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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Ray Tracing and Why You Love to See It!

Pemalite on 22 May 2021
Peh said:

Dude, you are grasping at straws here. 

"So not only have you been privileged to enjoy Ray Tracing in video games for the better part of almost 30 years, but you didn't even know it."

You should stop making assumption about me. Makes you appear rather silly. 

Wolfenstein 3D Raycasting that was also used as an advanced version in Doom:

Raycasting (lodev.org)

Raycasting is not the same as raytracing! Raycasting is a fast semi-3D technique that works in realtime even on 4MHz graphical calculators, while raytracing is a realistic rendering technique that supports reflections and shadows in true 3D scenes, and only recently computers became fast enough to do it in realtime for reasonably high resolutions and complex scenes.

My question: "Since when did consoles rendered scenes with Raytracing in realtime?"

Correct. Wolfenstein 3D did have Ray Casting. Glad you picked up on that.

Ray Casting is a Ray Tracing Algorithm.

Ray Casting -is- Ray Tracing.

Just like how modern games are using Path Tracing, that is also a Ray Tracing Algorithm. - Are there higher quality, more expensive implementations than Path Tracing? Absolutely.

Another form of tracing is Voxel Ray Tracing, which is what was demonstrated in CryEngine and Unreal Engine 5.
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-unreal-engine-5-playstation-5-tech-demo-analysis

Peh said:

Now let's focus on Conker.

Conker uses Global Illumination. GI is NOT Raytracing. Global Illumination is rather a group of algorithms. I've seen you doing that mistake in a different thread. Let me link the wikipage for you: 

Global illumination - Wikipedia

Images rendered using global illumination algorithms often appear more photorealistic than those using only direct illumination algorithms. However, such images are computationally more expensive and consequently much slower to generate. One common approach is to compute the global illumination of a scene and store that information with the geometry (e.g., radiosity). The stored data can then be used to generate images from different viewpoints for generating walkthroughs of a scene without having to go through expensive lighting calculations repeatedly.

Radiosity, ray tracing, beam tracing, cone tracing, path tracing, volumetric path tracing, Metropolis light transport, ambient occlusion, photon mapping, signed distance field and image-based lighting are all examples of algorithms used in global illumination, some of which may be used together to yield results that are not fast, but accurate.

Raytracing is just one algorithm that can be used for GI. That's it. In the document about Conker it is not mentioned which exact algorithm is being used. It could be Raytracing, it could be something else. But let's go with Raytracing. They used 1 ray to get GI in the game. OK, wow. *slow clap* 

How does that compare to the current usage with real time Raytracing nowadays for the new consoles? It does not. Let me take the opportunity of being silly here: "Raytracing is an industry buzzword for the new consoles because my old VHS player could do raytracing by playing the movie Toy Story. Raytracing has been there for several decades." How does that sound? That's the point I am going for. Raytracing can be done in real time in modern games and that's also thanks to the denoiser. That's what I am going for. And I don't think it is a industry buzzword and I am not wrong with my original response. 

Anything that uses light bounces which Global Illumination falls into, is Ray Tracing.

And Again... Conker used a Hemisphere lighting model which shoots a single ray of light. A single Ray. That is still Ray Tracing.

Arguing this is absolutely pointless as the evidence is there.

And you are right, it is incomparable to modern engines, they use different lighting models, the point is... Ray Tracing is an "umbrella" term that encompasses a multitude of approaches to a single problem... But for all intents and purposes games have been using Ray Tracing for decades.
Path Tracing, Beam Tracing, Voxel Cone Tracing, Photon Mapping and more are all Ray Tracing algorithms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_tracing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_tracing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_tracing


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mjk45 on 23 May 2021
Captain_Yuri said:

Good video. Could be just me but I think the background music is a tad too loud. Otherwise very informative.

 If you're around ZyroXZ2 and want to be heard you need to be loud.



Research shows Video games  help make you smarter, so why am I an idiot

Peh on 23 May 2021
Pemalite said:

Correct. Wolfenstein 3D did have Ray Casting. Glad you picked up on that.

Ray Casting is a Ray Tracing Algorithm.

Ray Casting -is- Ray Tracing.

Just like how modern games are using Path Tracing, that is also a Ray Tracing Algorithm. - Are there higher quality, more expensive implementations than Path Tracing? Absolutely.

Another form of tracing is Voxel Ray Tracing, which is what was demonstrated in CryEngine and Unreal Engine 5.
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-unreal-engine-5-playstation-5-tech-demo-analysis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_tracingAnything that uses light bounces which Global Illumination falls into, is Ray Tracing.

And Again... Conker used a Hemisphere lighting model which shoots a single ray of light. A single Ray. That is still Ray Tracing.

Arguing this is absolutely pointless as the evidence is there.

And you are right, it is incomparable to modern engines, they use different lighting models, the point is... Ray Tracing is an "umbrella" term that encompasses a multitude of approaches to a single problem... But for all intents and purposes games have been using Ray Tracing for decades.
Path Tracing, Beam Tracing, Voxel Cone Tracing, Photon Mapping and more are all Ray Tracing algorithms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_tracing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_tracing

Ok, I understand where you are coming from and please don't do that. You are interchanging terms and methods. 

Yes, Raytracing is an umbrella term, but it is also a method -> algorithm. Raycasting is a method which falls under the umbrella term, but it is NOT Raytracing (Raytracing algorithm). That's like saying that Half Life 1 is using the Quake engine. This is simply incorrect. If you say that Doom or in my example Wolfenstein 3D is using Raytracing, because it uses a method which just belongs under the umbrella term, then you end up confusing everyone. When I refer to Raytracing, I'm always speaking of the algorithm. 

And here also: "And Again... Conker used a Hemisphere lighting model which shoots a single ray of light. A single Ray. That is still Ray Tracing."

No, please be more specific which algorithm is used. Using one ray, does not equal to it being the raytracing algorithm. Let's follow your logic like that: Global Illumination is an umbrella term for several algorithms including Ambient occlusion. That would mean that games that are using Ambient Occlusion are using a method of Global Illumination which is correct, but could be also labeled (by you) as using Raytracing (Because you consider GI is Raytracing) which is wrong. 

Do you see where I am going with this? 

"..and more are all Ray Tracing algorithms."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_tracing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_tracing

Beam Tracing and Cone Tracing are derivatives of the raytracing algorithm. It says so in the very first beginning of your links. Thus they cannot be a Raytracing algorithm. They are their own algorithms called Beam Tracing and Cone Tracing.  

Path tracing is the closest that comes to the Raytracing algorithm, but still does something else. Otherwise it would be called Raytracing algorithm 2.0. And that's the point. 

If I read that someone added Raytracing to a game (Quake3), by unifying 20 AMD-XP1800-CPU's, than I doubt he used something different than the actual Raytracing algorithm.

When the industry speaks about Raytracing, they will refer by 99% to the raytracing algorithm and not a derivative or any other method under the umbrella term. And so do I. 

When I ask "Since when did consoles rendered scenes with Raytracing in realtime?" I am referring to the raytracing algorithm. Hope I could clear this up. 



Intel Core i7 8700K | 32 GB DDR 4 PC 3200 | ROG STRIX Z370-F Gaming | RTX 3090 FE| Crappy Monitor| HTC Vive Pro :3

mjk45 on 23 May 2021
ZyroXZ2 said:
Captain_Yuri said:

Good video. Could be just me but I think the background music is a tad too loud. Otherwise very informative.

Ah MAANNNN, I purposely turned it UP so people could hear it, otherwise it's normally just some "twanging" in the background!  Sorry, as the saying goes, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"... If you felt that way, surely others felt that way, too. ._.

kirby007 said:

lets start with games that have customisable outfits but dont show that outfit in mirrors or windows

Cyberpunk 2077 has no such issue in its reflections, hehe

Side note: there was actually a LOT more CP77 footage I had, but then I figured it would be weird to just be showing one game over and over again... And then ironically I ended up not using the extra shiny CP77 footage, lol *director's and editor's pain combined*

It just so happens that I was asked to do some penis modeling for CP77 nothing to extreme just some full frontal shots in a multi mirrored hallway, unfortunately  I got a email saying your ahem development, put us years behind in our development we tried but all the tensor cores in the world wouldn't be enough to do real time RT reflections of that thing,my reply don't pin the blame on me I told you I wasn't talking the number of employees when I said my penis modeling agency was large scale.



Research shows Video games  help make you smarter, so why am I an idiot

Pemalite on 23 May 2021
Peh said:

Ok, I understand where you are coming from and please don't do that. You are interchanging terms and methods. 

No I'm not.

When I talk about Ray Casting, Path Tracing, Photon Mapping... I am talking about Ray Tracing.
There is not an interchanging of terms there... If I use "Ray Tracing" instead of one of the above, then I mean Ray Tracing in a broad and generic term... Because that is what it is.

Peh said:

Yes, Raytracing is an umbrella term, but it is also a method -> algorithm. Raycasting is a method which falls under the umbrella term, but it is NOT Raytracing (Raytracing algorithm).

I don't think I need to point out the conflict here.

So "Ray Casting" falls under the Ray Tracing "Umbrella" term, but it's not Ray Tracing? Righteo then. No sense to be made out of that logic.

Peh said:

That's like saying that Half Life 1 is using the Quake engine. This is simply incorrect. If you say that Doom or in my example Wolfenstein 3D is using Raytracing, because it uses a method which just belongs under the umbrella term, then you end up confusing everyone. When I refer to Raytracing, I'm always speaking of the algorithm. 


You are delving into the false equivalency logical fallacy.

A game engine is not a rendering methodology.
A game engine is a "collection" of technologies/modules/systems all coming together in a complete and cohesive (for the most part) package which is the necessary foundation to operate a game. - Some engines will leverage "middleware" such as Havok or Speed Tree to do things like Physics or Tree Rendering.

Half Life 1 is using GoldSrc which is... Like you stated, based on the Quake and Quake 2 engines which is entirely iD Tech.
But it's also been heavily rebuilt/enhanced in various ways... I.E. Valve completely stripped out the A.I and rebuilt the A.I system completely from scratch.

It's essentially a "Fork" of iDTech that goes in a different direction entirely... And this actually happens all the time in the software industry.

But that cannot happen with Ray Tracing. They are set Algorithms, not something that gets "thrown away" and rebuilt from the ground up, mathematics and physics is the basis of Ray Tracing and there are only a finite amount of ways to realistically approach that problem which tends to be dictated by the levels of performance the hardware offers.

Peh said:

And here also: "And Again... Conker used a Hemisphere lighting model which shoots a single ray of light. A single Ray. That is still Ray Tracing."

No, please be more specific which algorithm is used. Using one ray, does not equal to it being the raytracing algorithm. Let's follow your logic like that: Global Illumination is an umbrella term for several algorithms including Ambient occlusion. That would mean that games that are using Ambient Occlusion are using a method of Global Illumination which is correct, but could be also labeled (by you) as using Raytracing (Because you consider GI is Raytracing) which is wrong. 

Do you see where I am going with this? 

It is literally shooting a "Ray of Light". - It's the very definition of Ray Tracing.

How many Rays of light, under your very narrow definition does it eventually become Ray Tracing?
5? 10? 100? 1,000?

As for Ambient Occlusion... You need to understand how that works.
Ambient Occlusion works by having "rays" that are cast from each geometric surface.
When those rays come into contact with another surface, they will become darker. - If not, they retain their degree of brightness.

And by it's very definition means it is also Ray Tracing.

But there are multiple ways of doing Ambient Occlusion... Which results in it not being Ray Tracing.
Some developers will "bake" the detailing into the texture maps (I.E. No hardware overhead).

Fun fact... With the inclusion of Ray Tracing cores in modern GPU's, we now hardware accelerate Ambient Occlusion on the Ray Tracing cores (Which thus gets renamed to RTAO), I don't need to explain why though. (Because maybe it's a Ray Tracing operation perhaps?)

Global Illumination is based around the idea of light bounces propagating an area. Light bounces are the key word to what "Ray Tracing" fundamentally is.

During the 7th gen console generation, developers would pre-calculate Global Illumination light bounces into various maps and layered them on top of assets as it requires a significant degree of computational capacity.
But during the 8th gen with dynamic lighting and global illumination being the key buzz word and the hardware now caught up to low-end PC's, light bounces with full dynamic lighting are being used, which is Ray Tracing.

Peh said:

Beam Tracing and Cone Tracing are derivatives of the raytracing algorithm. It says so in the very first beginning of your links. Thus they cannot be a Raytracing algorithm. They are their own algorithms called Beam Tracing and Cone Tracing.  

Path tracing is the closest that comes to the Raytracing algorithm, but still does something else. Otherwise it would be called Raytracing algorithm 2.0. And that's the point. 

It's all Ray Tracing. Shifting the goal post doesn't really change that.

Path Tracing isn't even the best form of Ray Tracing. There is no "Closest" that comes to Ray Tracing. It either is Ray Tracing or it isn't.
There is no set-requirement for what Ray Tracing functionally is other than it uses light bounces and it interacts with surfaces... And that could be light bounces to simulate shadows rather than lighting.

Peh said:

If I read that someone added Raytracing to a game (Quake3), by unifying 20 AMD-XP1800-CPU's, than I doubt he used something different than the actual Raytracing algorithm.

What is the "actual" Ray Tracing algorithm in your strange definition? How many light bounces? Does it use Voxels or Cones? Does it use Beams? Does it use Screen-space data to sample geometry surfaces? Does it use de-noising? Does it interact with surfaces?

Quake 3 however used a direct lighting model, it didn't propagate light. And it was achieved with light maps or vertex. (I.E. 3dfx Voodoo.)

By leveraging 20x AMD Palomino/Thoroughbred chips, they would have been able to do a very slow software Ray Traced render.

Just because it's Ray Tracing, doesn't mean it's going to be photo-realistic and pixel-perfect, so doing it on a CPU-farm like that individual would have been a far higher quality implementation than something that is using a single light bounce entirely on the GPU back then.

Peh said:

When the industry speaks about Raytracing, they will refer by 99% to the raytracing algorithm and not a derivative or any other method under the umbrella term. And so do I. 

What Ray Tracing algorithm? Many games use Path Tracing which is Ray Tracing.
But many future games will use Voxel Cone Tracing. (I.E. Unreal Engine 5 games.) Which is also Ray Tracing.

So which is the industry actually talking about? Unless... If your prior comment is anything to gauge by, Path Tracing is the "Closest" thing we have to Ray Tracing, so it must be superior to Voxel Cone Tracing, which in turn makes the Unreal Engine 5 demonstration absolute horse shit from a technical perspective then, meaning it's lighting graphics is crap?

Peh said:

When I ask "Since when did consoles rendered scenes with Raytracing in realtime?" I am referring to the raytracing algorithm. Hope I could clear this up. 

Conker. It used a single ray of light in real time. I provided the evidence for that prior.
And it was a stunning looking game in it's day.



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ZyroXZ2 on 24 May 2021
mjk45 said:
Captain_Yuri said:

Good video. Could be just me but I think the background music is a tad too loud. Otherwise very informative.

 If you're around ZyroXZ2 and want to be heard you need to be loud.

As I said to him, I actually turned the BG music UP because I wanted it to be audible and not just some "random" twanging sound in the BG... But now I regret that ._.



Check out my entertainment gaming channel!
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Hynad on 24 May 2021

Pemalite said:

”Disingenuous argumentation for the sake of arguing”


You know full well what people and the entire industty refer to as Ray Tracing right now. Why you’re being insufferably obtuse about it all despite fully knowing what we call Ray-Tracing (hint: it’s not Ray-Casting) is beyond patronizing and comes off as self-absorbed, as well as making you look like you are arguing for arguing’s sake.

There’s no reason to do that. We are talking about Ray-Tracing, what is being implemented in the current era of gaming. Not pre-baked raster image based Ray-Casting or any other variants. Thank you.

Last edited by Hynad - on 25 May 2021

AngryLittleAlchemist on 25 May 2021

The current convo be like

Last edited by AngryLittleAlchemist - on 25 May 2021

NobleTeam360 on 25 May 2021

The only three games that I've played that have ray-tracing are Minecraft, Control, and Cyberpunk and in each case it made the game look significantly better. So I'm in the "I hope more developers adopt it in future games" camp.



freebs2 on 25 May 2021

I can see Ray Tracing global illumination becoming a standard in like 10 years. It would make sense since:
- It produces substantially better results than current techniques.
- From my limited understanding on the matter it would save significant game production time.
Those two reasons alone are sufficient to justify widespread adoption. Atm though the performance penalty is still too high. It will take time.