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Started playing it yesterday with ray tracing turned off. Still absolutely stunning!

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
Are people really that invested into raytracing hype being so necessary for visuals? From what I was unless you're comparing RTX ON vs OFF side by side it's not noticeable enough to make a difference.
- rjh29 3y ago
  It depends how games use it. Spiderman 2 for example uses raytracing for reflections which are very important in New York (glass buildings, water, cars) and even uses it to draw rooms inside the skyscraper as you are climbing them. It's important enough that raytracing cannot be turned off even on the lowest quality settings.
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    No raytracing needed for the window interiors, it’s shader wizardry https://www.alanzucconi.com/2018/09/10/shader-showcase-9/ https://www.alanzucconi.com/2018/09/10/shader-showcase-9/
    - dleeftink 3y ago
      According to Fitzgerald, ray/path tracing is used for interiors in the most recent release: [0]: https://youtu.be/fuu_wseJnIE?t=3m26s https://youtu.be/fuu_wseJnIE?t=3m26s
      - ohhnoodont 3y ago
        Insomniac is incredible. I have great appreciation for studios willing to maintain their own engine and consistently push technological boundaries. Same with Remedy.
        imbnwa 3y ago
        With the horsepower behind Alan Wake 2, Control 2 is gonna be nuts
    - MBCook 3y ago
      That was for the first, which needed to run on a PS4. Spiderman 2 uses a very different system.
    - esperent 3y ago
      This article is from 2018 and talking about the original Spider-Man PS4 game. And I think it's still wrong - as far as I know they used cubemaps for the interiors in that game. So I think this article is mostly just an ad for a Unity addon.
      - wlesieutre 3y ago
        Article gives examples of the cube mapping interiors https://forum.unity.com/threads/interior-mapping.424676/#post-2751518 https://forum.unity.com/threads/interior-mapping.424676/#pos... You’re right about the new one though, they’ve apparently gone to raytracing for Spider-Man 2’s windows. I wonder if they’ll stick to raytracing always enabled if they do a PC port of this one.
- Veedrac 3y ago
  Alan Wake 2 doesn't really have the option to disable ray tracing, only to disable hardware ray tracing. Software ray tracing is pretty good for diffuse GI nowadays.

Are people really that invested into raytracing hype being so necessary for visuals? From what I was unless you're comparing RTX ON vs OFF side by side it's not noticeable enough to make a difference.

rjh29 3y ago
It depends how games use it. Spiderman 2 for example uses raytracing for reflections which are very important in New York (glass buildings, water, cars) and even uses it to draw rooms inside the skyscraper as you are climbing them. It's important enough that raytracing cannot be turned off even on the lowest quality settings.
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  No raytracing needed for the window interiors, it’s shader wizardry https://www.alanzucconi.com/2018/09/10/shader-showcase-9/ https://www.alanzucconi.com/2018/09/10/shader-showcase-9/
  - dleeftink 3y ago
    According to Fitzgerald, ray/path tracing is used for interiors in the most recent release: [0]: https://youtu.be/fuu_wseJnIE?t=3m26s https://youtu.be/fuu_wseJnIE?t=3m26s
    - ohhnoodont 3y ago
      Insomniac is incredible. I have great appreciation for studios willing to maintain their own engine and consistently push technological boundaries. Same with Remedy.
      - imbnwa 3y ago
        With the horsepower behind Alan Wake 2, Control 2 is gonna be nuts
  - MBCook 3y ago
    That was for the first, which needed to run on a PS4. Spiderman 2 uses a very different system.
  - esperent 3y ago
    This article is from 2018 and talking about the original Spider-Man PS4 game. And I think it's still wrong - as far as I know they used cubemaps for the interiors in that game. So I think this article is mostly just an ad for a Unity addon.
    - wlesieutre 3y ago
      Article gives examples of the cube mapping interiors https://forum.unity.com/threads/interior-mapping.424676/#post-2751518 https://forum.unity.com/threads/interior-mapping.424676/#pos... You’re right about the new one though, they’ve apparently gone to raytracing for Spider-Man 2’s windows. I wonder if they’ll stick to raytracing always enabled if they do a PC port of this one.
Veedrac 3y ago
Alan Wake 2 doesn't really have the option to disable ray tracing, only to disable hardware ray tracing. Software ray tracing is pretty good for diffuse GI nowadays.