GPUs and ray tracing

[4df5 4]

Is X better in 1440 p? is it necessary? What GPU are you using and is ray tracing matter at all in X 11?

[tonywob 4,770]

No, X-Plane does not use ray tracing

[blingthinger 649]

14 hours ago, tonywob said:

No, X-Plane does not use ray tracing

I heard once that the clouds are a ray-trace algorithm (and is the only one). True?

[Murmur 3,944]

10 hours ago, blingthinger said:

I heard once that the clouds are a ray-trace algorithm (and is the only one). True?

Clouds in XP12 (and AFAIK also in the other sim) use "ray marching", it sounds similar to ray tracing but it's a different technique which does not require ray-tracing capable GPUs.

[jarmstro 2,405]

Ray Tracing is not worth the bother. It hammers your GPU to death for no noticeable difference. At least that's what I've found in TW3. Yet another silly and rubbish fad from NVidia trying to make a silk purse out of a pigs ear. Ditto DlSS and all the other nonsense. Horsepower and amps are what you need.

Edited June 8, 2023 by jarmstro

[Colonel X 1,430]

12 hours ago, jarmstro said:

Ray Tracing is not worth the bother. It hammers your GPU to death for no noticeable difference. At least that's what I've found in TW3. Yet another silly and rubbish fad from NVidia trying to make a silk purse out of a pigs ear. Ditto DlSS and all the other nonsense. Horsepower and amps are what you need.

That is a very uninformed reply. Ray tracing is the greatest step in 3D graphics (particularly lighting) probably since texturing, while DLSS (especially 3) is the greatest performance hack ever for gaming. Let me add a video and you reconsider if it makes a difference...

 

 

[jarmstro 2,405]

Thanks for posting the video. A good watch. Admittedly I was just stating my views from my own personal experience and I only have an RTX3070. Ray Tracing in TW3 hammers my fps to the point where it is not worth the slight visual impact, and DLSS in MSFS causes blurred numbers in glass cockpits and looks worse than TAA  for very little fps gain? EDIT I'm going to give Ray Tracing another go with the latest TW3 patch...

Edited June 9, 2023 by jarmstro

[jarmstro 2,405]

Further to the above. Hmmm. The latest TW3 patch has improved fps a bit with Ray Tracing switched on. But not enough. And I'm not sure that I like the effect in that game. It's just like turning up the contrast to extreme levels? I accept, though, that it looks better but it makes playing the game much harder in situations where it's dark.

Edited June 9, 2023 by jarmstro

[blingthinger 649]

56 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

TW3

What is this TW3 you speak of?

[jarmstro 2,405]

15 minutes ago, blingthinger said:

What is this TW3 you speak of?

 The Witcher 3.  It's a role playing video game much like XP12 and MSFS.

Edited June 9, 2023 by jarmstro

[Colonel X 1,430]

12 hours ago, jarmstro said:

Further to the above. Hmmm. The latest TW3 patch has improved fps a bit with Ray Tracing switched on. But not enough. And I'm not sure that I like the effect in that game. It's just like turning up the contrast to extreme levels? I accept, though, that it looks better but it makes playing the game much harder in situations where it's dark.

I think if you want acceptable RT performance on the 3070, you need to combine it with DLSS. See if the "Quality" mode cuts it.

[blingthinger 649]

I don't see a big use case for ray in flight sim. It's really only a big deal when there's lots of light sources, reflections, and objects in close proximity to the camera. Cockpits could use it. Clouds obviously have to have it. Anything else? Rasterized water reflections and shadows seem to be good enough for the limited time one is on the ground. So at night at a busy terminal with lots of fill lights overhead? I bet the current deferred render of shadows could take care of that. Global illumination is mostly convincing already. Meh. I'm sure it will come along some day.

[jarmstro 2,405]

10 hours ago, Colonel X said:

I think if you want acceptable RT performance on the 3070, you need to combine it with DLSS. See if the "Quality" mode cuts it.

Thanks. TW3 is now playable for me with DLSS and Ray Tracing set to performance. Does it look better? Well, yes. A bit in some ways but not in others. I am still unconvinced that these slights of hands have much to offer with regard to flight sims and think that an RTX670 will offer more in terms of better graphics in four years time without the need for trickery.

Edited June 10, 2023 by jarmstro

[mSparks 2,086]

4 hours ago, jarmstro said:

Does it look better? Well, yes

Raytracing is a fairly misunderstood tech imho.

Like 3DS max has had raytracing support since at least 2004

https://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=169506

and has been an integral part of game development since the era first unreal engine.

The difference now is, all that lighting was precompiled, as in the art and textures contained all the extra lighting info.

and tricks that date back at least as far as duke nukem

whereas silicon like RTX enable all those calculations to be completed in between each frame rather than taking weeks on $50 million render farms.

Further, I know of only two games that are truly raytraced.

Portal RTX and Quake II RTX.

the rest are more like proving grounds and the developers getting familiar with what the tech can and cant do.

eventually, all games will end up raytraced - simply because its millions of dollars cheaper to build a title that looks like Cyberpunk 2077 using it, comoared to the "old tricks" that were used to develop Cyberpunk 2077.

But first enough people need the hardware capable of it to justify using solely raytracing on a new title - and that is a long way off.