Raytracing in ED for everyone!

[babelfisch]

Some fake lighting looks really good but it is really limited and only works when you have a forced defined path.
In VR for instance it can really show up any cheats which are done for a 2D screen.
Raytracing in games IS the future it just may not be here for another generation. This is quite normal, lots of new rendering techniques etc are little more than for geek value in the 1st generation of implementation anisotropic filtering is an obvious example but it is ubiquitous now

I believe two things are needed to make ray tracing the future:
1. The next console generation needs to support it.
2. It needs to be a standard feature of the next GPU generation. If it continues to be an optional luxury feature there will be no future for it.

 

[amadeus1171]

Not seeing it happening in this version of Elite.

Never say never.

 

[h347h]

I don't see it being used regularly for at least 2 generations. Currently the performance loss compared to fidelity gains are not close to worth it.

 

[voidwalker]

Hi guys!

Your favorite forum commentator here.

NVidia's new driver supports Raytracing for the GTX1060 and up, and AMD's upcoming Navi 10 and 20 cards are supposed to support raytracing.

Do you think raytracing would be worth it to have raytracing in Elite Dangerous?

Sure, the FPS would be horrendous for gameplay, but for screenshots and scenes that are not that involved, we could get some really pretty scenes. And having raytracing implemented now we would at least get exposure to what Elite: Dangerous should look like in raytracing.

What do you think?

For everyone?

Or just specific people who bought over-priced video cards only to discover that literally no one does real ray tracing in anything, and now have buyer's remorse?

 

[amadeus1171]

Not seeing it happening in this version of Elite.

Never say never. People have been saying we'd never see atmosphere landing and space legs, and look... nvm lol

 

[knowles2]

No, not really, Raytracing strikes me as a bit pointless. It was something people raved over back in the days of the Amiga.

In a video game you can get something "good enough" in other ways that require far, far less power. There are other things you could do with the computational horsepower needed to carry it out that would confer more benefit than raytracing will. It's a gimmick.

This may explain why virtually nobody has picked it up. Not worth the FPS-Hit and for those people who have the cards, there are better ways to spent the pixels.

Raytracing has huge potential to save thousands of man hours in game development. That why it keep being push.
Ml

 

[Captain Willard]

I'll build 2 new gaming computers in a year or two. Win 10 finally, the newer grafix cards after things settle out and prices drop. We will keep our two win 7 machines as every game so far plays wonderfully.
Well. Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Metro Exodus makes me play them on lowest settings and both still look spectacular.
Ray Tracing should be a thing by then.

 

[amadeus1171]

I'll build 2 new gaming computers in a year or two. Win 10 finally, the newer grafix cards after things settle out and prices drop. We will keep our two win 7 machines as every game so far plays wonderfully.
Well. Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Metro Exodus makes me play them on lowest settings and both still look spectacular.
Ray Tracing should be a thing by then.

You might want to rethink holding on to Windows 7. It will no longer be supported. And Windows 10 is pretty awesome, despite all the recent bugs and spyware. it just works.

 

[Morbad]

elite isn't gpu heavy anyway

Sure it is. Depends on settings of course, but ED's performance is far more GPU dependent than CPU dependent and at equvalent reported utilization it consumes more power than most games I've seen, indicating it's doing more work.

That depends entirely on setings.

And Windows 10 is pretty awesome, despite all the recent bugs and spyware. it just works.

I can tolerate Server 2016 well enough, and I'm able to endure the minimal contact I have to have with my HTPC, which has Windows 10 Education (which is more configurable than Pro) on it, but using most versions of Windows 10 for more than a few minutes threatens to overwhelm me with a rage that I fear would only be sated by the destruction of all equipment involved and the manual eviceration of whoever was responsible for my encounter with it.

 

[amadeus1171]

Sure it is. Depends on settings of course, but ED's performance is far more GPU dependent than CPU dependent and at equvalent reported utilization it consumes more power than most games I've seen, indicating it's doing more work.

That depends entirely on setings.


I can tolerate Server 2016 well enough, and I'm able to endure the minimal contact I have to have with my HTPC, which has Windows 10 Education (which is more configurable than Pro) on it, but using most versions of Windows 10 for more than a few minutes threatens to overwhelm me with a rage that I fear would only be sated by the destruction of all equipment involved and the manual eviceration of whoever was responsible for my encounter with it.

Shirley that's a bit much. And yes I called you Shirley. lol

What issues are you having with Windows 10? It's pretty easy.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I dont think it would work in elite. Raytracing works really well (when it's done right) and elite isn't gpu heavy anyway so performance could be acceptable.

i cant comment in flat screen but in VR, with full detail and with HMD quality set to high, it makes my heavily overclocked 1080ti sweat.......... so just how heavy do you want ED to be on the gpu ?

I am super excited for raytracing - RTX or just DX12 implementation, either way... but imo for this generation it is more for curiosity value.... i think it will properly take off next generation and then probably be ubiquitous the one after, much like other graphical features which have come before.

it needs to be supported and practical to use by all cards not just NV however. f the PS5 / XB2 can use it that will help. (and i believe they will as they will be running on navi which is being touted as being RT ready)

 

[Robert Maynard]

I play on a laptop. No way do I want to see my performance drop even more. Game's fine as it is.

Given the GPU requirements for RT, I'd strongly suspect that it'd be a non-default option rather than the only way.

 

[Shintai]

Hi guys!

Your favorite forum commentator here.

NVidia's new driver supports Raytracing for the GTX1060 and up, and AMD's upcoming Navi 10 and 20 cards are supposed to support raytracing.

Do you think raytracing would be worth it to have raytracing in Elite Dangerous?

Sure, the FPS would be horrendous for gameplay, but for screenshots and scenes that are not that involved, we could get some really pretty scenes. And having raytracing implemented now we would at least get exposure to what Elite: Dangerous should look like in raytracing.

What do you think?

You have misunderstood something. GTX cards and any AMD card including Navi (That will be slower than GTX1660ti) doesn´t support raytracing in any other way that any previous cards haven´t done. They are too slow and you have to do huge sacrifices one way or the other The Crytek demo for example had so bad reflections Thargoids died in agony. Current implementations are a complete FPS rollercoaster experience without RTX features as you can see here:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkY-20kdXl0


Tensor cores for denoise and DLSS is another missing feature of non RTX cards.

Elite Dangerous could get raytracing support in the future. However DLSS would be much better interim solution. Essentially free AA for RTX cards via the tensor cores.

Intel that enters the discrete GPU segment in 2020 is likely to have tensor cores as well (they already have in other products). AMD however you may never see tensor cores from.

To simplify, DXR enabled on any non RTX card is more a marketing push to show you why you need RTX cards.

 

[Old Duck]

I believe two things are needed to make ray tracing the future:
1. The next console generation needs to support it.
2. It needs to be a standard feature of the next GPU generation. If it continues to be an optional luxury feature there will be no future for it.

As long as it can eventually be done in hardware cheaply, it IS the future. Just the other day I longed for raytracing, as a beam of light shined in my Type-7, brightly lighting my white remlock suit. Yet my face remained totally dark, because light does not scatter realistically in most games. Raytracing will bring us this realistic light scattering, and once you see it in action (again, my experience is in rendering photorealistic stills) it's hard to go back to "fake" lighting and shadows. Though I will admit, some games do an amazing job with "fake" lighting.

BTW, PS5 will have raytracing, though I suspect like current-day VR, hardware raytracing is still in its infancy.

 

[Robert Maynard]

As long as it can eventually be done in hardware cheaply, it IS the future.

I've no real doubt that it will be, in time - compare mid-range GPU capability now compared to what it was ten or even five years ago and imagine what more will be able to be done in future.

 

[Shintai]

BTW, PS5 will have raytracing, though I suspect like current-day VR, hardware raytracing is still in its infancy.

It will be the discount edition without any hardware support. Just as the PS5 will support 8K resolutions. It will at best do 4K30 but rather depend on upscaling.

No RT cores, no Tensor cores. Just the same GCN cores as always that was obsolete many years ago.

For PS5/Navi you have to think performance and features you can fit in between a RX590 and Vega56. And the PS5 will be closer to RX590 than Vega56.

The only good part about the PS5 is it finally dump the utterly slow and bugged Jaguar cores.

 

[Old Duck]

Just the other day I longed for raytracing, as a beam of light shined in my Type-7, brightly lighting my white remlock suit. Yet my face remained totally dark, because light does not scatter realistically in most games. Raytracing will bring us this realistic light scattering, and once you see it in action (again, my experience is in rendering photorealistic stills)

Speaking of, I really wish games allowed us to take 3D snapshots, where I could export the model (my lovely holome in that Type-7) and run it through photorealistic rendering software. My goodness that would make for some AMAZING screenshots!

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

It will be the discount edition without any hardware support. Just as the PS5 will support 8K resolutions. It will at best do 4K30 but rather depend on upscaling.

No RT cores, no Tensor cores. Just the same GCN cores as always that was obsolete many years ago.

For PS5/Navi you have to think performance and features you can fit in between a RX590 and Vega56. And the PS5 will be closer to RX590 than Vega56.

The only good part about the PS5 is it finally dump the utterly slow and bugged Jaguar cores.

the vega 56/64 is actually fairly capable of doing ray tracing in real time... sure not RTX levels but it is AMD so they are not gonna use RTX are they?

but better than pascal GTX cards that is for sure.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=1nqhkDm2_Tw


yes there is some fudging going on, its not full fat ray tracing
but that is on a vega 56 and if games can manage that, it is good enough for me

 

[Shintai]

the vega 56/64 is actually fairly capable of doing ray tracing in real time... sure not RTX levels but it is AMD so they are not gonna use RTX are they?

but better than pascal GTX cards that is for sure.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=1nqhkDm2_Tw


yes there is some fudging going on, its not full fat ray tracing
but that is on a vega 56 and if games can manage that, it is good enough for me

Look at the actual reflections, it's directly horrible. And again you can do RT in selected scenes at ok performance, while other performance drop to a stone. AMD RT performance is no different than GTX RT performance.

See image for example. Missing reflections, lowres reflections etc.

 

[Eldragon]

Since a lot of people use Elite as a screen shot generator, I would think a good start would be using Nvidia Ansel to do RT screenshots. Much less effort on FDev's part to support than rather than full-on ray tracing.