Post "Console RT" debate, what can we learn from it?

Numbers only tell a small part of the story. Plenty of contributors have been long enough on this board that they should know that by now and not be jumping to conclusions, although I'm aware some people prefer to form conclusions for everything instead of working with open uncertainties and not collapsing them to a final conclusion when there's enough data to create that robust conclusion.
While I agree with you on that, I have to mention that most users here failed to see the NEON signs that hardware RT was coming to consoles and everywhere else, they failed to notice the shift in currents and trends despite a minority of users pointing to them with logical arguments. I consider this a massive oversight that shouldn't have happened here, this is afterall the best tech forum in the world, it's filled to the prim with veterans, but sadly most got lost on the train of thought of "open uncertainties", despite the plethora of signs pointing otherwise.

There should lessons to be learned from all of that, so I say, a little bit of educated speculation won't do any harm.
 
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While I agree with you on that, I have to mention that most users here failed to see the NEON signs that hardware RT was coming to consoles and everywhere else, they failed to notice the shift in currents and trends despite a minority of users pointing to them with logical arguments. I consider this a massive oversight that shouldn't have happened here, this is afterall the best tech forum in the world, it's filled to the prim with veterans, but sadly most got lost on the train of thought of "open uncertainties", despite the plethora of signs pointing otherwise.

There should lessons to be learned from all of that, so I say, a little bit of educated speculation won't do any harm.
It's very easy to predict the past. But especially given the info we had in 2018, I certainly think that having no ray tracing was an option.
 
While I agree with you on that, I have to mention that most users here failed to see the NEON signs that hardware RT was coming to consoles and everywhere else, they failed to notice the shift in currents and trends despite a minority of users pointing to them with logical arguments. I consider this a massive oversight that shouldn't have happened here, this is afterall the best tech forum in the world, it's filled to the prim with veterans, but sadly most got lost on the train of thought of "open uncertainties", despite the plethora of signs pointing otherwise.

There should lessons to be learned from all of that, so I say, a little bit of educated speculation won't do any harm.

Wrong. We noticed but figured the silicon cost and budget would prevent its inclusion. That's completely different from what you said.
 
Wrong. We noticed but figured the silicon cost and budget would prevent its inclusion. That's completely different from what you said.
Different in what way exactly? What you said leads pretty much to the same conclusion: many veterans here DISMISSED the idea completely based on whatever arbitrary factor they deemed reasonable: silicon cost, budget, performance, supposed superiority of compute RT, supposed superiority of Rasterization, NVIDIA scamming people with professional tech .. etc. Yet here we are, 12 months later and all of those factors gone in an instant.

The very fact that you thought cost or budget alone would prevent RT inclusion is a testament to how wrong, old and utterly flawed that line of reasoning was.

I consider what happened a test that many failed to pass, there should be lessons to be learned from it, like any other historical paradigm shift in the industry, some people need to be truly open to the possibility of sudden changes in the industry, and not to be stuck in the old ways of thinking or reasoning.
 
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Your wording as if everyone else was utterly clueless. They weren't. It was educated all around. You claim there were NEON Signs of it hitting consoles, yet you provided 0 evidence of anything that actually existed then.

Oh, and the Jury is still out on what kind of RT we're actually going to get, so lets hold off judgment until we see actual results.
 
Wrong. We noticed but figured the silicon cost and budget would prevent its inclusion. That's completely different from what you said.

Different in what way exactly? What you said leads pretty much to the same conclusion: many veterans here DISMISSED the idea completely based on whatever arbitrary factor they deemed reasonable: silicon cost, budget, performance, supposed superiority of compute RT, supposed superiority of Rasterization, NVIDIA scamming people with professional tech .. etc. Yet here we are, 12 months later and all of those factors gone in an instant.

The very fact that you thought cost or budget alone would prevent RT inclusion is a testament to how wrong, old and utterly flawed that line of reasoning was.

I consider what happened a test that many failed to pass, there should be lessons to be learned from it, like any other historical paradigm shift in the industry, some people need to be truly open to the possibility of sudden changes in the industry, and not to be stuck in the old ways of thinking or reasoning.

Different members here will have different interpretations of what was being said.

That being said, I generally got the impression that skeptics (like myself) just thought RT hardware in $400-$500 consoles was a bit too good to be true. At least until the mid-gens, considering the fairly nascent state of the tech from the world's biggest GPU business.

Thankfully we were wrong.

Fair enough with the "I told you so" but come on man, there's no need to make drama out of a fairly healthy debate which had valid points on both sides.
 
Fair enough with the "I told you so" but come on man, there's no need to make drama out of a fairly healthy debate which had valid points on both sides.
Gonna double this one. If you win, that's just icing on the cake. But the reality is, there were good points all around. A big part of scientific method is pushing boundaries, developing ideas, going back the simplest ones, and back and around in a merry-go-round until it all fits well together. I know it may seem rather annoying, and I'm sure we annoyed Tottentranz on the SSD bit, but that's just part of what discussion is.

I think we should be glad (those of us who were on the RT will be in consoles side) should just be happy that it came true. Because it seems entirely possible that Sony could have missed the boat and shipped a RT-less console in 2019.

I for one am very happy about it. Can't wait to see what next gen engines are going to be like.
 
Different in what way exactly? What you said leads pretty much to the same conclusion: many veterans here DISMISSED the idea completely based on whatever arbitrary factor they deemed reasonable: silicon cost, budget, performance, supposed superiority of compute RT, supposed superiority of Rasterization, NVIDIA scamming people with professional tech .. etc. Yet here we are, 12 months later and all of those factors gone in an instant.

The very fact that you thought cost or budget alone would prevent RT inclusion is a testament to how wrong, old and utterly flawed that line of reasoning was.

I consider what happened a test that many failed to pass, there should be lessons to be learned from it, like any other historical paradigm shift in the industry, some people need to be truly open to the possibility of sudden changes in the industry, and not to be stuck in the old ways of thinking or reasoning.

Thats like saying we should throw out the tenants of the scientific method just because aliens showed up one day.

A lot of us here understood the cost and effort needed to offer RT in a real-time environment. We all tried to offer informed opinions based on what we knew at the time.

And let’s be real, the level of RT we have been discussing in the past isn’t the level of RT received. Nobody was running around talking about, “When we get RT, AO is going to be so much better!!!” Or, “I can’t wait for RT so we can get rid of these cubemaps!!!” Our discussions were always based on RT offering a visual quality that current RT hardware isn’t close to offering.

Just because our reasoning didn’t hold true doesn’t necessarily mean our reasoning methods were wrong. Hindsight is 20/20 not foresight. Good foresight doesn’t require being correct 100% of the time. Methods of predictions are going to be flawed in some sense because those predictions will always be based on incomplete knowledge. Complete knowledge doesn’t require prediction.

RT sudden appearance doesn’t mean that misterxmedia like conjectures suddenly become appropriate here.
 
You claim there were NEON Signs of it hitting consoles, yet you provided 0 evidence of anything that actually existed then.
This here is why I keep going back to this, this complete disregard for all the valid pro RT arguments that we raised, the blind, stubborn insistence on being right even after proven utterly wrong in the end.

Me and the others raised dozens of valid, logical points, if our points were baseless the arguments would have died instantly, yet we persisted, but it all fell off on deaf ears. I don't need to to back and hunt around for all the ridiculous anti RT arguments that got thrown around everywhere. I don't need to go back and do that because I hate that.

Thats like saying we should throw out the tenants of the scientific method just because aliens showed up one day.
The scientific method compels you to find out what went wrong with your predictions, it compels you to go back and admit the signs you didn't see, not gloat around about how your method is sound, when the predictions you gave were not even a little bit correct.

Fact is: you ignored significant industry changes and trends and focused on the theoretical, what should be, and what shouldn't be, while ignoring telltale signs of what's actually happening in the real world, that's why your method failed you, nothing is ever wrong with the scientific methodology, it's ignoring the variables that often clouds your judgment in the end. It's like seeing all the clouds gathering in the sky, heralding a sudden storm, yet refusing to believe it because it's not that time of the year yet!

I am hammering this point because it's important for us to learn from what happened, this wasn't a discussion open to uncertainties, it was a heated entrenched one, spanning dozens of pages, with both sides clinging to their argument points, many seemed stuck so hard in the conventional ways of thinking it became a chore to convince them about the possibility of otherwise, this needs to change.
 
The scientific method compels you to find out what went wrong with your predictions, it compels you to go back and admit the signs you didn't see, not gloat around about how your method is sound
i Could probably do more of this as well here. Seldom do I go back and evaluate why my predictions went south.
 
Different in what way exactly? What you said leads pretty much to the same conclusion: many veterans here DISMISSED the idea completely based on whatever arbitrary factor they deemed reasonable: silicon cost, budget, performance, supposed superiority of compute RT, supposed superiority of Rasterization, NVIDIA scamming people with professional tech .. etc. Yet here we are, 12 months later and all of those factors gone in an instant.
That argument never happened. It was never DISMISSED*. It was argued reasons why versus reasons to. It's called a debate.

* It was probably dismissed by some as there were a lot of different opinions, but that's the nature of debate. Some (most?) people's opinions will not budge no matter how much evidence/counterpoint you present.
 
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* It was probably dismissed by some as there were a lot of different opinions, but that's the nature of debate. Some (most?) people's opinions will not budge no matter how much evidence/counterpoint you present.
Yeah, no better proof for that than this quote:
You claim there were NEON Signs of it hitting consoles, yet you provided 0 evidence of anything that actually existed then.

And what's with this ridiculous thread title? Is this your idea of a joke? This is exactly what I was describing earlier, shameful and childish moderator behaviors in the face of being proven wrong in an argument they have done nothing about but consistently side with the wrong variables. Instead of properly responding to arguments like adults, you resort to such lowly and ridiculing behaviors. Is this how you review your methods? Instead of learning form what happened you repeat the cycle all over again! It's a disgrace that should be stopped immediately.
 
That argument never happened. It was never DISMISSED*. It was argued reasons why versus reasons to. It's called a debate.

Let's take a step back here, this here is the best tech forum in the whole world, it's the best one equipped to discuss technical matters, learn from history, anticipate industry changes and read through trends, yet it failed miserably in the RT situation! What happened here is nothing short of a COLOSSAL and complete failure, no matter how you spin it, dance around it, or sugarcoat it, it's still a massive letdown, worsened by the fact that so many handled the situation stubbornly and childishly.

What's the difference between this sub and other common barbaric subs if we can't even predict with a reasonable probability the inclusion of RT in consoles? The fact that so many here missed the mark on this means there is something seriously wrong with the way they observe the industry. And we all have to take steps to try and fix that.
 
Me and the others raised dozens of valid, logical points, if our points were baseless the arguments would have died instantly, yet we persisted, but it all fell off on deaf ears.
What do you mean 'deaf ears'? The arguments were heard and counter-argued. Presenting evidence of something doesn't mean everyone should accept it.

The scientific method compels you to find out what went wrong with your predictions, it compels you to go back and admit the signs you didn't see, not gloat around about how your method is sound, when the predictions you gave were not even a little bit correct.
The signs were never 100%. People who already held a belief that R would come would, in the face of a 50/50 outcome in their favour, of course believe they were right all along. That doesn't change the quality of the evidence given in the first instance. Pro-RTers would point to RTX and say RT is coming, while the rest pointed logically to plenty of nascent techs that were pretty much still born.

What with have here is akin to a trial, with B3D being the jury members, and you after day one saying, "see, the guy's guilty! Call it now and we can all go home." And a couple agree with you, with one saying, "yeah, he's got a suspicious face. I don't like his face. I'm calling it as guilty," while everyone else says they want to see the rest of the arguments and evidence. A week later, the jury ruled 'guilty' and then you say, "see I was right all along." Just being right didn't mean the process could be ignored, and being right after day one's evidence doesn't mean you'd have never been wrong. Even worse, the guy who said, "I don't like his face," jumps up and down saying they were right all along and the jury shouldn't have called them an idiot for their reasoning.

The evidence was inclusive, and only showed a industry movement towards an idea that had not been proven viable, which is where we were asking for evidence of the effectiveness of RT hardware.
I point to 3DTV as an example of a nascent tech that bombed just as RT could have. One could have looked at the way the industry was heading and said it was obvious everything would become 3D, yet it didn't happen. Signs and portents that RT would become the next big thing, consisting of a new API and one IHV adding RT hardware and a handful of games getting RT features, weren't concrete proof. Some people are happy with a 60% confidence rating being considered 'true' but for others, a far higher confidence rating is needed to accept something as a given.

There has been no failure of the scientific method. Heck, there's been no failure because all it was was a debate! There's no investment here, or product design. We aren't responsible for the PS5's architecture and we aren't getting a RT-free console now because some nay-sayers on B3D wouldn't believe in a RT future! A debate is a success if if generates good conversation with good arguments. The discussion was correct and proper, only heated because some contributors were too emotionally attached to the outcome and made it about platform bias (once we axed that one trouble maker, things soon settled down). It's precisely the fact that we can talk about a subject for years entertaining possibilities that I love B3D so much. ;)
 
And what's with this ridiculous thread title? Is this your idea of a joke?
It's the first thing I typed in moving the thread to an appropriate forum while really having more important things to do! I agree it's not ideal but I can't think of a good alternative at the moment and it does feel the basis of your post to me - in a thread about next-gen consoles you posted "I was right and you were wrong". If your position was more neutral than that, it hasn't come across.

This is exactly what I was describing earlier, shameful and childish moderator behaviors in the face of being proven wrong in an argument they have done nothing about but consistently side with the wrong variables.
Rubbish. I never drew a side. I have argued in favour of RT as a tech. I have said I wanted to see it in consoles. I've debated the value of RT-specific hardware and whether compute could be used instead. I've looked into alternative solutions like voxelised lighting. It's all been debate, no sides.

If you think I picked a side and picked wrong, find the post where I say something like, "RT hardware is never coming to consoles." If you find me making any such prediction, I'll step down as moderator. I don't make predictions. I argued why RT might not come to consoles and I may have given a personal probability rating, "may not," or "seems unlikely at the moment," but there's no way I said, "RT isn't coming and those who think it will are wrong." I won't even be drawn on voting in a price-prediction poll!
 
I point to 3DTV as an example of a nascent tech that bombed just as RT could have. One could have looked at the way the industry was heading and said it was obvious everything would become 3D, yet it didn't happen. Signs and portents that RT would become the next big thing,
The very fact that some people consistently point to 3D and VR as a basis for their arguments against RT shows how far off the mark their line of reasoning has become. VR, 3D. 4K and the likes are display standards, they are fundamentally different from a rendering standard.

The display standard is user driven, it lives and dies by the users finding it acceptable and "fun" to use. A rendering standard however is developer driven, it lives and dies by it's usefulness to the developer and their intention to utilize it for a specific period of time, or forever. Users didn't ask for RT, or Unified Shaders, or PBR, developers and industry makers did.

The signs were never 100%
Of course there were never a 100% sign, but there was trends, and much greater than 50% probability based on those trends.

There has been no failure of the scientific method. Heck, there's been no failure because all it was was a debate!
I just wish we had a better consensus in that debate, a consensus that better matched the real world end result, instead of being so far off the mark.
 
Of course there were never a 100% sign, but there was trends, and much greater than 50% probability based on those trends.
that's a matter of opinion. ;)

I just wish we had a better consensus in that debate, a consensus that better matched the real world end result, instead of being so far off the mark.
But there was no consensus, so it couldn't have been far off the mark. There were just lots of opinions, with some thinking RT was a shoe in, and some thinking it was never going to happen, and most just debating the middle ground. I don't know that being able to predict the future is really something of value, unless we want B3D to become some sort of futurologist think tank. ;) Like I said before, we're not designing products here. If B3D was in charge of designing one of the consoles, the debate would have needed consensus to get our engineers designing the machine. In such a case, I'd have probably advocated RT more strongly assuming I'd seen good data showing the impact of the RT solution options we had available. But we're not, and I don't see the importance of being 'right'. Like the 8GB PS4 - that was considered not an option by everyone, including the entire gaming industry. Sony surprised everyone with that one. Would the discussions have been better here if somehow we'd settled on PS4 having 8 GBs fast GDDR versus XB1's 8GB + eSRAM? I don't think so. As part of the RT debate, I looked up developments in voxelised lighting and learnt some of their shortcomings, which wouldn't have happened had I just accepted RT was the future and not cared to consider the alternatives.
 
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