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

[SvennoJ]

fatslob-:O said:

SvennoJ said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but will ray tracing help with loading times as well? No more light / cube / shadow / reflection maps etc to load for each scene, instead rendered on the fly. That should also reduce the game size, faster downloads, faster patching. It should also reduce the workload on the development side.

Not really, cube/shadow/reflection maps are mostly generated in real time using either the fixed function units or shaders. Light maps hardly take any storage space. You're going to be disappointed if you think ray tracing will improve loading times but it's going to vastly improve visual quality leaving last gen systems in the dust ... 

I was under the impression Assassin's creed Unity was so big (file size) because of the light maps. Every bit helps anyway, but the SSD will have a much bigger impact of course.

Ray tracing in VR will be magical. No clue if the ps5 can pull that off, yet holding a flash light with ray traced light and shadows is going to be mind blowing :)