GPU Ray Tracing Performance Comparisons [2021-2022]

Why did Cyberpunk 2077 developers include a "psycho" setting?
They were tested here:

individual-settings.png

https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/dominic-moass/cyberpunk-2077-ray-tracing-on-amd-gpus-benchmarked/
 
Yes, so every time Cyberpunk 2077 is used for testing, "maximum" settings should make use of psycho ray tracing. Similar for Metro Exodus:Enhanced Edition, just use the maximum. And so on for the other games with ray tracing quality levels.

Now it could be argued that some of these ray tracing quality levels are similarly "damaging" as NVidia Hair Works once was. I think a lot of reviewers just kept that setting turned off every time a game using it was tested. It became a "consensus amongst reviewers" that it should be turned off.

So maximum ray tracing can be interpreted as a re-run of the Hair Works situation.

It can also be agued that "maximum" ray tracing is damaging to PC gaming, in the same way that Hair Works was viewed. I think it's fair to say that many developers have "learnt their lesson" about including "excessive" quality settings in their games, such that the most powerful cards, at game launch time, cannot achieve playable framerates at "enthusiast" resolutions (4K these days). 4A and Crytek have both expressed "regret", because it actually hurts sales of the game to make "maximum quality" unplayable.

It seems pretty likely that the next "doubling" of performance from NVidia is going to make Cyberpunk 2077 psycho playable (without DLSS) at 4K on "4090", so then we can move on...
 
I think it's fair to say that many developers have "learnt their lesson" about including "excessive" quality settings in their games, such that the most powerful cards, at game launch time, cannot achieve playable framerates at "enthusiast" resolutions (4K these days). 4A and Crytek have both expressed "regret", because it actually hurts sales of the game to make "maximum quality" unplayable.

Also the definition of playable has evolved. It seems a lot of people aren't satisfied with 4K60 at maximum settings on their $2k graphics cards. So it makes sense for developers to hold back. Not much is lost really as ultra/max settings typically didn't add anything useful even before RT.
 
I support unplayable quality settings in games. First time I played Quake ]|[ Arena I was only getting 35-50fps I think, and it was a while before I got 60fps (LOL struggling to remember which graphics cards those were, and the resolution). Or maybe I only got 35-50fps after I upgraded. Ah, the good old days.

Benchmark Results - Quake Arena - High Quality - ATI Rage Fury Pro Review | Tom's Hardware (tomshardware.com)

Since I have this Steam backlog, it doesn't hurt that I'll wait a few years to play Cyberpunk 2077 with psycho ray tracing. So I look forward to that. But overall it seems developers are steering clear of "future-proofing" in-game settings. And console adds pressure for such a ceiling.

My 4K monitor does 120fps, which I like, but I don't see myself as part of the "maximalist 120fps" gang.

I think it's notable that 4K monitors simply haven't been adopted at scale. 1440p at 120/144fps has become the focus. Perhaps as more 4K120 monitors arrive, some PC gamers will move up?

It seems kinda ironic that there are, perhaps, more console gamers playing at "4K" than PC gamers. I wonder if that's true...
 
Regarding why FC might not have RT on console -
Like @trinibwoy said, maybe they targeted 60 fps and an RT mode at 60 fps cannot exist on console due to BVH CPU costs. They are pretty significant, to the point where one level in COD Blops last year turned off RT completely for the level on console for no apparent reason. But then you load that level up on PC and it is pretty easy to do some CPU testing to show that console calibre CPUs are below 60 fps with RT on on that level.
 
Far Cry 6 PC Performance Analysis
Far Cry 6 supports both Ray Tracing and AMD FSR. And, to be honest, I’m a bit disappointed by the Ray Tracing effects. Ubisoft has used a really aggressive hybrid system for the game’s reflections. As such, a lot of reflected surfaces use SSR instead of RT. Below you can find a video showing it. This is also why the tree “disappears” from the benchmark scene (at the end). Furthermore, the RT shadows are very minor, and it can be really hard to even notice them. Below you can also find some comparisons between Ray Tracing (left) and the rasterized version (right).
...
Now while the Ray Tracing effects are a bit underwhelming, I was really surprised by the AMD FSR implementation. AMD FSR Ultra Quality produces a crisper image than native resolution. However, there is also additional aliasing when using AMD FSR. So while AMD FSR it’s not as amazing as DLSS, it certainly is a great alternative in this particular game.
 
Far Cry 6 Benchmark Test & Performance Review - Performance & VRAM Usage | TechPowerUp
You've probably already looked at our RT comparison shots and wondered "are you fucking kidding me, that's it?" Yup, seems ray tracing was sneaked in at the last minute, probably to grab some $$ from "next-gen" console or GPU vendors. These sentences are copy&paste from last month's Deathloop review. I'm starting to wonder if this is what ray tracing is supposed to be, then it's just a scam? Lucky that there's titles like Metro Exodus and Cyberpunk 2077 that give us a much better RT experience. Far Cry 6 has support for ray traced shadows and, surprise, ray traced reflections. Ray traced reflections are only implemented on some puddles of water, not on the ocean, not on glass, cars or other shiny surfaces. Even with RT off, these puddles look "good enough", because they use screen-space reflections, which generally work well and come with a much smaller performance cost.

The raytraced shadows mostly seem "softer", but if you look at them in more detail you can see that the actual shadows have subtle differences, sometimes. I took the time to peep at individual pixels and feel like sometimes RT shadows makes things more accurate, sometimes not. Yet again, just like in Deathloop, your character doesn't cast a shadow when indoor, no matter if RT is on or off. It seems that due to the low ray density some geometry gets missed by the RT shadows that does get detected correctly with classic shadowing algorithms.
 
3080 cannot run with HD textures at 4k (EDIT: stipulated 4K)? There's a performance hit for those, so these ray tracing comparisons are not "maximum quality".
 
Last edited:
Only in average framerate?
0.2%s are close enough as well but the game gives f*k all to proper VRAM usage (they manage to hit >8GBs consumption in 1080p without RT, lol) - so NV GPUs will suffer here of course when compared to 12/16GB competition.
 
I wonder if the HD texture pack does anything meaningful. Usually they just sharpen up some random, small props that never occupy any real screen real estate.
 
Which games do more than shadowing and reflections with ray tracing?

Its the quality. Farcry 6 (or Resident Evil) is doing the absolute minimum to offer Raytracing effects. Compare it with Battlefield 5 and it is obviously that these games are far behind in the implementation and intensity
 
Which games do more than shadowing and reflections with ray tracing?
There are many quality and quantitative aspects for each effect.
Quality factors for reflections are resolution, roughness handling (stochastic or blurred pyramids of mipmaps), denoising quality, quality of materials shading in reflections, textures resolution in reflections, presence of texture transparency in reflections, shadowing/GI/particles/other effects in reflections, etc.
Quantative factors are roughness cutoff (determines how many surfaces will reflect, specular occlusion also depends on this), reflections draw distance (determines draw distance in reflections), BVH density (how many objects to place in BVH, small alpha transparent objects such as grass are usually being cut off first), LODs in reflections, number of bounces, etc.

Looking at Far Cry 6 implementation, those reflections are far cry from the Watch Dogs Legion reflections.

And I am too lazy to describe all cuts for shadows, there are plenty of them too.
 
Back
Top