What Is Ray Tracing?

The PS5 and Xbox Series X are both confirmed to feature ray tracing technology, but those not engrossed with PC gaming may not know what it is. Here we break down everything you need to know and even what PC gamers need to make the most of Ray Tracing.
00:00 - Check out our article for more in the link below
00:11 - What is exactly is it & why should you care?
01:05 - Why do I need Ray Tracing?
01:52 - Does it effect performance?
02:45 - Is PC and Console the same?
03:19 - Do I need to upgrade my PC?
04:05 - What games have it?
05:00 - How does it work?
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[@DoubleO7-11]

Thanks for this! I recently saw a review where they described ray tracing as “tracing rays” 🥴

[@trustedreviews]

We regularly get confused ourselves so decided to put this together :) Hope it helps

[@franklingoodwin]

I prefer tracing Rays, as in Raymonds (sorry for the dad joke) 😆

[@awil2]

@@franklingoodwin lol 😎

[@amsbeats841]

It's not base ball.. it's ball base! #mimdblown

[@captainMony]

I thought this was one of those mega sized review channels.... I was wrong ... this is better 👌

[@bythegraceofadoni]

I’m definitely pro, as time goes on eventually the technology will be easier to produce and cheaper. Just be patient, everything has an infancy period.

[@SweatLaserXP]

There are very few games that support ray tracing right now. You're paying a huge price to be an early adopter. In another year or two, it will be more prevalent in games and will be more affordable on the hardware side.

[@trustedreviews]

It's surprising how few people know this. Everyone is talking about Ray Tracing like it's in every new game being mentioned but it really isn't. Some people are going to spend ALOT of money and be disappointed.

[@keryjr785]

@@trustedreviews yeah but without those early adopters helping to 'pay' and be guinea pigs, we'd never see the next step in gaming.

[@stxphh]

this was super helpful thanks for this well made video !!

[@atticusosullivan8577]

thank you for explaining this better than "Linus Tech" also thank you for not having a ridiculously tinny audio

[@Justin-pq6bo]

Such a good video right to the point and loaded with information.

[@spikescubing5833]

Thanks for this video! It really helped me get the idea!

[@tonytheprogrammer542]

thanks man, this has helped me understand ray tracing more than when i googled it

[@rudyelvis9468]

Great info!! Thank you very Much

[@rdu239]

Please explain ray tracing in layman's words: is just basically a reflection upgrade?

[@rogen84]

Thank you for this video, has been very informative.

[@stroberri6649]

Love the review!

[@isolte]

Great video, though I really wish you put the "How Does It Work" part at the *beginning* of the vid instead of wasting my time with why I might need or want it for myself. XD

[@ravincrause4601]

Thanx bud , just got a RTX 4080 , just wanted to understand it better and your vid is spot on , thanx bud

[@TamilPesi]

Is it important for 3d modeling?? Because the price difference of laptops with gtx1650 vs Rtx 3050(ray tracing) is slightly higher. I need a laptop for animation and 3d modeling. Should I worry abt ray tracing(paying extra money for rtx3050 model)??

[@dukev089]

Not really, I don't know bout other sources but blender doesn't find it necessary or important to use.

[@ThaOrthodoX]

Straight to the point, no fluff and this has helped to decide that I absolutely do not need Ray tracing 😊

[@rwwilson21]

GAT VI?

[@lac2275]

Brilliant explanation anyone can understand!

[@trustedreviews]

Thank you for being so kind, hope it helps

[@tsohgallik]

Seems like ray tracing just forces environment with metal automatically become "reflective" just because its "metal"... Seems useless when the metal on the car isn't supposed to be reflective.

[@aidenpearce5275]

especially with a game like ark survival evolved its reflective af

[@alexchenoweth1265]

Very thorough. I'm a gamer myself and knew most of this stuff but even then I felt very educated. I have an Xbox one s currently and I have enough to buy a new Gaming laptop or the new Series X. What should I buy?

[@Gingerlyquill17]

I recommend building your own PC which if your budget is the price of the Series X (499) you can totally save up a little more say 100 dollars more (599) and buy yourself the rtx 2060 graphics card from NVidia and buy the other components although In a 600 dollar budget your gonna have to cut some corners for the other pieces, although rumors have it a new rtx 3060 will be coming out very soon in the upcoming months which gives you time to save in my opinion. Then you can truly experience ray tracing in all its beauty, as mentioned in the video pc does it better than console. You will obviously need to do a lot of research but take the time that is certainly available till the new card comes out (if you want it) to research either online or on youtube there's plenty of information and it's not as hard as you think

[@Gingerlyquill17]

Although if the above options are your only options and you truly are impatient then Series X is obviously the way to go as laptops are trash for that price ... You will not find one that is 499 and is equally powerful as the series X

[@alexchenoweth1265]

@@Gingerlyquill17 Well right now I have close to 700$ and am looking at the "Acer Nitro 5, which doesn't have great graphics (GTX 1050) but it would be the only thing I can game with my PC friends on, and I am very mobile, as I drive/fly 2 states up from where I am in the summer and winter for 2 weeks in winter and 2 months in summer. I like myself some good graphics, but I also like to play games with my friends, and I don't have enough spare money to save up for a big computer, so that's sort of my problem. Note: I appreciate your help, thanks!

[@Gingerlyquill17]

@@alexchenoweth1265 the advice I gave you above still applies especially if you have 700 dollars to spare! You can literally make the build and make it look a little pretty too if you wanted to. At the end of the day do as you wish if you want more help searching for info on PC building let me know I'll source to the guides that are helping me build mine, just whatever you do for the love of God do not buy a laptop!!!

[@alexchenoweth1265]

@@Gingerlyquill17 I would appreciate if you linked the sites. :)

[@xox8717]

It would probably take few years before it becomes something standard in most video games and maybe with more competition from AMD & Intel the price for these cards would drop.

[@archangel_gold2451]

Might be the best thing to happen to gaming. You can even apply it to older games. Search Doom 3 Ray tracing

[@N7aziz]

Thanks for this!

[@trustedreviews]

No worries :)

[@Chat2Conaz]

Anyone know the game at 3:00 ?

[@sundar7763]

can someone let me know the game name @2:58?

[@robertstark7742]

Thanks for this ray tracing. It's really insane for next generation games...

[@OutsideTheRopes]

Well get ray tracing and the high frame rate to be sold to us later for $899 watch. PS5 Pro. I hate when they do this.

[@Christopher._M]

I am someone who just loves experiencing almost anything at the pinnacle. This right here has my interest. Never thought i would want to play a game again but looking at this quality and the effort put in games like FF7 i have to say i want to try them myself.

[@fret2fret221]

Dumb question...is that what “RTX” means in graphics cards? Like RTX1660?

[@jamesbutler5630]

Loved the video I now understand 😂😂

[@violet6596]

Thank you so much! Well explained! I originally prefer smooth gaming as I did play competitive games like CSGO and Dota 2. However, I am trying to prefer beautiful games such as Cyberpunk which recently launched! I am afraid that I will be spending a lot on beautiful games but in the future I am bored with this single player games! Any tips? Sorry for bad english

[@random_gamer_guy82]

So for the money and being realistic next generation consoles are a very good start. I've just bought a xbox series x and on a decent 32" TV it looks freaking amazing, imagine what we are in for once rtx is fully involved with everything. Wow, imagine link roaming hyrule with rtx.

[@BillyBob_McSanchez]

So we went from basic graphics to 8 bit to 16 bit to 64 bit to 128 bit to HD to 4K and now ray tracing

[@RalphAverbuch]

Does it effect performance... No. It AFFECTS performance.

[@RalphAverbuch]

But good video, typos/grammar aside.

[@trustedreviews]

🤦I mean we checked the video but that's not an excuse we should have known better, sorry about that

[@Voldemorts.Nipple]

2:57 hey bro what is the name of this game??

[@artemismelody4853]

I don’t think it has a name. It’s from the Unreal Engine 5 tech demo.

[@Voldemorts.Nipple]

@@artemismelody4853 oh ok thanks!

[@Kunal_D-Vii]

Well explained, thank you sir 🙌

[@mosab643]

Wtf? He never explained anything.

[@reymysterio7863]

Here after playing Spider Man Miles Morales and watching a review on how they have improved ray tracing lol

[@diknuggets762]

they said computers were suppose to get cheaper and cheaper...but ive noticed they've been delaying release of faster processors to milk the market more and more. At this rate it'll be another 10 years before we get to the point where an amazing PC can be bought for less than 2000$

[@thedog2583]

🤝

[@eddievenuto1862]

I would think Ray tracing would be more light without light you don't have anything. When you're playing your game how the lighting makes the game go that's basically what it is

[@FerretsForever94]

While it's nice to see game tech develop and evolve, I hope it doesn't become the sole focus of games. Being pretty ain't gonna mean jack if the gameplay/story/etc. don't match up.

[@Jdonovan2]

Video starts at 5:00

[@markod7662]

Good explanation. My opinion is that that amd and nvidia will have to give us some fun games to play otherwise who will they sell this to. Gaming is on the decline because games are getting boring and because they stay the same year after year.

[@JoelJoel321]

Does it affect* performance

[@JoelJoel321]

@CoolKat123 I was pointing out a spelling error. Sad I know.

[@thewisetzar5363]

Not worth the massive frame rates drop. I'll stick with 1440p with RTX off

[@eddyji999]

1:52 Affect not effect.

[@troyhayder6986]

It's very performance heavy compared to path tracing... It works by tracing every Ray of light from every visible light source through bounces and refraction and the camera catches some of those rays.. Its s performance hog... Pathtracing is nearly as good without the overhead.. It works by tracing beams of light from the camera in reverse back to the contributing light source through bounces and refraction... It traces a lot lot less rays... And the quality difference is negligible...

[@Rafa_RBR]

at 1:50 it should be *affect

[@Rafa_RBR]

Very informative video though!

[@tonylawlor8833]

You don't NEED Ray Tracing in a game, it's just Eye Candy and if you are going to give up 55fps for eye candy, well thats just stupid, most games, esp fps's games move so fast Ray Tracing is not noticed.

[@descai10]

"Shadows will be directly effected by the light source, and move according to the sun's position." This is a very poor and inaccurate way to describe ray tracing. Shadow maps were already fully capable of doing precisely what you described here. You should get a deeper understanding of the mechanics of ray tracing before trying to make a video about it. The point of ray tracing is to simulate the way light works in real life. In real life, light is made of photons, particles that are emitted from the light source and travel around the environment until eventually landing in your eye. Ray tracing simulates this by tracing the paths of those light particles, figuring out how they travel through the scene and eventually reach your eyes. Because it simulates light physically, ray tracing is capable of creating truly photo realistic images. Movies have used ray tracing for decades to reach this level of realism, and it is only now finding it's way into games. Currently, most games do not use all of the capability of ray tracing, they only implement one or two features such as reflections and soft shadows. Denoising techniques also deminish the fine details in the lighting ray tracing produces. We still have a ways to go before the true power of ray tracing can be unlocked. Once it is, however, lighting in games will be indistinguishable from real life.

[@trustedreviews]

The start of the video was meant to be a rather basic explanation, however if you had watched until around the 5 minute mark you would have seen us explain exactly what you said. We still made it a little simpler but it's pretty much the same. Thanks for you feedback all the same.

[@AlphaCygni]

meh... to be honest, ray tracing is just an advanced form of volumetric lighting

[@thewisetzar5363]

Also it sucks how Nvidia is screwing consumers with their pitiful vram options

[@shaurya512]

I want fps not graphics boiiiiii!!!!!