Next Generation Hardware Speculation with a Technical Spin [pre E3 2019]

[Deleted member 11852]

Once people are up to speed implementing RT, creating tools and best practice for artistry should be pretty straight-forward.

There are many documentaries on PIXAR's process. In none, did they suggest this was "pretty straight-forward". If you start messing around with otherwise consistent lighting rules, it looks broken.

 

[Mobius1aic]

As others have mentioned before, once you start getting used to correct looking visuals, the inadequacies of current approximations will become more jarring. PS1 used to look great, but now it's an eyesore. 640x480 used to be high-res, but now it's a pixelated or blurry mess.

The difference between faking/approximating and RT is relatively pretty close however with massive number of OPs/pixel we can perform. But also you're someone who has become used to looking for inaccuracies in rendering, as opposed to the basic Joe who wants to play Madden or CoD after a long day at work. All he really expects is a new game each year that only has to look a little bit better year to year, while offering the new experience/content that he's really there for. That's why I think RT actually has to benefit developmental workflow, not just offer an upgrade in visuals. There's no saving in time or money yet compared to the current paradigm. These new consoles could be the impetus if they actually have enough RT capability to matter beyond just a hybrid system. Maybe AMD could have customized Sony's Navi variant with more SFUs for this very purpose

 

[OCASM]

I expect shadowing to be utilized this generation but probably not much else. Start with something that is not a huge impact on performance but can still have a significant visual benefit and simplify development somewhat.

I might be too hopeful but I expect to see limited GI support in release window titles.

There are many documentaries on PIXAR's process. In none, did they suggest this was "pretty straight-forward". If you start messing around with otherwise consistent lighting rules, it looks broken.

Lighting in games already looks broken. We're just used to it. RT helps to fix that.

The difference between faking/approximating and RT is relatively pretty close however with massive number of OPs/pixel we can perform. But also you're someone who has become used to looking for inaccuracies in rendering, as opposed to the basic Joe who wants to play Madden or CoD after a long day at work. All he really expects is a new game each year that only has to look a little bit better year to year, while offering the new experience/content that he's really there for. That's why I think RT actually has to benefit developmental workflow, not just offer an upgrade in visuals. There's no saving in time or money yet compared to the current paradigm. These new consoles could be the impetus if they actually have enough RT capability to matter beyond just a hybrid system. Maybe AMD could have customized Sony's Navi variant with more SFUs for this very purpose

The basic Joe you describe doesn't seem to care about high quality AAA titles. Who what he thinks?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The basic Joe you describe doesn't seem to care about high quality AAA titles. Who what he thinks?

Console makers and console game developers care because that's their main audience and their main source of income.

Regards,
SB

 

[jlippo]

Loading times can't always be fixed (sometimes causes bugs) but all of the others can. Assuming you're ok with texture upscaling algos like xbrz, which often handles textures better than pixel art.

Retroarch also supports SSAA on vulkan now for Beetle PSX, which often looks more natural and consistent than normal higher resolution rendering.

https://www.libretro.com/index.php/new-vulkan-graphics-enhancements-features-in-beetle-psx-hw/

Mostly meant very bad mipmapping/sampling and possible lack of perspective correction.
Original textures with antialiased nearest neighbour with anisotropic filtering would be lovely.

SSAA does help a lot even though costly.

 

[milk]

Lighting in games already looks broken. We're just used to it. RT helps to fix that.

It will still look broken with near single ray per pixel we will get in the near future. It's not obvious yet which aproximation will result in the best final quality for a guven performance budget. We arent talking about current gen shader/image based lighting vs. offline-level path pracing. It will be next gen lighting tech vs. barely above shit-level ray tracing.

 

[borntosoul]

It will still look broken with near single ray per pixel we will get in the near future. It's not obvious yet which aproximation will result in the best final quality for a guven performance budget. We arent talking about current gen shader/image based lighting vs. offline-level path pracing. It will be next gen lighting tech vs. barely above shit-level ray tracing.

This is pretty much spot on.

 

[iroboto]

It will still look broken with near single ray per pixel we will get in the near future. It's not obvious yet which aproximation will result in the best final quality for a guven performance budget. We arent talking about current gen shader/image based lighting vs. offline-level path pracing. It will be next gen lighting tech vs. barely above shit-level ray tracing.

This year perhaps. I agree.
I also agree with the point that shader/image based lighting will continue to improve

But the rate of improvement will be slower than the rate of improvement than hybrid ray tracing will experience, this is just natural considering where they both are in their maturity. We're going to see acceleration of HRT tech once the consoles release. I don't expect the current landscape to stay the same for very long.

 

[Entropy]

It will still look broken with near single ray per pixel we will get in the near future. It's not obvious yet which aproximation will result in the best final quality for a guven performance budget. We arent talking about current gen shader/image based lighting vs. offline-level path pracing. It will be next gen lighting tech vs. barely above shit-level ray tracing.

This is one aspect. Another is, as has been pointed out, that lighting with RT is still difficult.
And a third is that, for the foreseeable future, any multiplatform game has to offer both approaches, which means that it can't help but increase the total development work. RTRT lighting may be The Future(tm) but I maintain that for that to be the case it has to offer tangible benefits at a net lower resource cost. At what point, if ever, a game designer/publisher can assume that all targeted platforms will have sufficiently efficient support for RT that no other approach needs to be considered is very much up in the air.

 

[OCASM]

Console makers and console game developers care because that's their main audience and their main source of income.

Regards,
SB

And they'll stop playing if the games support RT?

The CoD developers have a clear focus on high-end rendering, including RT. Doesn't seem like that hurts them.

It will still look broken with near single ray per pixel we will get in the near future. It's not obvious yet which aproximation will result in the best final quality for a guven performance budget. We arent talking about current gen shader/image based lighting vs. offline-level path pracing. It will be next gen lighting tech vs. barely above shit-level ray tracing.

Will it look significantly better than current lighting approaches? Yes. ALSO you're forgetting the temporal accumulation factor for multi-bounce lighting (like Minecraft). Sure, that introduces artifacts of its own but the overall image still looks much better than without RT.

This is one aspect. Another is, as has been pointed out, that lighting with RT is still difficult.
And a third is that, for the foreseeable future, any multiplatform game has to offer both approaches, which means that it can't help but increase the total development work. RTRT lighting may be The Future(tm) but I maintain that for that to be the case it has to offer tangible benefits at a net lower resource cost. At what point, if ever, a game designer/publisher can assume that all targeted platforms will have sufficiently efficient support for RT that no other approach needs to be considered is very much up in the air.

They don't have to offer both approaches, they can just lower the quality.

 

[iroboto]

This is one aspect. Another is, as has been pointed out, that lighting with RT is still difficult.
And a third is that, for the foreseeable future, any multiplatform game has to offer both approaches, which means that it can't help but increase the total development work. RTRT lighting may be The Future(tm) but I maintain that for that to be the case it has to offer tangible benefits at a net lower resource cost. At what point, if ever, a game designer/publisher can assume that all targeted platforms will have sufficiently efficient support for RT that no other approach needs to be considered is very much up in the air.

That's an interesting take. i thought RT was designed for the high end which is why we should only see it in high end GPU models.
If there is a cross over point where the amount of compute/shader resources is going exponentially higher to achieve the next look they want to achieve, and then it competes against an also computationally high ray tracing, one of these is likely going to win out overall (I suspect ray tracing).

So I mean, the way I see it, you're designing games for your typical gaming setup, and when you want to push the engine to it's absolute shine you're showing off the RT variant one as I can't imagine the non RT version winning that race.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

And they'll stop playing if the games support RT?

That it's currently a buzzword more than something most people will actually notice unless someone goes through and specifically points it out to them.

Most people don't even notice the RT in Metro: Exodus, for example.

Just like 720p vs. lower than 720p in the PS3/X360 days. Most people never noticed that COD was less than 720p on consoles until people started talking about it. And even then they probably didn't notice but just took someone's word for it.

This doesn't mean that developers won't experiment with RT if they have the development funds, desire, and time available to do so. At the same time there will likely be plenty of developers that don't bother unless the cost to implement is so insignificant that they don't have to budget for it.

Just look at the rather anemic support for RTX as to how most developers view the cost/benefit to implementing some form of RT. If both consoles support RT, they will do far more to accelerate RT in games than RTX, but even then, don't expect all or even potentially most developers to bother with RT for quite a few years, maybe not even until the gen after next gen, unless it becomes absolutely trivial to implement.

There's a lot of interest in RT currently. But there aren't a lot of developers that can afford to focus on leveraging RT.

And when it comes to your average consumer...it won't matter if they do or don't. THAT was the point.

Regards,
SB

 

[Globalisateur]

That's an interesting take. i thought RT was designed for the high end which is why we should only see it in high end GPU models.
If there is a cross over point where the amount of compute/shader resources is going exponentially higher to achieve the next look they want to achieve, and then it competes against an also computationally high ray tracing, one of these is likely going to win out overall (I suspect ray tracing).

So I mean, the way I see it, you're designing games for your typical gaming setup, and when you want to push the engine to it's absolute shine you're showing off the RT variant one as I can't imagine the non RT version winning that race.

I think eventually most AAA multiplats will have RT on all next gen hardware and even on current gen on a few games (like COD). Depending of the hardware and how efficiently RT is implemented by the hardware, they'll reduce the RT quality / resolution / framerate.

But I think RT is here to stay. In a few years, all big developers will have to include some variant of it in their games.

And @Silent_Buddha I think you are wrong. RT is much more noticeable than resolution. You can easily see the difference even on badly compressed youtube videos running at 30fps which is totally not the case with 720p / 1080p.

 

[Cyan]

Lighting in games already looks broken. We're just used to it. RT helps to fix that.

I am fearful to try RT. Because once you try it maybe you don't want to look back. That's why I am also fearful to try a 120 or 144Hz monitor, because then 60 fps will be the new 30 fps.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I think eventually most AAA multiplats will have RT on all next gen hardware and even on current gen on a few games (like COD). Depending of the hardware and how efficiently RT is implemented by the hardware, they'll reduce the RT quality / resolution / framerate.

But I think RT is here to stay. In a few years, all big developers will have to include some variant of it in their games.

And @Silent_Buddha I think you are wrong. RT is much more noticeable than resolution. You can easily see the difference even on badly compressed youtube videos running at 30fps which is totally not the case with 720p / 1080p.

Yes, RT is definitely here to stay unless it hits a dead end WRT performance scaling. But it's unlikely to supplant or replace conventional rendering for the forseeable future. This next generation of consoles will see some developers experimenting with it to some degree.

If you were to ask your average gamer whether Metro: Exodus with RT on has better lighting than Horizon, Uncharted 4, or Days Gone...I'm not sure Metro: Exodus would win. If they did not already know that Metro: Exodus has RT or even what RT is, there's a good chance they won't pick Metro: Exodus.

RT isn't yet at a point where it is clearly noticeable versus the best implementation of current lighting technology for most people. People who know what to look for will notice, for everyone else, RT just isn't that huge of an upgrade in most cases.

Regards,
SB

 

[Globalisateur]

@Silent_Buddha have you watched the Minecraft RT demo ?

 

[cheapchips]

The 'DF Direct' had an interesting snippet they'd heard. The next xboxs' SSD has two modes. A normal SSD mode and a lower level performance mode that's more akin to Sony's PS5 solution.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

@Silent_Buddha have you watched the Minecraft RT demo ?

I've watched most of them yes. But Minecraft didn't use very good lighting in the first place, so the RT in it is, of course, very dramatic compared to the lighting that existed in that game.

What people should be doing is comparing RT to the best lighting used in games. Not comparing RT to bad lighting used in games.

How does RT compare to the best lighting we've seen in recent games? Does it offer a dramatic and easily seen improvement? Especially when used in an actual game and not just a tailored RT demo. I and most people would argue that it doesn't. At least currently. Things will improve over time of course.

[edit] One caveat. If the next generation of console has significantly more performant RT than Nvidia's RTX 2080 Ti, that might be a game changer. But who here actually thinks that will happen?

Regards,
SB

 

[PSman1700]

If the next generation of console has significantly more performant RT than Nvidia's RTX 2080 Ti, that might be a game changer. But who here actually thinks that will happen?

They actually might. But then, 2020 is going to see RTX 2XXX successor, Ampere. Going to be interesting to see it's RT performance.

 

[BRiT]

Kindly Check your bias at the door. None of that adds to this technical discussion.