Items tagged with ray tracing
One of the great advantages of video game emulators is that they allow us to shine up old titles that may suffer due to low resolutions or frame rate limits. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has remained one of the most popular titles to emulate for exactly those reasons: in its original Wii U format, it labors under a 30-FPS cap even despite its 1280×720 render resolution. Under emulation, the resolution can be raised and the frame rate can be unlocked. Now, it is often said that the most important part of making a good-looking video game is the visual design, not the technology used to represent it. That's probably true, too; if you look at some of the most beautiful classics in...
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The raid on this fort is reminiscent of infiltration missions in Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag A whole new crop of blockbuster games are lining up for a big holiday shopping season. Ubisoft didn't really intend for that to be the case for Far Cry 6, but early this year the COVID-19 pandemic had other plans. The game had been hit by some delays, but at the end of May the company set a date: October 7, 2021. Finally, the latest Far Cry title has arrived and the open-world first-person shooter is ready for players to take down its repressive government and maybe learn a little something along the way. Far Cry 6 Is A Political Statement What responsibility do games, or game developers,...
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Many games have seen launch dates pushed back during the COVID-19 pandemic and Far Cry 6 was no different. After missing the initial release date of February 18th, Far Cry 6 is finally slated to release on October 7th. It will be made available on console for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X. As for PC, you will be able to find it on Epic Games Store and the Ubisoft Store, as well as Google Stadia and Amazon Luna. In a recent interview, Ubisoft 3D Team Lead Programmer Stephanie Brenham discusses real-time ray tracing, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), and more now that the game is ready for release. One of the more notable things in the interview is that ray tracing...
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Final Fantasy X recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, and players spent some time reminiscing over the game that was first released in 2001. However, one player took this to the extreme by recreating the game in Unreal Engine in 4K with ray tracing, and it is quite awesome. Posted on YouTube by creator Toby Saunders, a 3:35m video shows off a recreated Final Fantasy X in 4K. In the description of the video, Saunders explained that he was inspired to do this as he "played this game on my older brother's PlayStation when I was six," and found the world captivating even today. Thus, he undertook the task of learning Unreal Engine to create a Final Fantasy X game trailer with all the modern trappings...
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In the spring, Id Software and Bethesda announced that they would bring real-time ray tracing and NVIDIA DLSS 2.0 to the Vulkan-powered Doom Eternal. When we reviewed thsi latest Doom title, we found that it was already pretty stunning graphically while running really well on all kinds of different hardware. High performance and a bevy of graphics configuration settings means that Doom can run on just about any discrete graphics card from the last few years. Now the Doom Eternal ray tracing update is here, though the tricky part about adding ray tracing effects to Doom is whether players would have time to notice them, since the game moves at such an incredibly fast pace. If we're...
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When we reviewed Doom Eternal last year, we lauded its amazing graphics and thrilling gameplay, noting it is a graphical tour de force underpinned on the id Tech 7 engine. Our initial impression still stands up, and might even undersell the experience. How so? A new update adds NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and real-time ray tracing to the mix for GeForce RTX card owners. Ray-traced reflections now abound in both the main campaign and expansions, adding another layer of visual fidelity to a game that already looks gorgeous. "Virtually all metallic surfaces and objects realistically reflect their environment, as do bodies of water and other materials with reflective properties....
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CD Projekt Red promised that the next major patch for its bug-filled Cyberpunk 2077 would arrive in late March. Although Patch 1.2 hasn't arrived yet, CD Projekt Red has provided the next best thing: a full rundown of the release notes. Patch 1.2 was initially set for release in February, but the ransomware attack that hit the company delayed that release timetable. To say that the patch notes are lengthy would be an understatement, as we don't believe we've ever seen such an extensive list of fixes. The changes cover various categories, including Gameplay, Quests, Open World, Cinematic Design, Environment and Levels, Graphics/Audio/Animation, UI, Stability And Performance, and Miscellaneous. ...
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When people think ray tracing, typically they think of some pie in the sky idea with an incredibly powerful GPU inside an incredibly powerful computer. That does not have to be the case, however. Ben Carter, a freelance game developer and software engineer from Japan, made a device for the Super Nintendo (Famicom in Japan) to do ray tracing in what he calls the SuperRT expansion. Carter, who is part of Shironeko Labs, had a goal in mind when he started this project: “learn Verilog and FPGA design.” This idea eventually grew into building an expansion for the SNES to do raytracing. From there, he “wanted to try and do was something akin to the Super FX chip used in titles...
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If you wanted to experience Spider-Man: Miles Morales in ray-traced glory on the PlayStation 5, you would have had to trade off performance and drop the game down to 30FPS in “Fidelity Mode.” Running at 60FPS, or “Performance Mode” netted decent frames but dropped the ray tracing. Now, there is a compromise between the two settings with “Performance RT” mode so you can play the game at 60FPS and still enjoy ray tracing on the PS5. Overnight, Insomniac Games, the developers behind Spider-Man: Miles Morales, pushed a 261.9MB update to consoles that brought the “Performance RT” mode. This system hits 60FPS with ray tracing enabled by “adjusting...
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The somewhat fractured nature of the real time ray tracing on the PC is coming to a head with the upcoming release of Cyberpunk 2077. We've known for quite some time that CD Projekt Red would support ray tracing effects in Cyberpunk 2077, and the company has been working closely with NVIDIA to enable support on GeForce RTX 20/30 Series hardware. However, we're getting the somewhat disappointing news this weekend that Cyberpunk 2077 ray tracing support will be exclusive to GeForce RTX cards at launch. Some might be a bit confused considering that Cyberpunk 2077 isn't using some propriety NVIDIA implementation of RTX ray tracing. Instead, the developer is using the industry standard DirectX...
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AMD is cooking up a fancy "Hangar 21" tech demonstration designed to show off the advanced graphics capabilities of its RDNA 2 architecture, and namely things like real-time ray tracing with realistic lighting, shadows, and reflections. The full demo, whatever it might entail, will drop in a couple of days. For now, you can check out a 43-second teaser. Check it out... "Coming November 19, the 'Hangar 21' technology demo video will let you see the breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture in action, the foundation of the AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards that power the next generation of gaming with mind-blowing visuals featuring realistic lighting, shadows, and reflections enabled by...
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One of NVIDIA's major selling points when it introduced its GeForce RTX graphics cards based on Turing was the presence of dedicated RT cores to handle ray-traced visuals. It has been somewhat of a slow march to ray-traced territory by developers, though things have certainly improved. And looking ahead, Cyberpunk 2077 will embrace ray tracing effects in a big way. Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the most anticipated games in recent history. We are optimistic it will live up to the hype. It should certainly look gorgeous, if nothing else, from what we have seen so far. "In addition to featuring CD Projekt Red’s fantastic open-ended gameplay, Cyberpunk 2077 is also blessed with jaw-droppingly beautiful,...
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Who would have thought that Minecraft would be worth the effort to add ray-traced visuals to its blocky textures and comparatively simple graphics? But that's what happened, and the Minecraft with RTX beta turned out to be a wonderful example of how ray tracing can benefit a game, as we saw in our hands-on impression. Now a month later, gamers who have been pining for more are getting their wish. NVIDIA today announced the release of the Creator Worlds Pack #2. It features five new Creator Worlds with new gameplay, and of course those delightfully traced rays that make Minecraft with RTX pop. And according to NVIDIA, you can expect to see new uses of RTX's ray-traced effects, along with new physically-based...
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At this point, it seems one of two possibilities are most likely—either Crytek is getting ready to announce a remastered version of Crysis, complete with support for real-time ray tracing, or the developer is trolling us. The latter does not make much sense, so we are much more inclined to believe the former, based on the latest leak. Before we get to that, let's recap Crytek's cryptic Twitter post earlier this week. Crytek's official "@Crysis" Twitter account had been silent dating all the way back to December 2016, then this past Monday, it came out of hibernation and posted in all caps, "RECEIVING DATA." This led to a flurry of speculation, especially in light of the Crysis.com domain...
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No, your PC's water cooling loop did not spring a leak (we hope not, anyway), it is just sweating in the face of a rumored Crysis remake potentially being in the works. While nothing is certain (yet), the official Twitter account for Crysis posted a cryptic tweet hinting that something is afoot. Could it be a remaster with real-time ray tracing, perhaps? The tweet simply states in all caps, "RECEIVING DATA," with no other information, pictures, links, or videos attached. It is the first tweet to come from the official account since December 13, 2016, so it has been dormant for nearly three and a half years. At this point, it seems like only something big would awaken the account from its slumber....
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We are eagerly anticipating the launch of Doom Eternal, especially after developer id Software boldly stated it's the "best game we've ever made." There are plenty of reasons to believe that is true. Unfortunately, real-time ray tracing is not one of them, because as much as id Software likes playing with shiny new technologies, implementing fancy ray-traced visuals just was not in the cards. That is going to be a disappointed to anyone who forked over a fistful of dollars for a GeForce RTX series graphics cards. Technically, NVIDIA's GeForce GTX cards support ray tracing as well, though the GeForce RTX series has dedicated hardware to make such a thing feasible, especially on a triple-A titles...
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Even though Microsoft is not sharing many concrete details about Project Scarlett, the codename for its next-generation flagship game console, the company is certainly building up expectations. It seems Microsoft has some clear goals in mind, some of which it has been sharing lately. So, what do we know about Microsoft's plans and goals? That depends on who is doing the talking. Last week, Xbox boss Phil Spencer made it clear Microsoft's goal is to be competitive with Sony's PlayStation 5 console in power and pricing right out of the gate. What was not really the case when the Xbox One debuted. "I would say a learning from the Xbox One generation is we will not be out of position on power or...
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NVIDIA has a game studio with the sole task of bringing ray tracing effects to old titles to spruce up their looks. Confirmation of plans to ray trace additional classic game comes from a job listing that the company posted looking for someone to join its NVIDIA Lightspeed Studios team. As for what the name of the game the person who lands the job in the listing will be working on, NVIDIA is mum. All the listing says of the game is that it is a title "you know and love, but we can't talk about it here." NVIDIA has shown off Quake II RTX, but the job listing was posted after that game launched, so the listing isn't for someone to work on that game. Scuttlebutt suggests that the game NVIDIA is...
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Finnish game studio Remedy Entertainment makes some of the finest-looking, quirkiest games around. Perhaps best known for the Max Payne series (but not Max Payne 3, which was developed solely by Rockstar), Remedy has been publishing its games exclusively on Xbox and PC for the last several years. The studio has delivered interesting, story-driven games more recently in the form of cult survival classic Alan Wake and the more recent sci-fi thriller Quantum Break. Both games featured cutting-edge graphics for their respective times. For that reason, maybe it's no surprise that the studio's latest creation, Control, uses the most cutting-edge graphics technology available today, including...
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The battle royale genre has exploded in popularity over the last couple of years with titles like Fortnite and PUBG leading the way. Needless to say, many developers are looking to get in on the battle royale free-for-all, and the latest is Tencent Next Studios with the announcement of Synced: Off-Planet. Synced: Off-Planet puts a new spin on the genre with gameplay that seems to combine inspiration from other fictional works like World War Z and Left for Dead. You compete in a team of three; with two other human players serving beside you. Faced against you will be 45 other human opponents... and around 1,500 AI zombies (called Nanos) in a fight for survival. Having 48 humans (16 teams of 3)...
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Real-time ray tracing is headed to more games. That includes Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, the upcoming title slated for an October 25, 2019 release. In partnership with Activision and Infinity Ward, NVIDIA says the PC version of Modern Warfare will deliver the most immersive and photo-realistic experience, due to the addition of ray tracing and adaptive shading. "With the game’s October 25th release fast approaching, we can now reveal that the game is being enhanced with real-time ray-traced shadows, within both the single-player campaign and 2v2 Gunfight multiplayer mode," NVIDIA says. Here's a look at the first ray-traced trailer for Modern Warfare... NVIDIA has been working side-by-side...
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One of the most popular games ever made is getting a big-time facelift. At Gamescom, NVIDIA announced it has been working with Mojang and Microsoft to bring real-time ray tracing to Minecraft, the world's best selling video game, transforming colorful, block-filled worlds into richer landscapes with realistic lighting effects. This is Minecraft as you have never seen it before, and perhaps never envisioned. Since Minecraft is not particularly demanding to begin with, NVIDIA has opted to refit the entire game with path tracing, a compute-intensive form of ray tracing. In other words, this is full-scene ray tracing and not a hybrid implementation. NVIDIA did the same thing with Quake II RTX, and...
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