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News Microsoft DirectX Raytracing API announced

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by bit-tech, 19 Mar 2018.

  1. bit-tech

    bit-tech Supreme Overlord Lover of bit-tech Administrator

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    Read more
     
  2. XXAOSICXX

    XXAOSICXX Minimodder

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    In a quick job down memory lane, I recall a BT article titled "New graphics firm promises real-time ray tracing" from back in 2009. I wonder what happened to them!

    Pretty sure I also recall there being an April Fools joke about this not too long ago also! I had to double check the date on this article just to be sure :p
     
  3. Ramble

    Ramble Ginger Nut

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    Good timing, I think that decent looking real time raytracing would require about 20 TFlops so we're not far off from that. It makes sense that as game lighting gets more complicated raytracing becomes less of a disadvantage.
     
  4. Wakka

    Wakka Yo, eat this, ya?

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    Ray tracing is one of those things that just keeps popping up every few years - we get some hype, the odd tech demo, then it fades away into obscurity again.
     
  5. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    That was Imagination's Caustic cards, which were a commercially-launched and fully-functional thing - but for professional use, not gaming. Here's an interesting extract from an interview I did with Imagination Technology's David Harold back in 2013 on the topic of moving from the Caustic cards to general-purpose use:
    That work got shown off back in 2016 as a hybrid raster-and-raytrace renderer for PowerVR GPUs, but since then the company's had rather more immediate concerns on its plate.

    'course, back in 2006 raytracing in games was right around the corner...
     
  6. edzieba

    edzieba Virtual Realist

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    Coupled with Nvidia's roadmap for a future VR rendering pipeline relying heavily on path-tracing (Part 1,part 2), I'd bring forward my earlier "5-10 years" estimate for VR-optimised GPU architectures forward to "~3-4 years", or to the next GPU architecture after Volta (or Ampere/Turing/whatever it ends up getting called), or possibly the one after that (may be a transition period to allow a gen with a mix of throughput-optimisation and latency-optimisation to avoid tanking performance in raster engines), as it's clear work started on this transition earlier than I though would be viable in the current VR lifecycle.
     
  7. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    This ^. I get pee my pants excited and then it vanishes again. Not falling for it this time. I am not excited at all.
     
  8. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    Considering how widespread DX11 still is among new games I highly doubt that ray tracing (even if it happened to be "for real" this time round) will take off any time soon.
     
  9. RedFlames

    RedFlames ...is not a Belgian football team

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    +1 for they've been promising 'real-time raytracing soon' for years... i'll believe it when i see it
     
  10. Razorwindmo46

    Razorwindmo46 What's a Dremel?

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    Who will be able to afford the new architecture with virtual coin hoarders jacking the price of video cards? It has put the cost of a new PC build out of my reach for good.
     
  11. VipersGratitude

    VipersGratitude Multimodder

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  12. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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  13. VipersGratitude

    VipersGratitude Multimodder

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    Exactly, but it does provide a basis for predicting when real-time ray-tracing might be viable for gaming, presuming Moore's Law hold true....7-10 years?
     
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