Key Takeaways
- Ray tracing is still not worth it due to the high cost of GPUs capable of running compatible games.
- Ray tracing is limited to a small niche of gamers who can afford the expensive GPUs that support it.
- Despite advancements, mainstream hardware is still incapable of delivering a smooth and stunning ray-traced experience.
Nvidia debuted real-time ray tracing with its RTX 2000 Turing GPUs in 2018. While it was limited to a handful of games and the implementation was shoddy, Nvidia is now celebrating around 500 games and apps that support ray tracing. This number might seem huge, and even if you aren't a prolific gamer, you'd agree that ray tracing is far more prevalent and evolved than it was five years ago.
Unfortunately, the promise of ray tracing becoming the de facto gaming standard hasn't panned out, at least not yet. Sure, the PS5 and Xbox Series X now support ray-traced reflections in many titles, but whether it's consoles or PC, ray tracing comes with too many issues to be worthwhile. If you have deep pockets, you can buy the few graphics cards worthy of Cyberpunk 2077's path-tracing mode. But, for everyone else, ray tracing isn't there yet.
3 I rather prefer #RTXOff
The performance hit isn't worth it
BenQ Mobiuz EX3415R
Ray tracing was a gimmick on first-gen RTX cards. The RTX 2000 series, as a whole, left a bad taste in people's mouths. Gamers weren't too keen on shelling out the big bucks just for the RTX tax. Even today, as the RTX 4000 series (with the much-improved Ada Lovelace architecture) is getting popular, ray tracing still demands a colossal cut out of your FPS to work — even on the best gaming GPUs.
You could argue that using the latest-gen cards in older RTX titles will give you a great experience, but I'm buying the latest product to use in the latest titles. Even on an RTX 3080, I need to make numerous compromises if I want 60FPS+ in Cyberpunk 2077, and that's without path tracing and with DLSS enabled.
Then, upscaling techniques are left to pick up the slack when the GPUs aren't delivering playable framerates. I'd appreciate it if I could enjoy ray tracing at my monitor's native resolution without AI trickery and fake frames. If I can't get near 100FPS on my 144Hz monitor, even with a high-end GPU, I'd rather turn ray tracing off. But I won't be happy about it.
2 Reserved for a small niche of gamers
Real ray tracing is a luxury
Games like Cyberpunk 2077 promised a lot when it came to ray-traced visuals. But the path tracing mode only just came to the game in 2023, and what we saw was quite different from what we got. Even if you set aside fully ray-traced games, an actually enjoyable ray-tracing experience is limited to a handful of super-expensive GPUs, pricing out the majority of gamers.
The latest titles like Alan Wake 2 are breathtaking only on the RTX 4000 series GPUs that can actually support their path tracing effects. Budget GPUs are left to run things at 1080p with every fancy graphical setting turned off. And these budget GPUs are the ones that most gamers use, as is evident from the Steam Hardware Survey. The RTX 3060 might be the most popular GPU, but no one's brave enough to run ray tracing on it.
If you're impressed with Nvidia's relentless marketing around #RTXOn, you better be ready to spend at least $800 on an RTX 4070 Ti. On anything less powerful than that, you'll feel shortchanged and left with a sub-par visual experience.
1 It's not maturing as fast as it should
No "real-time" ray tracing
As GPUs capable of ray tracing get more powerful, games get more demanding. This results in a maintained status as gamers must choose between performance and visuals. Even after five years, we haven't gotten to a point where mainstream graphics cards can deliver a smooth, stable, and stunning ray-traced experience.
Nvidia has more or less cornered the market when it comes to ray-traced graphics, with AMD still lagging behind in ray tracing as well as FSR performance. The industry sentiment on ray tracing went from being an Nvidia gimmick to a prohibitively expensive, and therefore pointless, feature. If only 3 to 4% of desktop gamers can actually experience the brilliant ray tracing visuals they see advertised, then it's a sorry state for the industry. And I've included the RTX 4070 in that percentage. Ouch!
Should we wait or abandon ray tracing?
Ray tracing is a brilliant innovation for gaming graphics. Compared to rasterization, it can help developers deliver a significantly more realistic-looking experience. However, fully ray-traced games running on mainstream hardware still need years of work. With Nvidia and AMD turning high-end GPUs into a luxury commodity, the average gamer either needs to abandon the idea of ray tracing or wait for a long time to join the RTX club. And there's no guarantee that will ever happen since games are getting more and more difficult to run.
- Computing
- Computing Editorial
- PC
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