There’s fairly painful performance issues when you have to reconstruct the structure used for RayTracing (BVH). They usually do this over the course of several frames to hide the time it takes. Unfortunately, this means anything that has high rates of change, will require new level of techniques and cheats to be able to pull off.
It will be interesting to see what they manage to figure out with the next Forza engine for FM 2022.
I wonder if it would be possible to perform the RT using lower LOD models to decrease the performance hit.
It’s not the actual running of RT, it’s the setup to get the structures that are needed to run RT. The BVH is already kind of a lower level of details of the world, and that is what’s used.
NBA 2k22 doesn’t look half bad i must say, especially Candace Parker.
It is, and games are already doing that.
But think of car reflections for example. You need to RT on the super complex and curved surface. So lots of polygons to trace, and a high variation of surface even in small differences (a ray hitting 1cm from another will potentially reflect a whole different area of the scene for some steep curved surfaces. That destroys performance because you need more rays, and you can cache less given how they are going into different directions. And you can’t just use a lower model for this case because the reflections could look wrong/worse than other methods.
There are still some optimizations that could be done like grouping the rays by normal, but I think it will be a matter of research for developers to see what compromises they can make to improve performance without sacrificing visual quality that much.
I really hope more games do this. If 120Hz displays were standard, we’d be able to drop 30fps entirely. Maybe we’ll get to that point next generation.
2K21 looked amazing as well. The team is really talented. It’s too bad 2K forces shady business models into the games.
Having a base of 40 over 30 is indeed better, but why would anyone play at less than 60?
70-80fps+ > 40fps.
60fps is definitely always preferable but there’s no telling how this generation will evolve. We may see games that can’t hit 60fps because they are CPU bound. If 40fps is possible in this situation, it would be a better option than only 30fps. I’ll always be a fan of giving gamers options and 40fps doesn’t seem like a bad one.
This doesn’t need to be an “either, or” situation guys. Developers allowing a higher fidelity mode but still the better response times of 40fps is a great option to provide for those that want it. Also as it’s said in the video, it would be an awesome feature to become standard on the Series S since we’re already seeing games drop down to pretty low resolutions on that console when running games at 60fps.
I’d bring up maybe using this on 90 Hz displays, but pretty sure those were more for PC Monitors and likely 1440p resolution, and Sony doesn’t play well with specs their own sets don’t support, namely VRR or 1440p. Thus 90 Hz would be for 45 fps.
Those are PC gamers mostly with 1440p monitors. Next gen console owners will only buy 120fps TVs that support VRR.
Also until we have a DLSS alternative for console, we can have a fidelity mode on Series S for less than 60fps but more than 35fps with a locked framerate. But when we have a DLSS like technology, the internal rendering resolution will be much less with very good fidelity in output frames.
I’m not really following along with the discussions in here but I don’t think this is right.
Not really sure what PC gamers or 1440p displays has to do with what we’re discussing. The only reason I mentioned there being more 120Hz displays over VRR supported TVs is because you wanted to make it a hard choice between one or the other.
Also DLSS won’t do anything for CPU bound scenarios.
I can best sum up my view by saying that having options is always a good thing and this is a great option for developers to provide. Not really sure why you seem against gamers, or developers, having choices.
Beyond this, it’s fixed perspective so there is really not a lot of a problem with good quality screen space and/or cube maps. It’s not like the player is going to be panning up and down to occlude the reflections.
The rear window cube maps in Horizon 5 looked so crisp and smooth I was convinced it was ray tracing until I read it wasn’t. You could use the back window as a rear view mirror in third person mode.
They are more or less linked. IIRC Sony is the only large brand that has 120hz tvs without VRR.
I do agree that anyone half informed shouldn’t buy a 120+ tv without VRR, but that doesn’t mean they won’t 
And I also agree that simply adding an option to unlock the framerate is the better outcome, specially to future proof. Unlocking the framerate of the fidelity mode that can reach up to a native 4k means future consoles might able to play the game in 4k60-100+ in the future. While a mode that still keeps the lock but just move it to 40 or 60 will be forever locked into this framerate.
I don’t think this is right. Maybe for monitors but not TVs. Also upcoming TVs are going to support VRR so not sure what will be the percentage console owners who will have 120fps TVs without VRR after 2-3years.
R&C is hardly a “true” CPU bound game. Maybe it’s true for sims and strategy.
I just think that it’s going to be useless once we have something like DLSS. But until then it’s promising.
I dunno, the GT7 sport footage they showed was super compromised regarding RT on the garage and the reflections on the actual gameplay were so bad (updating at 15fps) that was almost impossible to tell if they were even using raytracing because there were many elements on the tracks not being reflected and sometimes the reflection not matching the scene at all (like it takes a few frames when the vehicle get in or out of a tunnel for the reflections to update).
But Ratchet RT refelctions were kinda of bad back then and they managed to improve a lot on the final version.
I’m probably missing some nuance in the conversation, but I took it to mean that someone who owns a next-gen console wouldn’t settle for a less expensive TV, which didn’t make much sense to me.
Ah that indeed doesn’t make much sense, but I think he meant 120hz and vrr will just be common place so you won’t even be able to buy a tv that doesn’t support it soonish
120Hz TVs have been available for many, many years while VRR displays started popping up in just the last couple years or so. Yes, it’s right that there are more TVs out there that support 120Hz than there are those out there that support VRR.
Also there are going to be a ton of TVs out in the wild that still support only 60Hz in 2-3 years, never mind 120Hz with VRR. Most people only buy new TVs when they have to, not when a new feature hits the market.
What does R&C have to do with my comments? Please don’t be quick to dismiss this feature because it’s used in R&C. You’re demonstrating exactly why making things into a competition is detrimental when discussing technology.
No, it won’t become useless. If I want to develop a game that pushes world simulation and interaction to the limits, world bending AI, massive draw distances, etc. and all of the other aspects that hammer the CPU, DLSS won’t help with any of that. What happens when we’re at the tail end of the generation and some developers can’t even target 60fps because they are trying to extract as much performance from these systems as possible and the only options would be 30fps and 40fps. Are you saying to not even consider the 40fps option?
DLSS is amazing, but it’s not this silver bullet that is going to solve all the performance problems.