Can someone demonstrate the "Raytraced Lighting" differences?

+
Yea thats a good example, light bouncing around on diffrent surfaces.

It would help a bit if some areas were just a little darker:

RT_Lighting_OFF:
CherryBL_RTlight-off.png

RT_Lighting_Enabled:
Here we have nearly the same dark area on the right hand side (stairs), but an exposed area in the lower part of the background (barriers).
CherryBL_RTlight.png

RT_Lighting + darkened areas:
Similar to a vignette effect, the darkened area results in more focus on the centre of the field of view.
CherryBL_RTlight _DARK.png


I don't have an RTX card so I don't know about PC, but on Xbox Series X, Raytraced vs Performance Mode there's a good difference IMHO. Try driving at night, after rain, or go to Jig-Jig street or indoors at Afterlife, it's obvious. I guess I'm used to console games being 30 fps so it doesn't bother me, and on my 65" OLED it's worth it (maybe HDR helps RT shadows/lighting "pop" more?)

But on PC, I couldn't bear 30 fps, ever... :shrug:

Ray tracing on consoles only provides raytraced local shadows, but I agree they're looking great!
Yea, 30 FPS is a compromise, you don't want that on PC. I found 45 FPS in CP playable although I still prefer 60FPS or more.

There are now two options for shadows on PC. Both work independently from each other.
  • RT_Shadows = On/Off
  • RT_Local_Shadows = On/Off
RT_Shadows were already present before 1.5. Non-RT_Shadows have less pop-in than RT_Shadows.
The new RT_Local_Shadows also seem to have less noticeable pop-in than RT_Shadows. (More testing needed.)

Generally speaking, I like the contrast between RT_Reflections, and those darker areas when both RT_Lighting and RT_Shadows is disabled, so having the option to solely enable RT_Local_Shadows is definitely a welcomed feature.
 
I'm gonna do it again!

1080p RT @ quality DLSS on

photomode_23022022_204413.png


1080p RT off DLSS off

photomode_23022022_204514.png


I don't have a non Rt for this one but it shows off how much RT adds to the lighting of a scene.

photomode_20022022_191111.png


Ray Tracing is fabulous. It just really sucks resources. How it works is a bit beyond my paygrade but, basically it gives over part of your GFX cards processing power to actually modelling the light in a scene in real time using the relevant physics. Normally the lighting is fudged using a process called rasterization. There's more technical explanations out there on the intermawebthingy.

PS. If you see a Paladin looking serious tell him this was the post I meant to reply to and that I went that way.
 
I feel like RT is more realistic. Without it dark rooms appear way darker than they should be. If there are windows in a room there is always some kind of ambient light and never pitch black. The difference is generally more subtle at night and considerable when looking at reflective surfaces.
 
I'm gonna do it again!

1080p RT @ quality DLSS on

View attachment 11288236


1080p RT off DLSS off

View attachment 11288239


I don't have a non Rt for this one but it shows off how much RT adds to the lighting of a scene.

View attachment 11288242


Ray Tracing is fabulous. It just really sucks resources. How it works is a bit beyond my paygrade but, basically it gives over part of your GFX cards processing power to actually modelling the light in a scene in real time using the relevant physics. Normally the lighting is fudged using a process called rasterization. There's more technical explanations out there on the intermawebthingy.

PS. If you see a Paladin looking serious tell him this was the post I meant to reply to and that I went that way.

TL;DR: Filters.

I cannot wait for the film industry to reboot with the offering of unique "enhanced" in theater visual filters... seeing how audio filters are not enough vs the convenience factor. How is IMAX even doing nowadays?
 
Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Scroll down for comparison shots showing RT lighting and reflections. RT Lighting is subtle because its dealing with bounce light. If you set it to Psycho you get a second bounce (indirect illumination pass). So the emissive neon sign will emit light that bounces once off the concrete archway (bathing it in neon light). This is the direct lighting pass. With RT Lighting = Psycho, you get a second indirect lighting pass as the neon glow on the concrete archway bounces again to other surfaces.

The 2nd bounce is even more subtle but its more noticeable in motion because all of this happens dynamically. So in the gallery above, the neon sign changes colour so you see the archway switching colour too and the floor and ceiling have a lighter caste, tinted by the colour of the sign. So the whole archway moves with the changing colour and intensity of light.

Its still not as noticeable as RT reflectiosn though. RT reflections has the most striking visual impact (mostly because it basically eliminates SSR noise, so all reflective surfaces are clean and smooth. Glass looks like real glass in vehicles (moveable objects where cube maps are not appropriate. For static environment meshes like shop windows, you no longer see low resolution cube maps staring back at you!

The greatest visual impact is at night in the rain. The benchmarks show the relative performance impact for each RT setting on a 5900x and 3060ti. RT Lighting = Psycho is far and away the biggest framerate killer. Then RT Reflections, then RT Lighting = Medium and RT Shadows is relatively light, although local shadows in dense interior scenes like Megabuilding H10 gym are very punishing.
 
I'm pressed to tell the diff between RT on and RT off; other than a frame rate hit. I leave it off in all my RT games. Strikes me as another ballyhood Nvidia gimmick.
 
Update: Ran the in game bench mark tool with RT on and off; @2K rez with all high/Ultra GFX settings, and DOF, film grain and motion blur off.

RT on: Ave FPS 80

RT off: Ave FPS 117

37 FPS difference = 46% FPS increase with RT off! Holy ****!
 
Update: Ran the in game bench mark tool with RT on and off; @2K rez with all high/Ultra GFX settings, and DOF, film grain and motion blur off.

RT on: Ave FPS 80

RT off: Ave FPS 117

37 FPS difference = 46% FPS increase with RT off! Holy ****!

I gain about 20 FPS at 4K, DLSS_Balanced, when disabling both RT_Shadows and RT_Lighting
(RT_Local_Shadows enabled ; RT_Reflections enabled)

 
The aspect that I notice a lot is reflections when RT is off. Mostly around animating actors as they walk over a reflective surface. Without RT on, the usual distortion of the surrounding shaders is very clear as the game is using the normal cubic method, which looks fine close up but messy further away. With RT on, this is gone.

In terms of lighting... I sometimes have to turn RT off. They've messed up quite a lot of lighting in this game, particularly in first person in vehicles, where it's often like driving into a nuclear blast wave of light. They've definitely overdone the dynamic range brightness into dark locations with RT.
 
The aspect that I notice a lot is reflections when RT is off. Mostly around animating actors as they walk over a reflective surface. Without RT on, the usual distortion of the surrounding shaders is very clear as the game is using the normal cubic method, which looks fine close up but messy further away. With RT on, this is gone.

In terms of lighting... I sometimes have to turn RT off. They've messed up quite a lot of lighting in this game, particularly in first person in vehicles, where it's often like driving into a nuclear blast wave of light. They've definitely overdone the dynamic range brightness into dark locations with RT.
I'm a big fan of ray traced reflections, although there are some rare occasions where RT reflections combined with DLSS look very inaccurate.
DLSS seems to expand the visible range of reflections (or maybe it resigns on some sort of damping effect), which looks great in general, but sometimes it just doesn't look right. It's also the case with normal reflections, as can be seen in this video.
At 7:49, notice how DLSS looks a bit unnatural, compared to FSR.
 
Top Bottom