this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2024
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[–] [email protected] 30 points 3 days ago (4 children)

I honestly don't see the appeal for paying $800 for marginally faster ray tracing because it simply makes puddles more shiny

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago

I suppose it depends on the angle from which you view it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Same. And I'm sick of all these stupid puddles everywhere. It's like how everything two generations ago looked wrapped in plastic because card makers were shovelling specular lightmaps or whatever.

It's just the vapid faces of fashion. A bullet point for the investors that'll impress for a moment, then be forgotten.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Control was the first game that made me "get" raytracing because everything else felt like a gimmick

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

Control also convinced me that DLSS was actually useful. I was hoping it'd usher in an era of running games with high settings on low end hardware but instead it just kicked off an era of devs not bothering to optimize games.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

Yeah I was specifically thinking of Remedy with Control as a shop that makes good use of the tech to put forward an aesthetic that isn't just flash and chrome.

But I believe they could make a beautiful game with a Voodoo 2 lol, they're that good.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

It’s a photography/film technique

Games do it to “cheat” realism

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

it's a lot more than puddles looking fancy. it's the entire lightning engine. like how real light will come in the window hit the wall, the floor, the grass outside, and you, bouncing off of all of that to difuse those colors and tones throughout the room and change as you move. that's what raytracing does. without it they just have to create different color lights sources in the room to approximate that, or just create a single color light source. raytracing is infinitely less work for the devs and is infinitely better as a light engine.

the problem is the whole industry glommed onto it before hardware could handle it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

You're describing diffusion lighting and that's separate from raytracing

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 days ago

lhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=araZUoSOPmM

I recommend this video to understand the benifits of ray tracing.