Doom Eternal to skip ray tracing at launch

[Humza]

In brief: For anyone looking to slay Doom Eternal's vicious demons with realistic real-time reflections might be disappointed to know that the game won't be featuring ray tracing at launch. The rest, however, can look forward to causing chaos with the super shotgun when the title comes out in less than two months.

In a recent interview with Digital Foundry, id Software's Marty Stratton shed some light on the company's new id Tech 7 engine powering the upcoming Doom: Eternal shooter. One of the items discussed was ray tracing, the implementation of which, he noted, was pulled in favor of polishing the game and getting it completed on schedule.

Stratton said that the development team did "some initial implementation and exploration about a year ago," but that the studio already had a lot on its plate at the same time. "Our tech team are the biggest fans of new tech, so it was a little hard to pull everyone off of (ray tracing) because it was the shiny new toy, but when we’re talking about getting the game out there, and getting it out to as close to on time as possible and at the highest, polished quality, we had to pull back on those efforts." he continued in the interview below.

The game is likely to receive the tech in the future, as Stratton says that his team is "literally just about ready to start looking at again," with interesting ideas for the technology besides its use in rendering shadows, reflections, and real-time lighting. It's also possible that the studio plans to release a graphically enhanced version of the game in time for next-gen consoles, which will have support for ray tracing technology, among other features.

Doom: Eternal is set to give players the "complete experience" and won't feature an in-game store or microtransactions

Fans of the series, however, would likely care more about shooting and tearing demons in the game's natural fast-paced style rather than take a performance hit for some graphical bells and whistles. Not that the game lacks in that department, given early impressions of the people who were invited at a recent preview event and praised it for its visuals, level design, and progression system.

The game is scheduled to release on March 20 for the PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Google Stadia, with a Nintendo Switch version to follow soon.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/83767-doom-eternal-skip-ray-tracing-launch.html

 

[Ranger12]

Fine by me, RTX has always been a nice-to-have, not a must have for the vast majority of people. No sense introducing performance or stability issues into a game for something most people don't value that much.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Ray Tracing is an answer to a question nobody asked.

Current shadow, reflective and shading technology was already good enough to provide excellent visuals without Ray Tracing. Most action games have players moving way too fast to notice any small details anyway.

Nvidia should have focused solely on making faster GPU where even the lowest - 2060 - could outperform the 1080Ti in4K 60fps - and the 2070, 2080 and 2080Ti should have been absolute animals with the RTX Titan as an "overlord".

I had to buy the 2080Ti just to ensure I would never have to care about comparisons of everything below it.

 

[OptimumSlinky]

Ray Tracing is an answer to a question nobody asked.

I had to buy the 2080Ti just to ensure I would never have to care about comparisons of everything below it.

1. Ray tracing is undoubtedly the future, but the hardware just isn't there yet. Period. Full stop. When id Software, a developer known for being at the front lines of 3D engines, chooses not to waste time with "RTX On" features, that should tell you everything you need to know about the "value" of RTX cards.

2. If that was the case, you should have bought a Titan RTX; the 2080 Ti is still the 2nd best even in nVidia's line up.

 

[Ranger12]

1. Ray tracing is undoubtedly the future, but the hardware just isn't there yet.

Agreed. While I believe most people aren't that impressed with it in it's current state I also believe it is an important first step towards full ray-tracing and Nvidia deserves credit for that.

 

[kevbev89]

Agreed. While I believe most people aren't that impressed with it in it's current state I also believe it is an important first step towards full ray-tracing and Nvidia deserves credit for that.

I'm more interested in what they can do with Ray Tracing in CG movies. Things are moving way too fast for people to really care about it.

 

[ckm88]

Can't wait for this game!

 

[ForgottenLegion]

Ray Tracing is an answer to a question nobody asked.

Current shadow, reflective and shading technology was already good enough to provide excellent visuals without Ray Tracing. Most action games have players moving way too fast to notice any small details anyway.

Nvidia should have focused solely on making faster GPU where even the lowest - 2060 - could outperform the 1080Ti in4K 60fps - and the 2070, 2080 and 2080Ti should have been absolute animals with the RTX Titan as an "overlord".

I had to buy the 2080Ti just to ensure I would never have to care about comparisons of everything below it.

Ray Tracing is more important for developers than end users. It allows them to spend less time 'faking' lighting/shadows/reflections etc. and spend more time on other aspects of the game.

I personally find it very hard to notice most ray tracing features without getting out the microscope.

Although I have to say reflections can be pretty cool compared to the cube maps we're used to.