Minecraft is not getting ray tracing support on XBSX after all

[Cal Jeffrey]

Facepalm: It looked like ray tracing was finally coming to Minecraft, until Mojang Studios pulled the rug out from under Insiders. Developers had evidently left "prototype" RT code in the latest preview build of the game on accident. "False start. Microsoft. Five-year penalty. Second down."

Earlier this week, Xbox Insiders reported they were testing an "optimized" Minecraft build with ray tracing options. The inclusion indicated that Mojang would have RT support ready in an upcoming update. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case.

On Thursday, developers announced that ray tracing in the Xbox Series X|S version of Minecraft is not imminent. What insiders saw this week was an early prototype that was accidentally left in the preview build. They have since removed the code from the preview without indicating when we would see it again.

The previous Minecraft Preview build available to Xbox Insiders inadvertently included prototype code for raytracing support on Xbox consoles. This early prototype code has been removed from Preview and doesn't signal near future plans to bring raytracing support to consoles.

— Minecraft (@Minecraft) March 31, 2022

Microsoft promised that Minecraft ray tracing was coming to the PC version in 2019, and it delivered. Around the same time, it hinted that Xbox Series consoles were capable of RT in Minecraft and had screenshots to prove it. Today's tweet indicates that it's not coming any time soon.

"This early prototype code has been removed from Preview and doesn't signal near future plans to bring raytracing support to consoles," the developers tweeted from the official Minecraft account.

Tom Warren got to test the prototype before its removal, and it clearly needed work. For one, it required a workaround to get ray tracing enabled. Plus, without FSR support for upscaling, it was not that impressive.

Sorry for the false alarm. This one needs more time to simmer.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/94011-minecraft-not-getting-ray-tracing-support-after-all.html

 

[mbk34]

Just curious but do the writers get paid to invent a story and then get paid again when they produce another story saying the 1st story wasn't true?

 

[letsgoiowa]

Just curious but do the writers get paid to invent a story and then get paid again when they produce another story saying the 1st story wasn't true?

They didn't invent it: there was legitimately a way to access that build in the wild dude.

 

[VaRmeNsI]

The consoles would need Nvidia cards to have proper Minecraft RTX.

 

[Sausagemeat]

Not surprised, Minecraft RTX is quite demanding, with DLSS on even a 2080ti can struggle to hit 60fps at 4K. The Xbox is powered by AMD and as we all know that hardware isn’t very good at ray tracing.

A shame really, ray tracing on minecraft is pretty spectacular. It’s definitely the best implementation of ray tracing I’ve seen. But personally I think the non RT shader packs on the Java version are easier on the eye, if less impressive with lighting.

 

[Cal Jeffrey]

They didn't invent it: there was legitimately a way to access that build in the wild dude.

Thank you. I was about to say, nothing was invented. There were people not just reporting the controls were there, but that they actually got them to work with a workaround.