Can you REALLY SEE the difference? Raster vs Ray Tracing vs Path Tracing

[@AncientGameplays]

Did you notice the difference? Do you think Ray or Path Tracing are a must for this game?

[@dgillies5420]

Man your videos are so much fun to watch. You could be reviewing dog food brands and it would be just as fun, please never change!

[@AncientGameplays]

​@@dgillies5420thank you for the kind words!

[@theriddick]

4:00 The question you must ask yourself, is it worth loosing %50-90% of you frame rate?!!!!!! I say NO! I don't think FSR3 FG will be good enough to help AMD cards out in CP77 PT (mainly because FSR FG gets worse the lower your fps is!!!!). The game is just too heavily optimized for NVIDIA cards. You may be able to do it with considerable image quality hits, but by that stage you may just be better sticking with higher rasterization fps for a better overall experience without the massive latency hit on top.

[@AncientGameplays]

@@theriddick i do prefer 70-90fps with PT than normal RT though

[@darreno1450]

There is a difference, but it's not worth the hit. Also, none of this is going to matter soon with UE 5 games around the corner. UE 5 without path tracing looks a lot more realistic than CP with path tracing. Eye candy is coming to everyone soon and no Nvidia proprietary hardware or tech will be necessary. Oh sure, they'll still push UE 5 RT and Path tracing but lumen looks so good as is, it's not going to matter.

[@trblemayker5157]

Gotta give huge props to the devs for making the game look good without RT

[@iikatinggangsengii2471]

lol no

[@paulojamesminimoisaac7858]

@@iikatinggangsengii2471 lol i assure you 99% of the gamers doesnt care about RT/Path Tracing, the game looks good without it.

[@krspy1337]

@@paulojamesminimoisaac7858 the game looks ugly on raster, they didnt focus on that one while making this game so the nvidia's tech look way better, they were paid to do that

[@krspy1337]

also game sucks so easy skip

[@Rem_NL]

@@paulojamesminimoisaac7858 Your number is pretty inflated. People do care about visuals in games, its what draws a lot of people into a game/ creates hype. But it will take time before these techniques can be implemented for most peoples hardware/wallets.

[@lek1223]

The thing with Raytracing is that more often than not, it seems to mostly just make the scene DIFFERENT rather than inherently BETTER, Pathtracing always LOOK better, one of the problems other than performance tho, is that it also often is darker, which should require more/different lights or maybe a flashlight or something, some areas atleast are too dark for comfort

[@theriddick]

Yeah its VERY scene by scene dependent. In lots of areas Path Tracing can look awesome, while in others it makes things a lot worse such as the Panam Tank driving scene where PT breaks lighting entirely.

[@Rem_NL]

It might be hard to do. But a lot of the time ray-tracing gets a lot better when you actually look around or are on the move. Especially so with ray-traced reflections. They simply disappear when they should still be visible with screen space reflections (used for rasterization in CP). Skin looks much much more realistic with ray-tracing too. Bounce lighting being the biggest contributing factor there.

[@thejackimonster9689]

I don't even think path tracing looks better in all cases. For example in the first interior scene, you loose seeing the face of the NPC which changes the intention of the scene. Before you were guided as player to talk to the NPC but with path tracing you might overlook there's a face to talk to. So that's not better in my opinion, it's different. I'd argue it breaks the artistic intention of the scene though because we can assume they would have adjusted the lighting of the rasterized scene if it was intended to make the face barely visible.

[@RobBCactive]

Realistic can mean less playable, a game is meant to be fun and that means being able to see & distinguish objects. Generalling a real time battle is no fun when you cannot tell units apart or have an effect on the outcome. Places being too dark leads to global gamma increases which detracts from better lit areas.

[@theriddick]

@@RobBCactive or objects flickering and blurring.

[@Ayralis]

What I noticed is, that the rasterized lighting in the phantom liberty areas is really close to path traced lighting. The difference in lighting in the basegame areas is much more noticable. They probably modeled the rasterized lighting in phantom liberty after the path traced lighting to match it more closely

[@AncientGameplays]

the difference is still noticiable. Most areas tested are in phantom liberty (apart from the garage scene)

[@MKR3238]

yeah noticed that too the unnatural glow and brightness many areas in rasterized vanilla game are not present in phantom liberty. It looks much more natural and grounded even without raytracing. wish the main game could look like that too

[@longjohn526]

Ray Tracing is also rasterized lighting, in fact all graphics are rasterized because that's just how all monitor work. ..... A better term would be pre-baked lighting which works well for inside lighting but tends to fall down or is hard to implement in Open Worlds with dynamic day/night and weather cycles ..... By 2030 all frames will be made by AI processing using Tensor Math cores configured as Neural Networks which are much more efficient at processing tensors and matrices using a fraction of the circuitry than using the current conventional methods Since we have pretty much hit a wall on how small and dense we can make ICs and are at the point where Moore's Law is no longer true the only real way forward is more efficient processing circuitry and that is Tensor/AI Cores and Neural Networks will come into play more and more. Even AMD knows this to be true which is why they have AI (tensor) cores in the 7000 series even though they aren't currently being utilized. They aren't putting them there for no reason and I'll bet next generation will use them with a new form of FSR that only works on 7000 series and up

[@anusmcgee4150]

@@MKR3238 I feel like that’s something CDPR would do in an update

[@MarkLikesCoffee860]

There's definitely a huge difference. My bank balance would have been so much lower if I chose Path Tracing.

[@JayMaverick]

One thing Path Tracing has made me want desperately, is a flashlight. Some scenes are so dark that I can't see wtf is going on.

[@w00t692]

in dying light 2 it actually made me ENJOY having to use the flashlight to poke around, because otherwise these sealed up crypts are pitch black and it's fucking awesome.

[@Grom84]

but that's realistic) almost like at times when original doom3 came out.

[@spoorthyv]

Alan wake does this perfectly

[@mximxi1069]

Video - gamma - reduce it slightly until you can roughly make things iut

[@theepicsealshow123]

Flashlight mod

[@MrEL91N]

Cyberpunk is a tricky one to use to compare rasterization versus Ray tracing because they did such an amazing job on the base lighting and shadows. I think in a lot of other games the Ray tracing is a more noticeable improvement.

[@AncientGameplays]

well, yes and no. RT on CP2077 foesn't feature Global Illumination though

[@NyteStalker89]

@@AncientGameplays Cause the lighting in CP with RT is fairly realistic.. Global Illum is more of a rasterized lighting technique, no?

[@socks2441]

its because the game was made back when raytracing was an extra. now games are made for raytracing with rasterization tacked on afterwards. i.e devs are lazy now (or more accurately their bosses/ publishers are greedy). so cyberpunk is actually a perfect test. if raytracing didnt exist all games would have excellent rasterization. same can be said for all the unoptizmized games lately due to devs just tacking on dlss and calling it a day instead of optimizing.

[@Trbrigade]

Whаt games as exаmple?😂 There are currently no games on the market that require ray tracing. because the difference is not visible. and this is not about cyberpunk, but about the technology itself.

[@Trbrigade]

​@@socks2441you speak as if games without ray tracing now look absolutely worse than with it turned on. which is absolutely untrue. The situation with ray tracing has not changed at all in 3 years. as well as with graphics technologies. if you are trying to repeat your favorite narrative “it was better before, and then greedy corporations and lazy developers came” then this is absolutely not the case. Better remember how 3 years ago absolutely every KZbinr and commentator mocked cyberpunk because of several bugs, calling cyberpunk developers lazy, game not optimized, and the game not living up to expectations? and where are they all now?😂

[@StingyGeek]

I think the question is not whether you can see a difference - in most cases here I could (especially when you pointed it out); but the fundamental issue for me is: is it worth the $ to get those differences. Is it producing a fundamental improvement to the game or increase in enjoyment for the significant $ investment, and/or the drop in performance. To me it's not worth it. But if you can afford a 4k monitor and a 4090...go for it. Particularly with AMD/NVIDEA not pushing the envelope each generation - except for halo products.

[@oltorftheviking]

I have a 4K monitor and a 4090 and the trade off between playing at a buttery smooth locked 120fps with dlss quality at 4K with reflex on and no lag and dlss performance with 3.0 lag and path tracing is a no brainer. Raster wins hands down for playing the game

[@daithimac5785]

Exactly!!!

[@urulooke]

Being able to afford it is one thing, but willing to waste the money is another thing. For me it's also not worth it.

[@glub1381]

Path tracing is now very playable on a 3080 with the new fsr 3 mod + dlss balanced/performance. I'm getting 70-100 fps like that. I'd imagine it's playable on a 3070 like that too

[@DeadPixel1105]

"in most cases here I could (especially when you pointed it out)" Huh, seems kind of like you really can't notice the difference all that much, honestly.

[@datazen936]

Ray Tracing is a joke in the history of gaming with the sacrifice of 70% of the fps

[@GamerGrease]

The same was said about all that fills out a graphical options menu in 99% of games.

[@dzonib9595]

@@GamerGrease yea gimmick s h i t for boasting, look what my dog know... just put native as you want resolution, go to maX or balanced SETINGS to catch minimum 100 fps and go, all others s h i t in settings just make things worst..

[@ilbro7874]

​@@GamerGreaseyeah, which is relevant now. Ray tracing isnt there yet and OP is right. One day it will change im sure, or they might even make something different.

[@Bazylchuk_UA]

The thing that many people are unaware of is that making a scene with ray/path tracing is many times faster for the devs compared to rasterized version where they often have to manually put hundreds of light sources to emulate light behaviour. With the path tracing it's basically a one click solution and that in itself saves a lot of time on a development cycle. That is best explained in a Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition video from Digital Foundry

[@AncientGameplays]

True

[@kanela1465]

No, with path tracing, manually placed fake lights are still needed. The current iteration of realtime path tracing is very limited, you don't get a near VRay-like quality at all. Rasterization, on the other hand, has become much simpler than before because of the evolved light baking tools. In short, the dev resources spent for ray tracing and rasterization are not quite different.

[@flamingotwist]

they still have to do all that rasterization lighting placement as i dont think there are any games which exclusively use ray tracing at the moment - its always toggle-able

[@Bazylchuk_UA]

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition actually uses only RT lighting with some exceptions, you can't even run the game if you don't have RT card. Digital Foundry made a video about this game and they have an exclusive video from devs that shows how they made rasterized lighting and how they work with RT lights.@@flamingotwist P.S. /watch?v=NbpZCSf4_Yk this is the video, the topic starts at 22:57

[@flamingotwist]

@@Bazylchuk_UA thats carnage. will check that out!

[@geetube79]

Fkn ray tracing is like buying a Bugatti to drive it in the freeway with the handbrake engaged.

[@AncientGameplays]

lol

[@sub-jec-tiv]

Sour grapes comment. Ray tracing runs just great on my 4080. I’m surely not driving with handbrake engaged. 😂

[@CedricBassman]

@@sub-jec-tiv 4070S owner here, playing Ray Tracing on Psycho settings and it runs buttery smooth aswell. Dude probably tried Ray Tracing with a 1060.

[@TechnoviousYT]

@@CedricBassman you guys are like moths to a flame, I actually cannot understand how you or anyone is so stupid to be impressed by ray tracing. all it does is waste performance and make everything look worse, you really should be checked for brain damage

[@shepta]

@@CedricBassman i dont think rt is enabled for gtx cards

[@TheXboxSux]

TLDR Path tracing is mostly noticeable when it comes to shadows and low light envirnments Ray tracing is only noticeable if you stare at how much glow is being generated from a light source or how clear the reflections are. Global illumination and Screen Space reflections are perfectly acceptable and can even be enhanced with reshade to give near ray traced results at a fraction of the cost. Lesson: If you want to optimize your game, design it with path tracing enabled and model your global illumination and screen space reflections to mimic its effects so the players don't need to turn path tracing or even RT on. Well done CDPR.

[@project_pothi]

raster GI and SSR never looks anywhere near even low quality RT.

[@thejackimonster9689]

I think the most reason for ray tracing is reflections. You can get quite well results with cubemaps or screen-space reflections but in the end it's way more complicated to achieve similar results with that than with ray tracing. The other big thing is indirect lighting but I think there are other approaches which can be good enough to most users. So I would be totally fine if ray tracing was only used for reflections.

[@AncientGameplays]

For me, its the shadows and occlusion

[@TheUnrider]

Same, SSRs that break up are much more distracting than the other stuff imo

[@marlanivanovich1828]

Indeed. I use in Cyberpunk only raytraced Reflections with the rest RT settings off. Raytracing - Medium Quality. 4060 RTX. It looks more than good and I have no problems with fps or input lag at all. The important part: not to use all graphical settings maxed out even with 4K/4090 RTX. In most cases medium/high is enough and looks gorgeous with excellent FPS/lowest input lag (there are plenty videos on YT with cyberpunk optimizations + thanks techpowerup for new DLSS 3.8 dll).

[@dzonib9595]

@@marlanivanovich1828 high detail + more FPS is better then lower detail + RT and less FPS, Rt is just gimmick things which no one uses in real life..

[@marlanivanovich1828]

@@dzonib9595 yeap. Because of this I use 1440p on my 1080p monitor with Dl Dsr activated in NVCP, if I activate dlss. Or 1080p native wo dlss and rt off.

[@aedan6728]

Yeah I have a 4080 and I'm still mostly playing rasterized. Just using medium RT lightning and RT reflections. The reflections are the most noticeable thing from RT imo. Even on high-end hardware the performance hit isn't really worth it and it even makes some scenes look wrong.

[@AncientGameplays]

Damn son

[@SagittariusAx]

The problem is that until you can enable ray reconstruction in normal ray tracing... the overblurred blurred reflections of ray tracing like in puddle doesn't make them that realistic.

[@aedan6728]

@@SagittariusAx ray reconstruction introduces a ton of artifacts and ghosting unfortunately so it creates more issues than it solves imo

[@GrandoSilver]

Same here, i prefer more 4KHDR 120+ fps with super low latency than RT.

[@rafmc6053]

I set it the same way 🫣

[@yoshinatsu]

You know what I got from this video? Realism is technologically cool and all, but when you're playing a game, it might not necessarily be what you need, because deeper shadows make things more difficult to see, lights blending into each other are distracting, etc. In almost all scenarios, I genuinely preferred the rasterized visuals.

[@mannydcbianco]

This. Sparingly used RT/PT can be really cool, but in games like Cyberpunk I find it to be wayyyy over the top and distracting and it makes me a worse player because I can't always see stuff as clearly as in rasterization. Add to that the loss in framerate and.. yeah. It's just not for me. Not yet, at least. Maybe in five years it'll be a better experience, when graphics cards are better at handling it and game developers have figured out how to apply RT/PT without going overboard and making it a distraction.

[@basketballlife5280]

@@mannydcbiancothis why i only like RT shadows if they gonna use RT

[@metalface_villain]

plus you get more fps, no lag and are able to play on native if you on 1440p .

[@TexMackerson]

Weak eyes and brain processing

[@musicah8496]

this... I really do not get the obsession with realism either because if I want realism....well....ill just go outside? haha. It's free... I just prefer raster graphics atm as well

[@PinkFloydFreak55]

With the actual path tracing - yes the difference is amazing to me and I love using it. Have to use a little DLSS on my 3080ti but the light is just so much more realistic.

[@georgeindestructible]

I think that the reason that some, actually or a lot, of people noticing the Path/Ray-traced stuff is NOT because they are NOT looking for it, but rather (and partly) because the human brain is literally trained from birth, it's used to see things in a Path/Ray-traced manner from the real world, which automatically means that, the closer we get to realistic global illumination, shadows, and reflections, the less people will notice them for that reason alone + how far rasterized games have come in that regard, they are very close to their Path/Ray traced stuff which is also the reason why a lot of people don't actually notice. Another extra reasons (as if we didn't have enough xD) is the way rasterized light is being placed in games by 3D artists with artificial light sources, some times they are tweaked so well, that the only reason you notice something is off is when a flaw of rasterization which hasn't addressed with some other tech (like ambient occlusion techniques, or whatever other indirect light technique either alone or as a combination) is clearly visible, like "light bleed" in a lot of rasterized titles for example. I got an RX 7600 and move to it from a Vega 64 JUST to see how much difference there is compared with a rasterized image in movement and i the latest Path/Ray-traced Metro Exodus the latest version at 1080p maxed out. I wanted to do this because still pictures are not good enough and make the difference extremely obvious and YT compression doesn't really do enough justice on videos because of its compression so that wouldn't satisfy my curiosity enough. What i found is something that, while notable, at times it seems like it's just that the light source is in a different place this time (with RT on i mean) rather than an actual advantage, like, no need for ambient occlusion since the shadows are now Rt'ed same for reflections and generally global illumination. As far as i am concerned the most important details i need from RT are GI and Shadows because these are what define mostly how light "grounds" objects to be perceived as they would look irl, not reflections + reflections can be very easily calculated in rasterized way in order to be closer to real ones meaning they are easy to emulate their RT version without not a significant impact on performance compared to RT'ed ones, so i'd rather see a hybrid implementation for them instead, and yes i know that SSRelfection are nearly impossible to be made to work fully properly. On a last note, generally, i can't justify the computational cost vs what you get back in return in most cases. Edit: A significant thing think i forgot to mentioned about the first effect i said about people. The Path/Ray traced stuff we see in games, increases the effect i mentioned, despite the fact that it's still just a closer to irl approximation, we all know it's still denoised and that, compared to reality, there light irl doesn't have ray bounce limitations, expect when physical properties of a hit by a ray object, is change because of that material's refraction, reflection and refraction degree which also happens to affect indirect light as well of course. What i am saying basically is that, even Path/Ray traced in games are still not 1:1 with reality, just a lot closer simply because of technological limits, but are they good enough? Yes, yes they are, mostly.

[@tristanstebbens1358]

One thing of note is rasterisation, due to devs having to often manually position light probes within a given scene, can often be inaccurate. Not in terms of shadow realism, but in terms of cases like light literally seeping through walls or as such due to probe misalignment. As ray/path tracing is formulated from real time calculations, it doesnt have this issue.

[@m-zurowski]

Totally agree with your summary - it's either rasterisation, or path tracing. I'm still hoping that Deep Rock Galactic will get Path Tracing (best title for this technology ever)

[@AncientGameplays]

Humm, interesting. We now have Desordre with it

[@vyathaen]

Games are all about balance between performance and visual quality. There is no doubt Path tracing looks great, however I think the biggest benefit of the tech is actually not for live gameplay ,but for game development . You touched on the subject when you said how CS2 was developed using ray tracing and then baked in the result. This is the best use case for both RT and Path tracing in my opinion. As for use in live gameplay, the performance hit is simply not worth it ,even on Nvidia side, I would much rather play at 4k 120fps than anything less and path tracing. It will only be worth enabling once enabling path tracing has a less than 20% performance cost from native. Further improvements in GPUs and the software will be required for that to happen but we are still many years away.

[@pasha715]

i agree, thing is rt is looking better as time goes by but also its more demanding as raster perf is, like u said it will def take many years and i would also take higher fps no rt if i have 144hz or better refresh rate

[@theriddick]

You must also factor in using DLSS/FSR and frame gen technologies adding up to 100ms of latency to user input in some scenarios which imo is going to hurt! 50ms is not bad and fine for most games but 100ms as we've seen in recent tests with the AMD FSR FG games (they also tested with DLSS FG)

[@Rem_NL]

Lots of games with static light sources (including the sun) used baked lighting. Original doom did this too for instance. This is not possible to do for dynamic objects or when you have dynamic lights like the sun moving over head. These baked light maps are created using ray-tracing to my best knowledge. In cyberpunk there are still "fake" lighting techniques used when using path tracing. They still have some cubemap reflections and also screen space reflections on some objects (most noticeable for me are the giant holographic fish in the middle of city center)

[@donloder1]

I agree, but definitely not with you on fps. I will say it's highly subjective, whatever advantage it has depends on the individual's perception, affordability, compromise, and obviously display device.

[@Davinmk]

@@theriddickfsr has a lot bc they haven’t implemented anti lag + into it

[@jizamkizam9611]

I'll def start paying more attention to path tracing once they can fix the blur and ghosting. Because it does make some of the scenes look really nice, but in motion and on characters faces it can look very strange

[@AncientGameplays]

In alan wake 2 its much better

[@geminii.german]

we dont need rt and pt, we need damn gameplay tf....

[@vvhitevvizard_]

Absolutely!

[@Deadly_Nightkid]

We can have both.

[@drdaddy777]

For some reason I like the raster better. I know path tracing is more realistic, but my brain likes raster appearance. I just like sharp shadows for some reason. Good video.

[@Rem_NL]

Friend of mine has the same, I always compare it to Stockholm syndrome.

[@chacharealsmooth941]

​@@Rem_NLmore like personal preference.

[@Rem_NL]

@@chacharealsmooth941 maybe it wasn't obvious in text but i do say it jokingly

[@Pushing_Pixels]

Realistic doesn't always mean better.

[@platinumplayer930]

More realistic doesn't really mean it is better. We all know that because after a photoshoot, people need to retouch their works. Raw picture vs retouched one is huge difference.

[@Bilal.Hussain.Shaikh]

Im one of those who prefer any settings, as long as the game is running flawless and no ghosting, plus im more of a game player then focusing on graphics much 😁😅

[@toututu2993]

VR is the real next thing. Yes there are haters in the internet but they haven't even tried it 😂

[@ananduniyal1964]

ray tracing and path tracing are like cherry on the cake if you GPU can handle it you should use it if your GPU cant handle it don't use it because it doesn't make much difference on overall experience of the game.

[@althaz]

The reason I like ray tracing and especially path tracing is because they trick my brain into thinking I'm *not* looking at a video game from time to time. This is especially true with outdoor scenes. For indoor scenes with only artificial lighting I find the differences usually much more subtle. I think that's one of the reasons I'm not as impressed with Cyberpunk as many others are (I'm still impressed though).

[@lordium1848]

Ray Tracing does make a way better job at handling water and glossy reflections, though. There's a certain place in Downtown, where you can clearly see the reflection of a sign in a nearby puddle with RT, but it's non-existent without it.

[@AncientGameplays]

Not really, rt sucks there because of the denoiser as well. RR does great though

[@AncientGameplays]

Oh my bad thought you were talking about alan wake haha. In this case you're right

[@probably_afk]

I won't deny that it looks different... yes.. "different" but is the difference "better"? What metric should we use to measure the "goodness" of graphics? I've spent a lot of time trying to find the answer for myself. Eventually I concluded that I DO think that in SOME scenes (mostly static, under direct comparison), the RT is significantly more appealing - to me. But it kind of all disappears once I start moving, panning the camera, or driving. My eyes see the whole screen but my mind is primarily focused on the 30% in the center. Ultimately I realized that if I'm having trouble deciding if I even think RT is better or not then it simply can't be worth the performance loss. I don't feel I've missed out on anything really playing without RT. Give it another decade so we all have 200 RA Cores in our cards and everyone wins eventually.

[@oelapaloma]

I just wanna have raytraced reflections alongside rasterized lighting / ambient occlusion etc. for the rest of the scene. Imo the reflections are the biggest visual improvement, path tracing is of course the best but so perfrmance costly.

[@rudep3222]

When u need to see a side by side comparisson to notice the differences u know its not worth it for the huuuge performance loss. In some years it will be good to make games look less outdated but for now only rt reflections are worth it if u have lots of spare fps

[@Harzexe]

Difference between ray tracing and path tracing is more noticable in some other locations. For example the gym spot (next to the boxing ring) near V's 1st appartment. There is a complete switch of shadows, color and light. Path tracing makes the biggest difference in areas where there are different types and colours of light mixing together.

[@AncientGameplays]

There are some noticeable scenarios

[@ugorizzoli5830]

Ray tracing lightning vs rasterisation is often a matter of preference as far as what looks better. RT is definitely more accurate but how much that matters is debatable. RT reflections are much more obvious and in cyberpunk I’d say they are 100% worth the performance cost as long as the frame rate remains reasonably high. Path tracing is obviously in a league of its own, but there’s a reason why it’s a technology preview. I’m ok with it being a thing though, I actually wish more developers put in experimental features aimed at future/top tier hardware as long as the the base feature set is optimised well.

[@burnerburner4074]

This is the way.

[@winterhell2002]

If you are going to make a case for raster vs raytracing vs path tracing you might as well be making a case for high vs very high vs ultra settings. In some games there really is no visual difference.

[@AncientGameplays]

True indeed! Ultra settings have been delivering almost no visual gains for a big perf drop for ages...High settings are the way to go in most titles

[@j_zhengli]

I think HardwareUnbox made one detailed comparison a while back

[@toututu2993]

Ray/path tracing doesn't guarantee better looking compared to higher res and higher polygons. So is basically a useless feature if you play games to play them

[@alondite215]

The rasterized lighting is very well done in this game, but RT is still noticeably better, particularly with regards to things like bounce-light and realistic ambient occlusion. And PT is on another level altogether, taking all of RT's advantages and dialing them up even more.

[@ROrneli]

the truth is that altough path tracing is a step in the right direction most developers wont bother when 50% of all gaming computers have a 4060 , 3060 (and bellow) in them. why would the developers spend so much time on a graphic feature only 5% of gamers can enjoy when they could use that time and development to improve how non RTX lighting works in their game with better simulations and reflections that are not actively being calculated in real time but instead coded into the scene itself . I think we are still a good solid 5-10 years away from every game having good path tracing since most games are being built for consoles first and PC after and the consoles can not handle not even low levels of ray tracing yet.

[@tofu_golem]

The older I get, the more I find myself turning down graphics settings, not to get higher frame rates but to get less fan noise and less heat coming out of my computer. I tried ray tracing in a number of games. Yes, it looks better, but the improvement in image quality just isn't worth what you give up in terms of frame rate, fan noise, heat, etc. I regret getting a 3080 instead of something from AMD.

[@masudparvejsani]

I immediately noticed a big difference when I got a 165Hz monitor. I can easily notice the difference between 500Hz and 1000Hz polling rates. I'm very sensitive to input lag. Fortunately, I don't really notice much of a difference between different graphics settings unless the changes in graphics are substantial and/or they are presented side by side for comparison.

[@niks660097]

I love the pixel perfect shadow gradients with path tracing, instead of perfectly black or grey shadows of raster...

[@AncientGameplays]

Indeed

[@d34d10ck]

In my experience, many people also pretend not seeing a difference just because they don't have the hardware or they can't afford the hardware to render a game with ray tracing effects. They have to lie to themselves that it doesn't matter in order to not feel bad about it.

[@AncientGameplays]

True, and this is a video. When playing the difference is much more noticeable

[@NyteStalker89]

People who can't tell the difference between rasterized lighting and shadow vs RT with Path Tracing are honestly either oblivious or blind. Properly utilized RT in games is VERY noticeable.

[@zaraizara2794]

7:33 I believe path tracing appears brighter because it effectively captures the illumination caused by light bouncing off yellow or bright surfaces, such as that metal objects. When these surfaces are dark or black, the bouncing light is reduced, resulting in a darker room. This difference enhances the performance of path tracing in accurately rendering the interactions with surrounding objects.

[@v1.61]

I just upgraded from 2060 super to 4070 ti, gotta say, playing CP without RT and DLSS on native ultra is just amazing, no needs for RT OR PT.

[@TheMrSatyricon]

Are you joking? This game MUST be played with RT, why dafuq did you bought that card LOL?

[@v1.61]

@@TheMrSatyricon of course i play it with RT lol, im just saying you dont really need it because it looks amazing even without it. playing on ultra on 165fps is amazing, RT just brings it to around 100fps, not that smooth.

[@mystery_1101]

wtf? ​@@v1.61

[@iedutul1]

@@v1.61bro comning from a PS5 player who plans on building the nastiest PC instead of getting a PS6 next gen, damn. Can’t wait to notice the difference between 100fps and 160fps🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@Scornfull]

@@v1.61 why do you need 165 fps in a single player game tho lol 60 is more than fine for a single player game

[@AleksiJoensuu]

I can definately see the difference in the comparisons - but I'm not sure I actually LIKE RT and PT better than the rasterized images. Runaway thoughts: - Most of the time, it looks like the shadows are just darker and smoother - but on the whole, the areas *with* lights are unaffected, and that's where my eyes are most drawn to anyway. - In the jail scene, PT may look more "realistic", but also you can't even see the guy's face anymore. Is that much of an improvement? - In the garage scene, RT makes the edges of the car's shadow shimmer in a really weird way. The only way you'd see that with a real light is maybe if the light source was a fire? :D - In the garage scene, PT washes out the shadow of the car and it looks perhaps even less realistic than before. I do like the lighting up near the skylight (roof window) though. - In the garage scene, both RT and PT work in making the tool trolley look more grounded instead of floating on the ground, however for PT the opposite is true for the car. It now looks less grounded. Losing the detail on the floor seems super odd. Why would more realistic light remove the paint and/or material differences on the ground? - In all the scenes, the colour temperature looks better with PT though. - I do like how the headlights work in RT and PT. Enough to care? I don't think so. - The performance hit seems absolutely massive, considering I can't even say if I like RT/PT better than rasterisation or not. Bubbling under: If darker darks were what you were looking for, would a simple Reshade job get you closer? Bubbling under 2: I wonder, given all the above, even if I had an RTX card in CP2077, would I just keep RT/PT off, put a framerate cap on, and enjoy lower power consumption and temps :D

[@west5385]

What mods are u talking about that makes SSR better in cyberpunk without ray tracing? Please tell me! I have an RX 6600 but even just ray traced reflections has too much performance hit for me. I couldnt find anything on nexusmods

[@AncientGameplays]

Currently working on that video. Hd mod and the orher one I can remember. Not home now

[@BenderIsGreat_34]

My complaint on RT and PT is the blurriness, especially on rainy days. I have a 4090 hooked up to a 120Hz 48 inch OLED TV that I sit 3 ft away from. It is very immersive, like I am actually walking through NC. NPCs walking past me, talking to Judy feels real. But the blurriness from RT and PT also becomes very prominent, something I didn't notice on a 34 inch WQHD monitor. Cars passing by and rain drops on puddles are all blurred and produced ghosting. On the contrary, raster gave a crisp picture. Along with consistent 4K 120fps fluidity, my pick was obvious.

[@VulgoGS]

I didn't notice any difference, just a polish image for the cost of all the hardware.

[@AncientGameplays]

man, you do you do, but you're not seeing shit haha. Cheers

[@chiquitolky]

Is it noticeable? of course it is, is it worth the performance hit (most hardware will get) for what you get visually? IMO no; at least in Cyberpunk 2077 a gorgeous game.

[@xfr0st585]

Compare some reshade presets to raster, ray, path. I feel like you can really enhance a scene with basic reshade presets vs using ray tracing or path tracing even.

[@VeloRakic]

I've been gaming for 20 years now, had a 144HZ monitor for 5 years now and the difference from switching from a 60HZ to 144HZ is quite substantial, however I cannot perceive any difference above 90 FPS, at 60 FPS it looks like motion blur is on. As for Ray Tracing, the only thing that I like about it are the reflections, I don't really care about the shadows as I hardly notice them anyway. The performance hit is definitely not worth it currently, but yeah another good vid, Fabs👍

[@AncientGameplays]

Thanks, i care about shadows more than reflections haha

[@DovahVokuna]

I notice a difference right away. My mouse sensitivity is pretty high. So turning around even on 60 fps feels terrible. so 1440p and 120plus fps is the way to go for me.

[@georgeindestructible]

What i meant in my other comment is that, since RT and PT handle the total amount of tracing rays and their path and how they these interactions actually interact with themselves in more ways and as a result in more complex one, it's the reasons we see different results, let alone the different noising techniques applies to make them work properly since nothing is fully 100% RT/PT simply because, in such big scenes, we lack the hardware to be able to do that in real time.

[@AncientGameplays]

True

[@mateuszprais854]

Getting proper HDR support in games and better displays would do much more for overall graphics than Ray Tracing / Path Tracing imho. Rasterization can look really good if artists and developers spend time on it.

[@Goulou_]

very interested in the mod you talked about towards the end of the video, would like it if you made a video on it that'd be really interesting if more games/mods used RT to make them into raster

[@AncientGameplays]

I will test it further 💪💪

[@shadowkreep9434]

is it just me? i actually think most of the scenes look better without RT or PT. maybe its just because im used to it. or maybe i just like my games to look like games and all that "realism" really doesn't look good to me. what good are more realistic shadows in a game if you end up seeing less of the game for "realistic" shadows.

[@zedus4042]

May hurt to say but most people really don't have very good connection from eyes to brain to say that RT doesn't make a huge difference, in a way they are half blind. I remember when I played Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition which is completely based on RT lighting primarily in a form of RT Global Illumination, through the whole game I was absolutely stunned at how incredible the lighting was thanks to RTGI, the amazement at incredible lighting wasn't for just an hour but through the whole game. Such heavy implementations of RT like RTGI in Metro Exodus or Path Tracing in Cyberpunk and Alan Wake II is absolutely stunning and worth every single dollar you have to spend to run those games.

[@MA-jz4yc]

I think most people can tell the difference but just don't care because the rasterisation has gotten so good and its diminshing returns for a huge performance loss.

[@adhilsewrathan]

underated video.Amazing Work! Path Tracing would probably look sick in the day time desert areas too

[@ImperialDiecast]

you conclude by saying stick to raster or go full path tracing because there isnt much difference between raster and ray tracing. however, you completely forgot in this video to show rt reflections and how superior they are to screen space reflections in normal raster that not only vanish if you look down but even when all objects are in your view, their reflections are stretched and elongated. Reflections is the main reason i happily use rt ultra. the extra fps drop just to get darker shadows in PT isnt worth it to me.

[@AncientGameplays]

Rt reflections are barely a benefit unless you stop to look at them and they're still better with PT

[@ume-f5j]

@@AncientGameplays given how often and easily screen space reflections disappear at different viewing angles, and their scarcity, I'd say RT reflections make a huge difference even when driving fast with a car.

[@marcelo.bassalo]

RT Reflections is ok. RT Lights and sun shadows are not worth it.

[@ninhvuhungkhang]

Personally, I play video games to enjoy the story that game is trying to tell. Or rather, focusing on the target that i'm about to interact with (competitively). Rarely I just stop and just look at the view, but just to enjoy the view rather looking for something that is right or wrong. After all, It's video games not an actual documentary movie. So in all, RT or PT are just not must features to me. Especially I have to sacrifice FPS or good story just to enjoy the games that studios just trying to show off their tech.

[@lord_nem3sis]

Honestly... raytracing is mostly a gimmick to me. It cuts your frame rate in half and slightly improve the graphics. I prefere to use Reshade for a visual improvment and it costs like 2-10% of your frames (depends on your resolution and and amount of shaders.

[@Scornfull]

ReShade looks like complete ass tho especially in comparison to raytracing and pathtraycing lol having a hundred bloom filters doesn't make the game look better

[@fourty9933]

the intro was so funny i rewinded once or twice ngl 😂

[@genericsidecharacter8915]

Damn, I have been so adamant on using ray tracing this whole time, but looking at this, I realize I should just use rasterization and get better fps. I’ve been fighting people saying that for so long, but they’re right. But damn do I wish I could use path tracing

[@justanotherlikeyou]

You should do a comparison video of the different rendering modes with the Nexus Mod path-tracing mod that allows for increased rays/bounces. I've gone all the way up to 16/16 with my 4090 and got 1-2 fps, but it did look really good, lol!

[@SagittariusAx]

lol I wonder what FG look like with such low FPS

[@justanotherlikeyou]

@@SagittariusAx That was with everything on the lowest settings, RR on, DLSS ultra-performance with Frame Gen at 3440x1440. Brought the 4090 to its absolute knees, lol!

[@SagittariusAx]

@@justanotherlikeyou that's crazy 😄 how about the power consumption? Was it super high like when everything maxed out PT without dlss which is usually around 420W ? Or was it lower like sub 400 / sub 350?

[@MLWJ1993]

Yikes, at that point Metro Exodus' approach is the better tradeoff by bouncing the light over a number of frames instead of trying to do so every frame. 😬

[@justanotherlikeyou]

@@SagittariusAx My 4090 never goes beyond 450 watts. I can't remember what it was at when running 16/16, but I think I remember being surprised that it wasn't hitting that limit.

[@mjkstra]

I think that the visual, lightning and effects are essential for game immersion and Path tracing does an incredible job at it, even if at a huge performance hit. Overall I am not sure that Path tracing is actually superior ( whatever this means ), it just feels different: sometimes folks don't realize that more realistic doesn't equal better. Developers may trade realism for playability and for good reasons: for example you may introduce too much darkness in a scene or the opposite. I think that rasterization is perfectly balanced because it is appropriately fine tuned to provide a beautiful and playable scene. Also Path Tracing removes a lot of hassle that the developers need to deal with, making things much easier for them, which I think makes for their interest into pushing this technology.

[@marcola4767]

The thing about rasterization vs ray/path tracing is that you can't really see a clear difference without side-by-side comparison, but you can definitely feel the difference while playing.

[@AncientGameplays]

You can, you clearly can

[@mycelia_ow]

You can def feel the massive fps hit, you're right XD

[@AncientGameplays]

@@mycelia_ow most of you guys didn't even try it yourselves, but you love to talk about things you don't know xD Telling me you don't want to use it to not lose fps? Sure. Now don't tell me you can't notice the difference in real gameplay, because you CAN, at least in cp2077 of course. Aw2 difference is way smaller

[@mycelia_ow]

@@AncientGameplays I finished the video and I'll say this, I have used ray tracing in CP77 and it's honestly only worth it in some areas. I play at 144hz though but I still hover around 100fps with RT on. With PT I get around 60fps but it's really choppy but the tracing is more noticeable everywhere. That's 1080p. Other games I'll take the fps hit, but in CP77 I keep it all off to maintain 144fps. Like others have said the devs have done an amazing job with this game's visuals. I just with my 3090 could push more frames with PT on then I'd use it.

[@marcola4767]

@@mycelia_ow path tracing is completely different. when playing cp77 I rather use rasterized than ray tracing aside from reflections. The real deal is path tracing, that truly makes the game come alive.

[@maciejgrabowski2228]

Path tracing looks amazing to me. I can sacrifice fps, resolution and sharpness for it. It looks like a movie.

[@RawFish2DChannel]

Trying to see a difference in the first scene at 3:30 is kinda hard. All dark colors and details are just a blurry mess because of youtube compression (compression is not that bad in 4k quality, compared to 1080p, but there is still a lot of detail lost (I'm watching on 1080p monitor btw)) Brighter scene would probably be a better example.

[@AncientGameplays]

It harder on youtube

[@danieljerosch5602]

2:05 That‘s what she said🥲

[@Sekiberius24]

Pathtracing just seems to add a lot of visual depth to a scene. Switching from Raytracing to Pathtracing really makes the scene pop.

[@MarkLikesCoffee860]

Pathtracing just seems to make your bank balance lower

[@john_doe_33]

I play Cyberpunk always with Path tracing+Ray reconstruction. My Average is 100 fps. The worst fps I get is 80+ , even in Dogtown during heavy fights with lots of enemies. The visual enhancement is huge vs the "simple" RT psycho. It's definitely worth it Path Tracing.😊 Asus Tuf 4070ti / Asus Tuf 1440p 32" 170 hz VRR monitor.

[@dhaumya23gango75]

Don't forget to mention you are using dlss + fake frames to get "100fps"

[@john_doe_33]

Of course I use them, everyone should know that they are mandatory for path tracing. If you don't like it, don't use it, it's that simple😊

[@capablanc]

​@dhaumya23gango75 Spoken like someone that's never used 'fake frames.' Frame gen is a game changer.

[@YWFMentality]

I just built my first pc and I started playing with the graphical settings the biggest one I’ve seen so far is in cyberpunk 2077 in the afterlife bar I believe it’s called. With no ray tracing, the floor near the bar looks like a puddle with a light shining on it. With ray tracing turned on, the floor reflects the images from the ceiling.

[@abdullaal-naimi9075]

On my RX 6800 XT, raytracing isn't worth the performance hit, and path tracing is just not doable. I'll take the higher framerates, especially that games look nice even on lower resolutions on my new TV.

[@sandboy5880]

I dunno man. For me it's all just unneeded gimmick. I would rather prefer that they focus on properly optimizing the games again. Even if you can see the difference it's just almost never worth the performance hit and the games' optimalization is shit even without it anyway. Imo, happened what I afraid would. DLSS, frame generation, ray tracing, path tracing etc. made the devs lazy in optimizing the games right and instead they count on these mentioned gimmicks to do their job for them.

[@AntonioLexanTeh]

that intro ahahhaha

[@niloyck2540]

This just proves that raster is just better than ray tracing and path tracing the huge performance hit is just not worth the slightly and i mean SLIGHTY different result, Unless the game is very simple looking. edit: About the softer and "better" shadows in RT, its because RT introduces alot of noise and the noise reduction algorithm makes it look softer its also the reason for disappearing lines and cables. I don't think its supposed to look softer especially at the distance the light source is.

[@AncientGameplays]

Disagree. Rt im this games is meh, but path tracing is a different world. It does have some issues though, the noise filter is not that great in CP2077, its better in other games though, like Desordre, alan wake 2 and etc

[@TearsInReign]

RT/PT do objectively look better but not enough to justify the substantial amount of additional hardware required to run them at high frame rates. Id rather have native res image quality with 100+ fps

[@AncientGameplays]

Still growing and getting better (PT)

[@Kenny-yl9pc]

Yes many people dont realize how much dlss and especially fg worsen the picture quality... Id rather play native res and if need be lower settings or use dlss but never ever fg. I mean why use 1440p or 4k if you lower it in the end...

[@adeptalakay]

@@Kenny-yl9pcI sometimes have to run 1440p to offload some cpu usage to the gpu, and it just looks wayyy sharper, even though im on 1080p monitor. with DLSR 1440p makes a huge difference on 1080p

[@TheUltimateBlooper]

I'm a 3D artist and photographer by trade and I ABSOLUTELY see the difference. Playing with light is what I do on a daily basis, so the lack of realistic/logical light bouncing, reflections, refractions, etc - those things I notice. Maybe regular people can claim that they don't, but I call BS on that. And it really REALLY annoys me when "gamers" come out the woodwork to call RT/PT a "gimmick" when they don't even understand anything about computer graphics. That being said - raytracing and pathtracing are extremely resource-intensive (and always will be, compared to the hackery of rasterization), so I get the sentiment that for many it's less that they can't see the difference, but more about not being able to *afford* the difference. Needless to say, I buy new GPUs at launch as a 3D guy, as my hobby (gaming) happens to need high-end PCs the same way my work does.

[@kenmiller5318]

WOooooahhhh

[@AncientGameplays]

🤣💪

[@darthvladi]

For me, it is more important to be able to run a game at 144fps, rather than very light/reflections/shadows improvements that we barely pay attention when playing. I can't play anything below 70 fps...

[@AncientGameplays]

"that we barely pay attention when playing" that's relative

[@diuslucrii2171]

I never care that i just want play a game,some years ago no one care that and we love play games and have mush more fun then this days, gamers become technical visual gamers i think the good game days are over

[@Anna_Rae]

One important thing to think about with RT is that its much easier for the developer. With rasterization if you want your game to look pretty you need make a lot of cubemaps for reflections, place fake lights to simulate light bounce, etc. With raytracing it does all the work for you. RT will especially help smaller developers (indie and AA) put out beautiful games with a fraction of the time/effort.

[@FoxyCAMTV]

Like you said in the beginning,"the brain gets used to it"

[@AncientGameplays]

True

[@dra6o0n]

The keyword here is 'pixels per inch'. The data and information on graphical fidelity is how many 'details' you can see in a given space. Even if your PPI is a high level of detail, in a firefight or high speed motion, you wouldn't pay attention to any of that.

[@AncientGameplays]

That actually depends

[@yossman8825]

If I have to compare freeze frames and slowed down clips and zoomed in images to see a difference, a performance hit is just not worth it imo.

[@AncientGameplays]

you don't have it, but this is how you make a video about it

[@yossman8825]

@@AncientGameplays What I was trying to say is: I don't really value the features, if they cost so much performance but have so little visual impact/improvement.

[@nilsongarcia3983]

Good thing I didn't spend money on a RTX and got an XT instead. The moment you need to explain me the difference and zoom in for me to see it I can tell: it is not worthy at all.

[@joja2174]

bro read the 101 guide on how to make an intro and i love it 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@sanderbrouwer91]

I did notice the difference between rasterazation and RT. However I prefer Rast > RT, because of so much artifacting, snow and blur when using RT (10:30). This is mostly because upscaling is needed for RT to even perform. Moreover some scenario's RT doesn't even look good, for example the RT reflections turns a water glass in a mirror or an example of the shadows (7:09). And lastly the hit in FPS: normal rast vs upscaled with RT is 50% decrease. I can play the game for hours on normal rast settings without getting headaches compared to RT.

[@AncientGameplays]

Upscaling is not needed for rt anymore wjth FG though. At least at 1400P. Path tracing needs it though

[@sanderbrouwer91]

@@AncientGameplays I have a 6950xt, don't have FG option.

[@fractalelf7760]

Great video! Very well presented.

[@ZDY66666]

Incorrect comparison. Rasterized isnt truly rasterized. Even then yes you can see the diffference. Just a matter of whether youre willing to take the performanxe hit for it

[@AncientGameplays]

raster = baked lighting

[@johnd.1618]

Nature knows how to put light sources and how to bounce light in myriads of different types of surfaces, developers will never get it right. What I mean is that even with Path Tracing the light sources will never be 100% natural and the surfaces probably of limited types if not mostly similar(meaning light with bounce of those surfaces the same way, which is obviously wrong, unnatural). Also in the Ray Tracing world there is a very clear absence of dust, so Ultra, Path Tracing, Overdrive, no matter what settings you'll choose, the result will NEVER be natural. Only different than raster. And because this is gaming, do we really need extra dark corners in our games?

[@59.9fps]

Path tracing is so accurate, that on my RTX 3070/ R7 3700x I prefer to turn it on, with every other setting kept at Low preset, at 1080p (DLSS Auto), to get a locked 30 fps (with RTSS) then FG it to 60 using Lossless Scaling (including upscaling 1.8x to 1944p on a 1440p monitor). This gives an excellent fidelity where the image is sharp, almost nil aliasing, lighting accurate, and awesome FG with latest version of LSFG. Even when shadows are at Low, PT renders as much shadows as the lighting realistically would, and does away with fake AO. The only catch is some ghosting when climbing up stairs or turning the controller around too fast.

[@sungjin-woo3894]

It makes sense that it's darker, because it simulates how light rays would bounce in real life. I could easily imagine someone replicating 6:01 and with the same placement of the source of light the guys face remains unlit.

[@Vaca726]

In Cyberpunk, I left RT turned on only for reflections, turned everything else off, didn’t notice a difference, but I didn’t lose FPS. I left it in The Witcher as well.

[@fleapea81]

Good vid. Reminds me why I don't need ray gimmick. A setting that said drop 40fps would at least be more honest.

[@bingbongwingwong]

At 7:00 the "floor patterns" are actually improperly implemented shadows (same with the white line), the issue is resolved when raytracing and pathtracing is turned on. I had to check for myself, but the material is consistently textured, and is different in lighting only. 👍

[@nightspicer]

Generally speaking, raytracing is much better for the devs than the players, cause it takes significantly less time and effort to do it.

[@MLWJ1993]

The reason the raytracing doesn't often look dramatically different in terms of lighting is due to it still using the manually placed lights in CP77. They don't always adhere to the shape of the lightsource & therefore look just as inaccurate as rasterisation does.

[@AncientGameplays]

Just that it doesn't. Could look better, but looks great already

[@jamesheller9185]

the next line up of gpus will be PTX

[@stuardcg]

People will hate it but after I played some of hours using Ray Tracing I can tell when is enable. If I switch back I'll notice, maybe I can't tell exactly what is different but definitely, I can "feel" it.

[@bloom-mania]

the key differences are the quality in shadows and non screen space reflections

[@RSpracticalshooting]

The raster lighting in this game is insanely good, and the regular RT really doesn't look a whole lot better, but damn does Path Tracing make a huge difference.

[@D-generon]

In my opinion, the biggest difference that ray tracing brings to the game is in quality of reflections, especially when it comes to reflections coming from uneven glossy surfaces. For example, when you're inside your flat, it is really cool how windows in Cyberpunk can let some outside light through, yet reflect some light from the interior at the same time.

[@AncientGameplays]

For me its the shadows and oclusion

[@D-generon]

@@AncientGameplays I should have been more specific: I meant the difference when transitioning from rasterization to old ray tracing. If we're comparing rasterization to path tracing then, of course, the biggest difference would be in occlusion.

[@vicchavez007]

Now that I'm playing on an OLED panel path tracing looks even more phenomenal.

[@AncientGameplays]

Indeed