Opinion: Next Gen Console Lockhart, Anaconda and PS5 will be built to do Hardware Ray Tracing

[DonFerrari]

SvennoJ said:

DonFerrari said:
The answer for your opinion is seeing if the top end of the PCs GPUs of today are doing it... so I don't think next gen real time ray tracing will be a thing...
CGI could possibly answer that more effectively if the games he is working involve it.

My thoughts exactly. If it should be viable in 2020 on console, it should be available right now on PC. Are there any real time ray traced games on PC? NVidea has done ray trace demos for a long time, but I can't think of any games using this?

1080p30 though with grain, I wonder what this runs on.

Basically this.

CGI-Quality said:

DonFerrari said:
The answer for your opinion is seeing if the top end of the PCs GPUs of today are doing it... so I don't think next gen real time ray tracing will be a thing...
CGI could possibly answer that more effectively if the games he is working involve it.

I have some Ray-tracing tools available to me, but it's specific and takes a lot of power (which I fortunately have). On top of that, it's nothing like what the upcoming NVIDIA GPUs will have, which includes the RTX Technology.

Which basically goes to not being nearly available on consoles =[

CGI-Quality said:

Also, have a read: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/266600-nvidias-rtx-promises-real-time-ray-tracing

 

While those demos are very impressive, outside of Volta-based GPUs, you won't find that readily available. Believe me, I kick something every time I think about it, because I've been itching for that sort of thing to work with as a standard (considering my work). One of the reasons I moved a little away from strictly game development and more into character development is because of the knack I have for skin and cloth deformation. Ray-traced skin is very rare these days (metal and reflective surfaces are really where it shines), but with the uptick in realism, many artists are taking advantage of more advanced techniques, and thankfully, it doesn't always require Ray-tracing.

What one should hope for is, instead of these manufacturers chasing the "Big Dream", they seek to accomplish similar things without the expense of a top-tier feature. Ray-tracing is a Godsend in the 3D Community, which I'm of course a big part of, but in the gaming community, it is only recently being realized in a considerable way. But, these things take time and money, and with other costs that will already haunt these manufacturers, they shouldn't chase the Ray-tracing Dream until absolutely feasible to do so. It's not a standard even for most PC gamers.....and they've had access to exclusive features for decades. 

On the flip side, I'm 100% with all of you who are excited for the new stuff and are intrigued by this material. Watching technology change and evolve over the last 6 years has been one of my greatest treats in life. I love having access to the tools that I do and sharing some of the fruits of that labor with you guys. I'm just as eager to see what's next. But I want everyone who is a little less understanding of this stuff to temper expectations. As I've said plenty before - you are going to get some mighty big jumps over what we have today (physics will improve, elements on skin will improve, reflections will improve, etc, etc...). But, if you really need this Ray-tracing stuff in your life, PC is the best choice right now, especially if you doing any kind of serious 3D work. For consoles, the big thing for next gen will be Advanced SSS, Anistropic Filtering, Movie-quality Depth of Field, and vastly improved physics. 

But we could see use of this Ray Tracomg to make CGI (pre-rendered movies) and perhaps to create texture/animation/rasterization/pre-baked lightining right?