Ray Tracing for Elite dangerous

[Bortas]

RT in games isn't much more than a proof of concept in its current state. Even on my RTX 2080, RT has a severe performance impact in most games for very little visual difference, so I usually disable it anyway and rather take the higher frame rate.

Guess it will take a few more years and graphics card generations for RT to become actually useful.

 

[Rick6549]

You haven't heard of the God Emperor Rick?

Beluga smite you.

I see the community has arrived

 

[Rat Catcher]

I see the community has arrived

All hail Rick!

We have hail stones here - so does that mean we have to throw stones at him?

 

[Rick6549]

All hail Rick!

We have hail stones here - so does that mean we have to throw stones at him?

I would prefer if you didnt

 

[Old Duck]

I'm a proponent of ray tracing, but there's so much that Frontier could do to improve the visuals using standard graphic APIs. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 doesn't use ray tracing, but it's incredibly beautiful. In fact, I think much of ray tracings benefit would be lost on an open world big space game like ED. It would make the cockpit way more cool, I'll grant you that (I long to see my reflection in the glass as that bright sun lights me up). But stuff like stations from a distance probably won't benefit as much.

Now INSIDE a station would look pretty amazing properly ray traced, but it would kill any hardware in the next 3-5 years because there are dozens if not hundreds of light sources to take into account. Most games using ray tracing limit the amount of dominant light sources and the space those light sources cover (small rooms with a few lights, for example, or an outdoor scene with just the sun for illumination).

Brilliant observation, Duck!

 

[Xeknos]

What authority do you have? I am unaware of any community spokesperson.???? I suggest you tame your claims to ones you can substantiate !

I voted for him.

 

[Rat Catcher]

I would prefer if you didnt

I did give you a mention in my latest log...

INARA

The community site for Elite: Dangerous, Starfield with the game databases, information, gaming news and other handy content...

inara.cz

 

[Rick6549]

I did give you a mention in my latest log...

INARA

The community site for Elite: Dangerous, Starfield with the game databases, information, gaming news and other handy content...

inara.cz

Sounds about right

 

[Azmuth Divarchchron]

Revenue vs. cost is almost everything, DXR is part of DX12, and ED is not Minecraft.

I think you're significantly underestimating the hurdels in implementing ray tracing in ED and significantly overestimating Frontier's incentive to bother.

Im really not, but whatever floats your space boat

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Last I heard from someone here, multiple light sources couldn't be done due to cobra engine.

Multiple light sources are clearly possible - get together with some friends in a dark crater at sunset/sunrise, face outwards, and turn your headlights on.

Multiple shadow-casting light sources are the tricky bit, especially on the combination of scales ED works under.

 

[Rampant]

The object density of any biological or crystall sites would not actually be enough to tax a card with ray tracing capabilities.
Maybe once we had atmospheric landings with lush landscapes it would present an issue but we dont have them as of yet and by the time we do nvidia would likely have released second generation rtx cards and and would have released their own ray tracing cards as well.

A good idea of how many objects/surfaces can be present and still have stable framerates with raytracing is the game "control"

That's pure conjecture on your part - my opinion differs - and I mention Crystal Shard sites because they would appear to be the most complex graphical environments in the game. A lot depends on Frontier's expertise. I for one would not gamble any of my own money on that. Would you?

 

[Morbad]

Im really not, but whatever floats your space boat

Frontier must think otherwise, else we'd have ray tracing support on a roadmap by now.

Multiple shadow-casting light sources are the tricky bit

You can see shadows cast by both the sun and a ship or SRV simultaneously already. Indeed, the config files show that object are capable of casting up to at least six spot shadows.

They likely have the number of point and directional light sources capped for performance reasons. Short range spot lights that only illuminate a small portion of terrain or a few objects are more manageable.

 

[Just Paul]

I'm agree with self-appointed community spokesperson Beluga whispering God Emperor Rick.
Raytracing is nice, but shouldn't be even on the priority list as of yet. Rather then eye candy I would like to see improvements to game mechanics, more content, and tools for players to make their own stories.
If it was so easy to implement raytracing into ED as some say FD would have done it already, lots of PR possibilities for cheap. As Morbad said there is most likely not enough RoI in implementing raytracing as of now. Just look at how neglected VR became, the player base using it is just not enough to justify the cost.

 

[AdmiralXanos]

Isn't ray tracings whole point is to allow multiple light sources with accurate shadows + actual reflections on surfaces? Because each of those points would make a huge difference on the Elite's environments. For example my home system has five stars and my planetary base should rarely have a night but it spends half a week in darkness with a nearby star over the horizon.

 

[knowles2]

I don't consider this to be a feature that can be optional, you either do the entire game ray trace or you don't, there very little advantage in doing it only for one tiny portion of the game.

I therefore consider it something Frontier would only ever do for a completely new title and probably as part of a major overhaul of the cobra engine and how they go about making games.

 

[Captain Willard]

You answered your own question. Two dimensional games look incredible with ray tracing.
Shadow of the tomb raider and metro exodus come to mind.
ED is three dimensional.Your home system had five stars?
That would choke the cobra engine and most computers to a stand still.

 

[Azmuth Divarchchron]

You answered your own question. Two dimensional games look incredible with ray tracing.
Shadow of the tomb raider and metro exodus come to mind.
ED is three dimensional.Your home system had five stars?
That would choke the cobra engine and most computers to a stand still.

no, it really wouldnt.
ray tracing works with multiple light sources not just one.
5 light sources isnt going to freeze a whole engine when ray tracing works with a few dozen to a few hundred on average.

 

[Azmuth Divarchchron]

I don't consider this to be a feature that can be optional, you either do the entire game ray trace or you don't, there very little advantage in doing it only for one tiny portion of the game.

I therefore consider it something Frontier would only ever do for a completely new title and probably as part of a major overhaul of the cobra engine and how they go about making games.

i dont see why it cant be optional since every game that supports ray tracing has it as an optional feature.
you are either using ambient occlusion or you are using ray tracing. you arent using both.
when you use ray tracing ambient occlusion is completely turned off because ray tracing renders it obsolete.

 

[Captain Willard]

And your bandwidth usage won't go up either.
Gonna haffta block you now so ye don't slow my instance down.

 

[Azmuth Divarchchron]

And your bandwidth usage won't go up either.
Gonna haffta block you now so ye don't slow my instance down.

dont see how thats relevant but alright, bye then.