Exactly, I dont play games anymore if they dont have at the very least RTGI.
Was Ray Tracing a Scam?
- Thread starter Steve
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Exactly, I dont play games anymore if they dont have at the very least RTGI.
FaTaL
Posts: 642 +860
RT is a nice to have in single player games where latency and framerate isnt as critical as it is in an online /multiplayer. Its that simple.
whenever I read people crying about low FPS, I assume about half of them have no idea how to config and/or maintain a clean, optimized PC (bloatware , proper settings, hardware config, etc).
whenever I read people crying about low FPS, I assume about half of them have no idea how to config and/or maintain a clean, optimized PC (bloatware , proper settings, hardware config, etc).
MasterAce
Posts: 309 +427
Only thing worth doing is ambient occlusion or global illumination, those are the things the raster sucks at. Exodus, avatar, indy and doom dark ages (among others) are really good at it too. Reflections, shadows etc the raster can approximate good enough, sure there are glaring issues if you know what to look for, but nobody notices because they are too busy playing the game, presumably.
Inthenstus
Posts: 317 +438
Tensor cores were just early AI cores, to justify the cost they had to create something special for gamers. Thus we have RT.
Alpine7995
Posts: 70 +86
That's not the article's takeaway however, we all want better graphics. What we don't want is the promise of better graphics sold on the idea of new GPU tech that never delivered. Current-gen GPUs are better at it, but still struggle and need upscaling (which I'm not against in its current form). It's just unfortunate a high-end GPU is no longer $500 but more like $1,500.
Agreed.
Largely, the Emperor's New Clothes. Visual gain should be commensurate with the cost.
themastergoose
Posts: 266 +857
Your game library must be very small. There are not many titles with RTGI and it seems like a really silly self-imposed restriction to be honest.
I think the biggest flaw in all of this that the concept of actual ray tracing is greatly misunderstood. Movie special effects and animations CAN make RT easier, but not the way the games do it. Mainly because the simple idea of light ray reproduction is FAR more complex then one might imagine.
From a computational perspective, the first time I've heard of PC ray tracing in any form was "The Juggler" animation for the Amiga. In 1986, it took 1 hour per frame, 24Hr for the loop, to render a simple juggler at 320x200, 4096 colors) with 3 chrome balls reflecting the environment around the figure. Lightwave 3D was the standard program for hybrid rendering of ray tracing and standard graphics. It really took off in the mid 90: as the software was ported to DEC Alpha, Intel, SGI, and Mac.
It was not uncommon for studios to have huge "render farms" often of dozens of SGI boxes to do the rendering. This has not changed, real ray tracing has incredible computational costs. What Nvidia has done is to start with version 0.5 ray tracing on certain things and brought us to what seems like version 0.8.
Anyone today who looks at "The Juggler" animation will probably double over laughing how primitive it is, but at the time it was the first example of ray traced animation on any pc.
I agree with Mr. Walton, the holy grail is 100% ray traced games, but like many things, history is telling us it will be a very very long time in coming.
I also agree with another user, Nvidia isn't stupid, they probably sell the majority of graphics cards to Hollywood and the TV industry that are used and take months to render some scenes,. But Jensen is as much showman (P. T. Barnum), and monopolist as he is graphics card guru. Sell the sizzle, not the steak." In other words, "We have it, they don't. The choice is simple, buy from us".
I'll end this with a quote from Tom's Hardware editor, Paul Alcorn, upon the introduction of the first gen ray tracing cards from Nvicia, just BEFORE release and reviews: "Just buy it"
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Well, for me it's a very self-imposed restriction to hate a technique that makes the game look better and to seriously bash ray tracing or path tracing. Do you also prefer black-and-white silent movies?
arrowflash
Posts: 744 +1,001
I agree. RT implementation in most games is bad, and even when there's no performance hit, I usually end up favoring RT off because I think it looks better. Many RT effects in many games end up giving an uncanny look for me.
Even games that are considered references and benchmarks for well implemented, high quality RT like CP2077, can give really bad results depending on the scene. Case in point, the night street plaza comparison screenshots illustrating this article. RT Ultra and RT Overdrive make the floor look like it's made of polished reflective metal. RT off actually looks better and more realistic.
I've been playing RE4 Remake and tried RT maxxed out, which my GPU could handle without any performance hit. After playing for a few hours and comparing some areas and scenes, I turned it off. Some areas (especially indoor places) look nice and have higher contrast between shadowed and illuminated areas with RT on (though I think the artists could have achieved the same result without RT if they wanted, but I digress), but overall RT off actually looked better.
One problem I notice with RT in most games, is that in many areas and setpieces, it doesn't really respect the artistic vision for the game. I believe RT will never look better than "artificial" lighting with shadow maps, reflection probes, baked lighting and baked reflections, implemented with artistic vision and following good art direction.
magisys
Posts: 66 +46
The most sad thing about this ultra scam of RT is that at the time and for many years reviewers were ''forced'' by Nvidia to talk about RT, focus on RT in review, and so on.
We are here in 2026 finally reading about what a scam RT was and it's right now, when all of that was needed from day one, putting consumer in a conscius position when spend their money on a product.
Now, instead, we have fallen so down deep into the FOMO marketing **** that we have and huge amount of consumer that bought flawed design gpu with fire hazard connectors that still sell today and no one can really understand why people continue buy GPU like 5090 in 2026, for that crazy price and with that complete joke of power connector and completely missing the load balacing that was in 3xxx gpus. No one will be ever able to explain that, why this happen and why people continue supporting that products, only possible explanation is pure marketing brain washing and evangelism throught fanboys communities.
We are here in 2026 finally reading about what a scam RT was and it's right now, when all of that was needed from day one, putting consumer in a conscius position when spend their money on a product.
Now, instead, we have fallen so down deep into the FOMO marketing **** that we have and huge amount of consumer that bought flawed design gpu with fire hazard connectors that still sell today and no one can really understand why people continue buy GPU like 5090 in 2026, for that crazy price and with that complete joke of power connector and completely missing the load balacing that was in 3xxx gpus. No one will be ever able to explain that, why this happen and why people continue supporting that products, only possible explanation is pure marketing brain washing and evangelism throught fanboys communities.
What if I'm not sold on games needing to look like movies, or care about extra reflections on water or glass in games? Or the fact that not everyone can or wants to spend double or triple on a GPU to get a decent gaming experience with RT on. Also now that upscaling and frame gen are expected as a default and are often used as a performance benchmark because RT drags down native performance.
Insisting that everyone should care is disingenuous.
I truly can't wait for the day when every single game has mandatory ray tracing and path tracing so everyone has to play like that. Thankfully, it won't be long.
So everybody finally sees how good the games look, can't play any other way anymore, and this whole discussion is finally over. I feel like I'm talking with boomers that claim vinyl sounds better than digital.
So everybody finally sees how good the games look, can't play any other way anymore, and this whole discussion is finally over. I feel like I'm talking with boomers that claim vinyl sounds better than digital.
dankbot420
Posts: 28 +23
It's true that 20 series cards were woefully underpowered to handle ray tracing. Everything after that just shows your obviously biased against the tech. I wouldn't want to play a game like Cyberpunk without RT I'm sure it would still be great but it would just feel kinda dull.
dankbot420
Posts: 28 +23
4K is very subjective, my 5070 Ti can do 4k/60 native but... It obviously depends on the game and graphics settings. People who are clinging to native performance and shun DLSS and frame gen are just screeching into the wind.
HELL YEAH... it was just a marketing gimmick for Nvidia to corner AMD because they knew they were on par with them soon enough.
Beside a bunch of better reflections that could have been developed without Ray Tracing technology, the rest is impossible to spot unless you are having both RT and non RT next to each other.
The influencers did the rest and made people believed Nvidia cards were so much better when in reality, they are not. At least, my 9070XT will not go in smoke because my 12VHPWR connector melted... because I made sure to buy a model with 8 pins connectors.
Beside a bunch of better reflections that could have been developed without Ray Tracing technology, the rest is impossible to spot unless you are having both RT and non RT next to each other.
The influencers did the rest and made people believed Nvidia cards were so much better when in reality, they are not. At least, my 9070XT will not go in smoke because my 12VHPWR connector melted... because I made sure to buy a model with 8 pins connectors.
Squid Surprise
Posts: 7,883 +8,181
The real problem is so many people prioritize graphics over gameplay.
I’d rather play older games with “dated” graphics as long as they’re fun… new games tend to hype “realism” and complexity… I get enough of that in real life!
Release a game as fun and as simple as Donkey Kong please
I’d rather play older games with “dated” graphics as long as they’re fun… new games tend to hype “realism” and complexity… I get enough of that in real life!
Release a game as fun and as simple as Donkey Kong please
You know that BF6 is NOT having RT?
Also, who in the frigging hell a bit informed would buy a 5070TI over a 9070XT? Hell, it is almost 50% more expensive for the SAME performances...
Steve is Australian... it is actually fall in Australia right now genius...
And by the way, are you afraid to answer the question? We all know that you would defend Nvidia anyway...
I just hope CDPR learned their lesson with Nvidia. I really loved Nvidia boycotting any involvement with CDPR when the launch was botched. It took them 2 years to finally reintroduce the game as their advertising benchmark, because CDPR reputation was healing.
I remember when they did the same with HairWork in The Witcher 3, and by doing so destroying the drivers of AMD.
I hope for The Witcher 4, they are going to focus on the PS5 Pro version so we can have a fully functioning PC port and not a frigging Nvidia benchmark!
Not with pathtracing. ^^ And DLSS is better a well.
We wouldn't have games without native rendering, RT is still pretty effects thrown on top of rasterization.
It'll be a long time before the average gamer has a GPU capable of full RT, let alone path tracing, because of the RAMpocalypse driving up the cost of everything, ironically caused by Nvidia after they sold influencers on ray tracing.
I feel like I'm talking to zoomers who can't last a day without a cell phone and blindly buy based on marketing because their favorite influencer tells them to buy things.
Subset6
Posts: 204 +247
It’s not a scam, but its impact has been greatly overstated. Raw raster is still the most important metric.
Athlonite69
Posts: 109 +88
nVidia lining up one scam after another
PhysX on hardware = nVidia only
RTX on Hardware = crap FPS on anything but the highest end RTXxx80~90 GPU's
DLSS = play at lower res at the res you want to play at
Frame Gen = make your low end GPU feel sort kinda like a mid range GPU with the benefit of more lag and shitty ghosting.
Although AMD isn't blameless either as they're trying to do the same thing aswell
with FSR and Frame Gen and doing RT on compute cores instead of dedicated hardware although I must admit that RT on 9xxx gen is far better than previous gens like 6xx or 7xxx GPU from them it's still a massive perf suck
PhysX on hardware = nVidia only
RTX on Hardware = crap FPS on anything but the highest end RTXxx80~90 GPU's
DLSS = play at lower res at the res you want to play at
Frame Gen = make your low end GPU feel sort kinda like a mid range GPU with the benefit of more lag and shitty ghosting.
Although AMD isn't blameless either as they're trying to do the same thing aswell
with FSR and Frame Gen and doing RT on compute cores instead of dedicated hardware although I must admit that RT on 9xxx gen is far better than previous gens like 6xx or 7xxx GPU from them it's still a massive perf suck
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