3 ms·

> is RT really necessary to play games? Who cares about real-world reflections? I barely play video games but I definitely do

Vampiero 2y ago
Indeed you're not a gamer, but you're the target audience for gaming advertisements and $2000 GPUs. I still play traditional roguelikes from the 80s (and their modern counterparts) and I'm a passionate gamer. I don't need a fancy GPU to enjoy the masterpieces. Because at the end of the day nowhere in the definition of "game" is there a requirement for realistic graphics -- and what passes off as realistic changes from decade to decade anyway. A game is about gameplay, and you can have great gameplay with barely any graphics at all. I'd leave raytracing to those who like messing with GLSL on shadertoy; now people like me have 0 options if they want a good budget card that just has good raster performance and no AI/RTX bullshit. And ON TOP OF THAT, every game engine has turned to utter shit in the last 5-10 years. Awful performance, awful graphics, forced sub-100% resolution... And in order to get anything that doesn't look like shit and runs at a passable framerate, you need to enable DLSS. Great
- bowsamic 2y ago
  I play roguelikes too
williamDafoe 2y ago
1. Because you shoot at puddles? 2. Because you play at night after a rainstorm? Really, these are the only 2 situations where ray tracing makes much of a difference. We already have simulated shadowing in many games and it works pretty well, actually.
- bowsamic 2y ago
  I just find screen space effects a bit jarring
- t-writescode 2y ago
  Yes, actually. A lot of games use water, a lot, in their scenes (70% of the planet is covered in it, after all), and that does improve immersion and feels nice to look at. Silent Hill 2 Remake and Black Myth: Wukong both have a meaningful amount of water in them and are improved visually with raytracing for those exact reasons.
  - wruza 2y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXpoJlB8Zfg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXpoJlB8Zfg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyn2NeA6hI0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyn2NeA6hI0 Can you please point at the mentioned effects here? Immersion in what? Looks like PS4-gen Tomb Raider to me, honestly. All these water reflections existed long before RTX, it didn't introduce reflective surfaces. What it did introduce is dynamic reflections/ambience, which are a very specific thing to be found in the videos above. does improve immersion and feels nice to look at I bet that this is purely synthetic because RTX gets pushed down the players throat by not implementing any RTX-off graphics at all.
    - t-writescode 2y ago
      > by not implementing any RTX-off graphics at all. Just taking this one, you actually make a point about having a raytracing-ready graphics card for me. If all the games are doing the hard and mathematically taxing reflection and light-bouncing work through raytracing now and without even an option for non-raytraced, then raytracing is where we're going and having a good RT card is, now or very soon, a requirement.
      - wruza 2y ago
        It’s not me making this point, but nvidia’s green paper agreements with particular studios to milk you for more money for basically same graphics we had at TR:ROTT. If you’re fine with that, godspeed. But “we” are not going anywhere RT “now”. Most of Steam plays on xx60 and equivalents, which cannot reasonably run RT-only, so there’s no natural incentive to go there.

Vampiero 2y ago

Indeed you're not a gamer, but you're the target audience for gaming advertisements and $2000 GPUs. I still play traditional roguelikes from the 80s (and their modern counterparts) and I'm a passionate gamer. I don't need a fancy GPU to enjoy the masterpieces. Because at the end of the day nowhere in the definition of "game" is there a requirement for realistic graphics -- and what passes off as realistic changes from decade to decade anyway. A game is about gameplay, and you can have great gameplay with barely any graphics at all. I'd leave raytracing to those who like messing with GLSL on shadertoy; now people like me have 0 options if they want a good budget card that just has good raster performance and no AI/RTX bullshit. And ON TOP OF THAT, every game engine has turned to utter shit in the last 5-10 years. Awful performance, awful graphics, forced sub-100% resolution... And in order to get anything that doesn't look like shit and runs at a passable framerate, you need to enable DLSS. Great

bowsamic 2y ago
I play roguelikes too

williamDafoe 2y ago

1. Because you shoot at puddles? 2. Because you play at night after a rainstorm? Really, these are the only 2 situations where ray tracing makes much of a difference. We already have simulated shadowing in many games and it works pretty well, actually.

bowsamic 2y ago
I just find screen space effects a bit jarring
t-writescode 2y ago
Yes, actually. A lot of games use water, a lot, in their scenes (70% of the planet is covered in it, after all), and that does improve immersion and feels nice to look at. Silent Hill 2 Remake and Black Myth: Wukong both have a meaningful amount of water in them and are improved visually with raytracing for those exact reasons.
- wruza 2y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXpoJlB8Zfg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXpoJlB8Zfg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyn2NeA6hI0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyn2NeA6hI0 Can you please point at the mentioned effects here? Immersion in what? Looks like PS4-gen Tomb Raider to me, honestly. All these water reflections existed long before RTX, it didn't introduce reflective surfaces. What it did introduce is dynamic reflections/ambience, which are a very specific thing to be found in the videos above. does improve immersion and feels nice to look at I bet that this is purely synthetic because RTX gets pushed down the players throat by not implementing any RTX-off graphics at all.
  - t-writescode 2y ago
    > by not implementing any RTX-off graphics at all. Just taking this one, you actually make a point about having a raytracing-ready graphics card for me. If all the games are doing the hard and mathematically taxing reflection and light-bouncing work through raytracing now and without even an option for non-raytraced, then raytracing is where we're going and having a good RT card is, now or very soon, a requirement.
    - wruza 2y ago
      It’s not me making this point, but nvidia’s green paper agreements with particular studios to milk you for more money for basically same graphics we had at TR:ROTT. If you’re fine with that, godspeed. But “we” are not going anywhere RT “now”. Most of Steam plays on xx60 and equivalents, which cannot reasonably run RT-only, so there’s no natural incentive to go there.