Can you REALLY SEE the difference? Raster vs Ray Tracing vs Path Tracing

Did you notice the difference? Do you think Ray or Path Tracing are a must for this game?

I feel like you can achieve 50% of the path traced lighting's effect with rasterization if you simply lower it's radius/field of effect a bit

Path tracing it's just RT, but slightly more advanced. For comparison purposes they might as well be the same thing.

well done rasterization with RT reflections is the best.

RTX on FPS off
Path tracing on PC off

RT Reflections are the most impressive. The rest looks just a little bit different.

Ray tracing for gaming is a massive con. It's a technology with uses in other non-gaming areas. Gamers are getting scammed.

I'm sorry, but the developers should focus on: what can we do, and not just on graphics and effects. we have beautiful games, with 10-year gameplay. isn't it stupid to have a thousand dollar PC to have 2 more effects than a 400 console?

4k native rastor looks much better than 1440p RT so I go for AMD with bigger RAM for more years gaiming on it in perspective

considering how much performance ray tracing is cutting out of some games it's not worth it, like at all, it's the weirdest gaslight in history of games

raytracing is scam , only to make you buy new hardware

and now add Rx7900xtx with AFMF and you see raytracing more FPS in Raytracing then the RTX 4070ti, path tracing is ... yea i think we have to wait what AMD does with ther AI cores, they are 3 generations behind Nvidia with AI learning in this things, they are 2 generations behind Nvidia in RayTracing.

I think RayTracing will need two more generations to be good

It would be like saying to AlphaGO that learned chess "wow what a gimmick, Deep blue already did that".
Ray tracing is not about this generation, it is about finally simulating real lighting. The real difference is in our future not what we can do with it right now.

ray tracing makes all textures blurry, wtf

Well, well, awesome content ,me subded mr Ancient ;)

oui yes hahahahahah AMD Sory :O) bye bye AMD

From what I have seen and experienced. RT doesn't make that much of a difference, even looks noisy sometimes. PT does make a difference, but the performance hit is so big that for me at least it ends up not being worth it. I would much rather play at raster without upscaling at a high refresh rate then with PT and abysmal FPS.

Reality is you don't need either. Its not something I even pay attention to so much when I play. Textures are way more likely to catch my attention than ray tracing or path tracing. And tbh modern games look great even without ray tracing or path tracing.

TL:DR: as of now RT is still a worthless gimmick that you only notice when you really pay attention to it. If you just play you won't notice it. It's not worth the uplift in price. Pathtracing is much better but still very far away. Both hardware and software need a lot of maturing to do.


I did some of my own tests: In Cyberpunk I looked into a store window and the cars on the road and NPCs on the other side of the sidewalk were properly reflected when RT was on. However there was a small way that led away from the street. That way also had NPCs but they were not reflected in the window. And those NPCs were maybe 10m (~11 yards) away. So not only is RT currrently very limited in the surfaces to which it applies and the rays/pixel that are used, it is also VERY limited in terms of how far away objects can be before they are no longer included.
I also sent some online friends - one is a photographer even - screenshots from games with RT on and off. They were never really able to be better than just randomly guessing and once I took Screenshots from the 2016 Hitman Game, sent em to my photographer buddy and asked him "Where do you think RT is on?" and he fell for it and said "In the third one it's on" when in reality it wasn't on anywhere because the game is from 2016 and RT didn't exist back then.

But "blue lights" bouncing off walls are in other games with no RT/PT, and doesn't need rtx 4090 to run it at 25fps, basically same, just this useless real time gimmick that kills your fps.

So, in raytracing cars have no shadow, in path tracing the add shadows, that certainly worth to play the game with rtx 4090 in 20fps.
A game with regular good shadows/ambient, will have all this and look the same, sorry to say but all this seems 'tarded. I understand this is easier for developers of game, but its stupid at same time.

So glad the AMD shill’s have another feature to weigh over AMD GPU’s.

Also AMD Shill’s: Why is my 4090 running 30fps on CB2077!?!?!? 😭

The only way RT will to make tangible difference is when games will be build and designed around it, not as an afterthought. The hype around RT is unfortunately overshadowing other important innovations of the last couple GPU generations: Mesh Shaders, Sampler Feedback, GPU Graphs (this is critical) and standardization of matrix op's in the DX12 API. For me, Mesh Shaders is as important progression in real-time rendering as RT, finally solving an age old heap of performance problems in the geometry part of the rendering pipeline.

The problem with rtx is the frame rate has to drop to point it looks blurry and you can't really see the ray tracing

I also feel like you can also receive the same effects by just upping some visual settings that aren't rtx like brightness saturation etc
Rtx really only shines in games that try to be realistic or have a lot of water or reflective surfaces otherwise I barely notice it or I just think rasturazation looks better

Everything on a modern monitor is raster because that's just how every monitor works and this has been true for over 70 years .... Raster is simply scanning by lines by definition:
Raster - 1. A scanning pattern of parallel lines that form the image projected on a cathode-ray tube of a television set or display screen.
2. A scanning pattern of parallel lines that form the display of an image projected on a cathode-ray tube of a television set or display screen.

Thus Ray Tracing still is raster graphics ..... It's like the "fake frames" nonsense .... All frames are fake because all frames consist of nothing but 1's and 0's

The intro lmao

when you trying to tak a pic and a guy always comes in!!!

In my opinion, the biggest difference that ray tracing brings to the game is in quality of reflections, especially when it comes to reflections coming from uneven glossy surfaces. For example, when you're inside your flat, it is really cool how windows in Cyberpunk can let some outside light through, yet reflect some light from the interior at the same time.

I like path tracing but even with a 4090 I find the hit on performance is too dramatic, so I am happy to settle for ray tracing and in games like Elden Ring where ray tracing dramatically hurts performance I just turn off ray tracing altogether.

I clearly can see difference in fps

Path Tracing is just waste of time for now.
Only 1 game, only 1 gpu that can run it at full potential which is super overpriced.
Wait at least 5 years until GPUS are more mature on path tracing.

Ray tracing is path tracing. RT overdrive mode in cyberpunk just increases the max light bounces calculated. Obviously more light bounces will give you better lighting, at the cost of performance

yes ive done it with so many games and theres a difference. I currently run a 4080, i9-13980, with a 1440 monitor using hdr, 2x32ddr5. im also an artist so I check the differences and will spend sometimes over a hour to compare then make my decision on whether or not to use rtx. cause I do love good performance but also love high quality graphics.

In Tomb Raider ffor example, there is literally no difference.
In Cyberpunk there is a huge one, even though it looks so good without RT or PT already.

How about the Lumen technology from Unreal Engine 5? Games like Hogwarts Legacy in my opinion show that sometimes Rasterization looks better than Ray Tracing.

I used to be so hyped for Ray Tracing... But it's just not... Good? It definately created more realistic looking depth in shadows and brightness but... I have a RTX3070 and still can't run it at 50fps.

Yes if u look at them side by side but if we talking about many hours of gaming , then no, you wont really notice until u do a comparison again

RT won't be practical in most games especially competitive multiplayer or where strategy and telling apart a lot of things is important, atleast not for a long time until RT is perfected. In Cyberpunk 2077 I absolutely love pathtracing and raytracing though, the pathtracing and ray reconstruction isn't perfect and actually makes a few areas look worse because of ghosting but when you do some tweaks and go into a lot of areas it's really fucking immersive.

Lol Ray tracing is such a load of bs

You need a microscope to see the details, it doesn't worth it. In real game play, you will never notice that. At that point, Ray Tracing is just a technology created to sell, a technology for the technology's sake. Next year, a new add-on or a new game will appear, which will humiliate any video card with Ray Tracing with Ray Tracing enabled, and you will have to run to buy another video card. At the moment, Ray Tracing is like Rasterization 25 years ago. When Ray Tracing will be as real time as Rasterization, and the industry will replace one technology with another, then it will be worth it.

So..Ray tracing not worth it...and Path Tracing is great...but the perfomance it takes it insane!.... another 5 years maybe...

Raytracing is obviously conspiracy of nVidia to make people buy expensive new GPU card. Now mid-range GPU become so powerful enough that we no longer need to buy new graphics card ever for conventional rasterization game graphics, even in 4K resolution. It is dead end of GPU business. GTX 1080 was such a beast in rasterization performance.

So nVidia need to invent new trick to sell their expensive new graphics card to ordinary gamers. Raytracing is old technology but rarely used in gaming because it is real computation hog which requires multi-million dollar advanced supercomputer to use. Of course ray tracing makes better picture, but improvement is subtle to notice. So many current gamers with ray-tracing capable RTX GPU normally plays their game with raytracing feature turn off to improve frame rate. Raytracing is conspiracy to make gamer buy supercomputer at home. It is just plain commercial consumer manipulation, or controversal at best.

yeah there is a small diffrence but it doesn't make the image better quality - RT and PT are at this point just a marketing slogan for noobs

RASTER WIN

One thing I don't agree with is calling the game XY% "faster" with frame gen. Frame gen FPS are not directly comparable to real FPS. Using a word like "smoother" would be better, because 90 FPS with frame gen feels like 45 real FPS in terms of responsiveness and without another tech like Reflex can actually feel even slower. In addition the generated frames look worse, which I agree that can be implemented so well that they aren't noticeable, but still.

the reason AI generated Realism Scene will hardly be as good as well tuned hand crafted lighting in-game is because in real life our eyes dynamically increase and decrease the "gamma level" of the scene where we focus our sight, whereas in game using realism means darker area would always be darker, which might not be what the game developer intended, or we players wanted, to make the game playable.

I remember playing this Delamain Mission (that AI Cab Virus mission) with RR Overdrive, and the whole mission is complete darkness. i have to turn it off to finish the mission.

it an amazing tech with its pros and cons. i could imagine how it would be great tools for the developer of the game to craft the scene exclusively with those tech only and safe so many time and money for development

Raster and Ray tracing look like alternative interpretations of an artist's depiction. Path tracing looks objectively more realistic.

RT, a stupid way to hold transistors hostage without giving any demands.
Utterly worthless with global GI being the single exception (which can be done with no RT hardware).