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
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
I don't recall anyone dismissing the raytracing technology outright. Yes, there were doubts, primarily about cost and performance - and there are still doubts, as neither AMD nor Microsoft or Sony disclosed any benchmarks or other significant implementation details. We've seen it many times when a certain feature is advertised like it's a second coming, and then the actual hardware implementation leaves much to be desired.That argument never happened. It was never DISMISSED*. It was argued reasons why versus reasons to. It's called a debate.
I can live with that. The list of people/corporations/governments that failed to predict something significant would be dramatically incomplete without me and the Beyound3D Forum!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?
I still disagree with that, the signs was there, it's how you interpret them that matters. And some people were more successful than others in doing so, this should count for something.that's a matter of opinion.
That's again, precisely my point, opinions were all over the place, most of them were against it though, despite the presence of strong signs of otherwise.But there was no consensus, so it couldn't have been far off the mark.
It's not a prediction when you have signs and trends. If RT for consoles came out of the blue then no one would have cared, but many people fought vehemently against the idea despite the myriad of what can be considered evidence of RT in consoles.I don't know that being able to predict the future is really something of value
That's completely different, there were little to no signs or trends suggesting Sony would use 8GB RAMLike the 8GB PS4 - that was considered not an option by everyone, including the entire gaming industry. Sony surprised everyone with that one.
Many of the points you raised in that paragraph were very early (almost a year ago), we've had many corrections and emerging details ever since, and you've had the time to revise your points. So did many others, yet it didn't happen.My doubts were specifically based on 1) DXR performance issues with GeForce RTX cards, with little room for software optimization, and 2) silicon costs for a mid-range APU part, which are typically used in gaming consoles (with first-gen Navi unlikely to include any form of RT).
I disagree, especially when several others didn't fall in the same trap. I believe we should strive to be among those who can spot the shifting trends, not let lit it pass them by without having learnt anything. This means this will happen again and again, and people will be none the wiser.I can live with that. The list of people/corporations/governments that failed to predict something significant would be dramatically incomplete without me and the Beyound3D Forum!
The difference is what you interpret as strong signs, others saw as mild pointers. There were only really two signs AFAICS - MS releasing DXR and nVidia releasing RTX. These are also released quite close to new hardware, so it's not like the consoles, already deep into development, could easily change plan to incorporate RT if they weren't already planning it. Most importantly, AMD didn't have a hardware RT solution and we knew AMD were providing the hardware for the next consoles. If AMD had RT hardware, yeah, the evidence would be quite solid. But without that, with AMD using compute for their RT implementation of DXR, it's not at all obvious that the consoles would be adding RT hardware to AMD GPUs ahead of AMD's own PC parts. Meanwhile on the software side, we had loads of RT-alternative techs coming and going. Things like VXGI producing great results without needing specialist hardware.I still disagree with that, the signs was there, it's how you interpret them that matters.
I didn't know it was my duty to track everything I said in the past and follow up on every bit of news that might alter my previuos opinions. I participate in discussions when I have time to contribute some different point of view. New raytracing pipeline and implications for GPU design and game programming / content creation - that's interesting; simple facts like which part gets it at what time, not much.you've had the time to revise your points
You mean, stock market analysts?I believe we should strive to be among those who can spot the shifting trends
If companies based decisions on furthering humanity, yes. However, choices are made on furthering profits.On balance RT just had to happen or else the industry would have been waiting another 6-7yrs to really get going with it. It still would have been happening on PC but not to the extent with it being available across the board. You could argue the technology would be "more ready" for prime time, but I'd argue the years of experience to be gained doing select effects to a lower quality and having to do it very efficiently will directly translate to further generations; and be a bigger net gain.
But that's a very slim possibility, now both vendors watch each other closely, which means both will be in the same ballpark (compute wise) as the other, and NVIDIA has shown that RT cores don't cost that much of silicon area anyway. Which means the console that will not have RT will not gain that much from it's absence and will be left as the technologically inferior solution, which means less profit too.Hypothetical case, Console A includes RT, Console B just has loads of compute. Console B eclipses console A in launch titles using conventional methods of rendering. Gains critical mass, goes on to become the dominant console, software focuses on it with RT being used as an 'also-ran' feature on console A so it never really hits its stride.
I suppose you are right.The PS3 released with separate vertex and pixel shaders in spite of the trend towards unified shaders. NVidia then released a series of cards with unified shaders about 6 months after the PS3 launched. So it's not as though there's no precedent for this sort of thing.
New @DavidGraham what can we learn from the debate? That you're a bad winner