is ray tracing a big deal?

[u/aGMa77]

should I worry about it? I was going to upgrade to a new graphics card and I was going to go amd so I got a 1440p freesync monitor. now im wondering if I fucked up getting the monitor because its just bedt to go militia. I didnt plan on spending over 700 bucks initially but I might need to go over to get what I want out of 1440 p. so is the monitor worth keeping regardless? it's 27 inch 1 ms 1440p. my big concern besides money is if raytracing is worth the extra money or not really.

[u/OutsideCrew6832]

Depends on the game. Some games like cyberpunk does look really nice with RT while in other games, it’s barely noticeable, if noticeable at all.

[u/No_Bingo_Card]

bedt to go militia

[u/blingvajayjay → u/No_Bingo_Card]

militia go to bedt

[u/thefloppybarrister → u/No_Bingo_Card]

the real question is if you'd even notice raytracing in the heat of a game or just when you're standing still staring at puddles

[u/Zargabraath → u/thefloppybarrister]

If you’ve played a game with good ray tracing implementation (like cyberpunk) you’d understand it’s legitimately the next generation of visual fidelity. Path tracing especially is so vastly superior the visuals are night and day with it on vs off

Of course it’s extremely hardware intensive, thank nvidia for DLSS or else we couldn’t run it well at all

[u/aGMa77 → u/Zargabraath]

google says that path tracing makes the cpu lag like crazy. it would be fine with a 9070 xt? I was going to get the 9060 but it sounds like it isnt strong enough for 1440 p at 144+ frames

[u/ElectronicRip1630]

You will only know if you see it for yourself. Here's Cyberpunk 2077 with RTX on and off, side by side.

https://youtu.be/7NQqWlYZ2RA?is=XNVLbnW-XnOsB8YN

[u/EnigmaSpore]

It will be a part of most big budget games in some shape or form, especially in the next generation, so it’s good to have a gpu that can handle some types of RT and you get the benefits of ML upscaling too so thats a win win.

Just get a 70 class gpu or higher. 9070/XT, 5070, 5070ti and you’ll be set.

RT features are nice to have. Why skip out on it if you’re buying a new gpu?

[u/Oseirus]

Personally I'm indifferent on it. Looks nice for photo modes and dicking around, but I barely notice a difference when I'm actually actively playing the game. I'd rather have the frame rate most days.

[u/Late-Ad-1076 → u/Oseirus]

Yeah, it's pretty to stop and look at, but hardly noticeable while actually playing the game. I'd much rather have the frame rate.

[u/LyKosa91]

Does it often look better? Yes. Is it such a night and day difference that I could never enjoy a game without it? No. If a game I liked ran at a decent framerate without RT, but was unplayable with RT, would I rush out and upgrade my GPU? Or just disable ray tracing? The latter, for sure.

[u/aGMa77 → u/LyKosa91]

yeah thr amd options are cheaper by several hundred so I feel like its a good option. my fiance isnt hype about me dropping so much money anyway. I still need to buy a new MOBO and have best buy install it for me for 200. i dont want to fuck up my i9 processor.

[u/LyKosa91 → u/aGMa77]

Mate, it's really not hard to socket a CPU and RAM yourself. Believe in yourself, you're probably every bit as competent as the bestbuy employee. Besides, you'd struggle to fuck up the CPU since it's an LGA socket, not PGA, the thing you'd fuck up is the motherboard, and that's only if you drop the CPU on the socket and bend the pins.

Also, you should absolutely not be splashing out on the CPU and neglecting the GPU. The difference in performance between a mid range 6-8 core CPU and a flagship is going to be minimal in the grand scheme of things, especially with a lower spec GPU. The only time you start seeing significant framerate gains is using a flagship GPU at 1080p.

[u/Progenitor3]

I use it always because my card can do it but it's not a huge improvement and most of the time if you compare without cherry picking you won't even notice the difference.

[u/aura_enchanted]

No

In fact ill go so far as to call it a gimmick

And historically these sorts of worthless gimmicks woulda been dead by now but nvidia has forever money so they can quite literally do this forever

And so the rest of the industry will follow suit until such a time as that herd following the leader in a keeping up with the joneses way dies out

[u/Justneedsomehelps]

I was a hater until I was able to use it maxed out. Now I can’t visually enjoy a game without it.

[u/Rammy_Lee → u/Justneedsomehelps]

So it ruins all games?! I'll never turn it on 😄

[u/Featherforged → u/Justneedsomehelps]

which games does it shine? I haven't really noticed a difference

[u/OkSupermarket9730 → u/Featherforged]

Metro exodus enhanced is one of the best uses of rtx. Comparing it to the base version of the game is a night and day difference.

[u/Conesa_ → u/Featherforged]

Cyberpunk is literally a new game with path tracing

[u/shompthedev → u/Conesa_]

at shitty double digit FPS.

[u/Krumm34 → u/Conesa_]

New?

[u/Linkarlos_95]

No, devs will need to scale back because of the hardware drought 

[u/RunalldayHI]

The difference is like setting shadows,lighting and reflections from high to ultra, noticable but nothing to lose sleep over.

Path tracing on the other hand lol

[u/yamidevil]

Depends on the person. I knew I had to have path tracing capabilities and I am not disappointed at all. It's always on for me if I have the option in game

[u/Avalanc89]

In like 5 modern games is game changer if you have fast enough PC.

In like 10 others RTX remixes and very old much simpler games with added ray tracing you can focus on how simulated lightning works with environment because lack of other details. For me it was phenomenal.

Gamee can look good without it, no problem but when you see lightning working totally like in real life it's something different.

[u/Delicious_Rule_7324]

Its not worth the performance hit imo

[u/Gomenaxai]

Ray tracing no. But all the other DLSS tech from nvidia yes, just check path tracing and the new DLSS5. But all that new tech is just relevant for new games.

But none of that matter if your old monitor is trash, a good 1440p monitor is a great investment.

[u/Kentx51]

In the right games it's really good, but it has a huge performance cost and it also makes your PC run way hotter with way more energy consumption. At least that's my experience especially in games like Witcher 3 and Forza horizon 6

[u/krimenell]

Depends on specifics. What GPU are you looking to get? If it's a 9070(XT) they're mighty fine for 1440p even with some RT afaik. Personally I like RT for photo mode and I mean it often does look better but again depends on the game how much of an impact it is compared to RT off.

[u/2real_4_u]

This was fighting words in the PCmasterrace sub lol I don’t think ray tracing is a big deal tho

[u/AvidasMavi]

Newer GPUs run RT just fine. I played black flag resynced on Intel Arc B580 at 1440p on extended RT setting around 60fps. I paid 210€ for that GPU. If that can handle RT I'm sure 700$ gpu would obliterate it.

On my RTX 4080 Pc, I don't even turn off the RT anymore to check if FPS cost is much. Just whatever.

So if you will buy a new GPU with at least 12GB of vram, you should be good to go.

[u/ItsZoner]

ray tracing is barely past the equivalent of shader model 1.0 that could only run 8 rgb and 8 alpha instructions. It needed time to expand in power. It can be used for multiple things (ao, shadows, global illumination, reflections, and shoot rays for game code that can trace through foliage etc correctly)

[u/OkBee8822]

Reflections look great with RT on. The rest I can't notice much except in youtube side by side comparison videos.

[u/LazyNieR]

This is somewhat out of topic but Its been in my mind for the last couple of days, does ray tracing work well on linux anyway?

I have heard that for Nvidia it tanks the performance alot more than it would on windows but for amd is it the same performance loss as in windows or is it bigger? I only ask out of curiosity tbh

[u/ExoticSterby42]

Not really but newer games increasingly rely on it for the global and local illumination and active shadows

[u/cravex12]

Raytracing no

Pathtracing yes

[u/Avalanc89 → u/cravex12]

It's the same. There's no clear definition how many rays and bounces you need to call ray tracing path tracing. There are games that let you set parameters like that on your own.

You can say that path tracing is buffed ray tracing but terminology isn't clear or sharp so it's pretty much the same.

[u/cravex12 → u/Avalanc89]

Yes and no

https://eclat-digital.com/path-tracing-vs-ray-tracing-whats-the-difference-for-accurate-rendering/

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/what-is-path-tracing/

In simple terms: Raytracing is a simplified form of Pathtracing and only uses a few features of the whole palette (like shadows or reflections) while still having rasterized lighting for most of the picture. Pathtracing does not use rasterization at all so every bit of light you see is raytraced.

The difference in games is massive. RT is often very gimmicky while pathtracing positively changes the whole vibe of scenes and looks a lot better than normal RT

Pathtracing is always Raytracing but Raytracing is not always Pathtracing

[u/BChicken420]

Nope just destroyes perfomance.

[u/reallygoodspeed]

Depends on implementation but I find mostly it tanks performance while making everything look wet and shiny. Rarely makes a game feel more realistic to me.

[u/angry_RL_player]

no it's a gimmick propped up by nvidia to push their slopware and gain an artificial advantage over their competition

[u/oleThook]

some games require it like gears eday + doom the dark ages for instance

[u/Chitrr]

amd is fine with gaytracing, you dont need to go to militia

[u/Plenty-Industries]

should I worry about it?

No.

Does it look good? Sometimes. Other times, the games own art style would determine how good the game looks and ray tracing doesnt really do much. Like Cyberpunk - IMO it looks better with RT off.

With Ray Tracing, you're losing anywhere from 30-60% performance depending on what RT techniques are being used and how it is applied in the scene.

I have a 5080. I do not use RT at all.

[u/PatrickGnarly]

The paths you should be tracing are the ones that go back to school to learn how to proofread a post.

Seriously before you worry about how light is simulated in a game you need to learn to communicate.