. With DLSS3, they just go ahead and start inserting extrapolated frames to get the FPS numbers up. It's hard to believe gamers are willing to make that trade to be honest. If it was pitched together as all one package many years ago, they'd have been laughed out of the room.

xbmcuser 4y ago
Yeah it will at the minimum take another 5-6 years before raytracing of current gen highend cards reaches med teir cards and maybe consoles as well. Then only will we get games made for and properly use ray tracing. Today it is great for the wow factor but most people disable it to get better fps while playing.
pixelesque 4y ago
While it might not be fully-ready for games yet, you can see from the Blender GPU rendering benchmarks (https://www.phoronix.com/review/blender-33-nvidia-amd https://www.phoronix.com/review/blender-33-nvidia-amd) that compare nvidia CUDA (no ray tracing hardware acceleration support, just done in software) vs OptiX the advantage hardware raytracing provides, and how AMD are at least one generation behind performance-wise.
xbar 4y ago
I could be wrong, but I always saw Nvidia's pitch about ray-tracing to be a publisher-targeted message. "You can fire all your lighting artists with RTX."
- aPoCoMiLogin 4y ago
  still, with 99% of the available hardware without RT capabilities, someone has to handle it somehow, so the pitch in any way was pure marketing gymnastics at best
RetpolineDrama 4y ago
>That's largely Nvidia marketing spin. Hardly, every game I play now has RT and RDNA2 is crap at it. It was their first go at it sure, but RDNA2 is also what the consoles have to put up with so the subpar raytracing performance had an outsized effect on the industry. >RT in games during RDNA2's lifetime, and even today, is little more than a gimmick Absolutely, categorically false. >that is barely noticeable while actually playing. This is not true in the slightest. >It isn't even real ray tracing. It's true that raytraced effects is not _full path tracing_. It still makes an enormous visual difference via things like RTGI. >And even further, even on the RTX parts, using RT usually requires rendering at a much lower resolution and then upscaling. Yes, this is another area AMD was way behind and recently almost caught up. DLSS2.x is amazing, letting me render at 1440p scaled to 4K with an output that _exceeeds_ 4K native quality in many games/contexts (thanks to 4K native also running TAA, which has other issues). >With DLSS3, they just go ahead and start inserting extrapolated frames to get the FPS numbers up You're using outdated terms. DLSS3.x includes _both_ the 2.x image upscaling tech and DLFG (deep learning frame generation) that was previously called "DLSS3". DLFG is an optional feature of the 3.x SDK that's only supported on 4000 series GPUs. DLFG also works very well, and both initial reviews and user feedback on reddit has been overwhelmingly positive. >It's hard to believe gamers are willing to make that trade to be honest. What trade? >If it was pitched together as all one package many years ago, they'd have been laughed out of the room. This entire post just seems like AMD cope, rather than a fair evaluation of the current state of RT. RDNA3 upped RT performance significantly but it's still not enough.
- smolder 4y ago
  > What trade? More input latency plus whatever quality loss is incurred to pull frames out of thin air. The latency is a big trade off for competitive reaction-time-based games. It's often true that people can't easily feel the difference of a few extra ms or tens of ms in input latency. It is nonetheless a statistical disadvantage, as a players reaction times will be too slow in a higher percentage of cases since they've had a bit of their reaction window robbed by input latency.
  - newZWhoDis 4y ago
bee_rider 4y ago
Sometimes I go to 30fps so I can have some nice bells and whistles on my older, weaker card. FPS isn’t really that big a deal outside of the competitive scene I think.

TheBigSalad 4y ago

The 4090 is the only GPU that does ray tracing well enough to bother to enable it.

RetpolineDrama 4y ago
Nonsense. I've been running RT since the 2080ti (2018) and Metro Exodus (2019) on every game that supports it, rendering 1440p to 4K via DLSS. RT has been "usable" for years. Granted, at the time I was only targeting 4k60 and now I target 4k120
- izacus 4y ago
  The issue might be that AMD users don't get DLSS so the performance is necessarily worse... and FSR (as DLSS alternative) simply isn't up to par.
  - formerly_proven 4y ago
    Another example of poor software strategy hurting AMD.
eropple 4y ago
I dunno, my 2070 Super was usable with DLSS and my 4070 Ti (I'd have gotten a 3080 instead, but I have use of the new NVENC stuff) plays Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K60 with everything maxed out. It looks amazing.

hajile 4y ago

It remains to be seen how well RDNA3 actually works. Their biggest changes around making culling and intermediate ray calculations faster require software changes. Honestly though, I feel like most people would rather get higher framerates.