this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (3 children)

RTX On/Off feels really dishonest here given the assets swap as well.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

that's just part of RTX remix and somewhat the point of that tool. After all you need to get proper RTX materials in there and why not upres the assets as well while you are at it?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Then id like to see the same better assets with rtx and without. Those alone would make an incredible difference.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure how easy that is with RTX Remix. IIRC the assets aren't actually added to the game itself, but rather they get injected into the render-pipeline.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You have to use new assets for these old games if you really want to make the most out of ray tracing because PBR materials are necessary to better simulate the way light and reflections bounce off a surface.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So we'll get another old game where everything looks oddly shiny instead of oddly dull?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

That’s not what ray tracing is about at all. Reflections, imo, are the least interesting part of ray tracing.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

shame most people who implement it don't agree

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can you elaborate? Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

Ray tracing is about implementing light and representing its behavior. Because reflections are, of course, a huge part of that it gets a lot of attention. Ray traced reflections allow things that aren’t otherwise on screen to be reflected without resorting to other clever tricks.

But other ray traced features implement light in (my opinion) more interesting ways. Global illumination, ambient occlusion, and shadows can all be implemented via RT and because they’re not limited by screen space information can be more accurate and, thus, impressive.

Light and objects in the world look like they belong and just look “right”. The way a sliver of sunlight can subtly light a room or the way an object appears grounded with accurate shadows can make non-RT lighting look wrong.

Check out Digital Foundry’s video on Metro Exodus Enhanced and they’ll surely go into some examples here.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I find it hilarious that the "RTX On" is remastered assets and the "RXT Off" is just the original game.

Id be more interested in seeing what the original assets with RTX look like.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Or new assets with RTX on and off. As it is it looks like RTX is responsible for the new textures, which is far from honest.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Very wrong, without proper materials, light bounces would make no sense (if there would be even any)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Wrong, if you just ported the original HL2 materials, things might look slightly weird but light bounces will very much be present and it would still look better than the original renderer. Light bounces (for global illumination) will happen with any material parameters. HL2 materials had bump and a kind of merged reflectiveness and metalicness value already, and if you ported them over correctly things would look acceptable (but not ideal).

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I might be in the minority here, but I couldn't help but think Half-Life 2 still looks really good for a game released in 2004. Obviously "RTX on" is nicer to look at, but all the small details like the magnifying glass that actually magnifies made me appreciate the old assets/graphics so much, what a milestone it was.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The art direction is impeccable and it still shines for it.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

To be honest, the biggest takeaway of the trailer is how well the original HL2 aged.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I'll be the one to be overly excited: GIVE IT TO ME!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Remember the Quake 2 RTX version? Remember how no one played it? It's just, not a good look, runs slow and just isn't needed. This is all just to make more people buy Nvidia cards.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I have no idea what you're talking about. Quake 2 RTX is my go-to recommendation if someone wants to see what raytracing is actually about. Not only are there some built in tools to fiddle with lighting but the end result makes such a huge difference that I can't see myself playing Quake 2 again without raytracing. Out of all the RTX supported games Quake 2 was the one that blew me away the most. It makes bright areas bright and dark areas actually dark and you can see how light sources, in real time, change the look of the environment.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Wish they'd do Hal-Life 1 with ray tracing because my video card might actually be able to run that one.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Quake 2 RTX can bring my 3090 to its knees. You could do HL2 but I bet it’d be about similar to Portal RTX

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I believe its because the RTX remix games are path traced which is alot harder to do

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Quake 2 doesn’t use RTX Remix. Or at least wasn’t advertised as that being the underlying tech.

Edit: I think I misunderstood what you were saying. Performance with Portal RTX Remix was significantly worse than with Quake 2 RTX.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Q2RTX is fully path traced, it was the path tracing tech demo before Portal RTX was.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

There is Black Mesa if you're looking for a Half Life 1 remake. Not sure if there is raytracing in it though.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Black Mesa was so fucking good it's ridiculous.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

If it did have it, it'd almost certainly be too much for my RTX 3060. Portal RTX didn't work too well.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Don’t worry, even with a beefy config it doesn’t run very well (talking i9 10th gen, 32gb ddr4 and 3080RTX) so I doubt even half life 2 will run decently.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It's not RTX but that was a fucking 10/10 experience. Xen knocked my socks off.

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

The cool thing about raytracing is it doesn't really matter how complex a scene is. The bad thing about raytracing is it doesn't really matter how complex a scene is.

If your card can't run remixed HL2, it also won't be able to do HL1

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I know it’s not the latest and greatest but I’m so happy I’ve got a 3090 to play this on. Can not wait.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

You son of a bitch, I'm in!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

What ever happened to Project Borealis?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I hope they do the episodes as well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Now they have to do HL3 right….right?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They sort of announced HL3 in the post credit scene on HLAlyx, but of course we've been promised HL3 before so even if we get it it'll be another 10 years probably. Alyx was so incredibly good though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Wait I thought we all agreed HLA is HL3 in spirit

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Alyx is a prequel to HL2, so it can't be part of the episodic release. There were some cliffnotes a previous lead storyboarder had released on the loose plot of HL3 some years ago. It ended with Gman retiring freeman and employing Alyx if I recall correctly.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, cool project but let me see something outside of that room!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, that was not really a good room to show off RT features. Most of the shown effects can be convincingly faked with modern shader techniques.

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