Matthew Moniz here and there's a huge misconception going on the internet that you need a beefy
desktop PC with an RTX 2080 Ti and an Intel 99 bajillion K processor in order to take
advantage of ray tracing and that's further from the truth!
Because quite frankly you could get good results with the cheapest RTX card at 1080p with settings
set to high.
Now for those of you unfamiliar with Ray Tracing, it's basically a technology that allows you
to render shadows and light and makes them look a lot more lifelike than using rasterization
processes that we are typically used to in gaming.
Like this i the stuff they use in CG to combine real life with animation to make it look more
realistic.
Now this video is sponsored by Nvidia and I'm not here to force you to use ray tracing
but to educate you and show you the type of system you need and the benefits you get with
ray tracing and then you can decide whether you want to use it in the games you play or
the games that support it or whether you want to turn it off completely and get the most
frames per second as possible.
Now the system we're using is not super expensive, but it's definitely not a budget PC.
I would say it's like a mid-range.
It's about a thousand bucks and what you're essentially getting is an AMD Ryzen 3600X,
16 gigabytes of RAM, you're using an RTX 2060, we have a B450 micro ATX motherboard from
Gigabyte, a Fractal Nano S case, we're using a Noctua cooler to keep things nice and quiet,
a G3 supernova power supply and most importantly no RGB.
So if there's one game that really takes advantage of ray tracing it's definitely control!
The visual experience is enhanced greatly.
Like look at this Jesse's approaching the window, her reflections in it, she can see
herself you also have the reflection of the background.
This is something that happens in real life.
You're walking down the street you stare into a store, you can kind of see in but because
of the glare and the reflection you automatically see some objects from the street.
As soon as you turn ray tracing off, the reflections are gone Jesse's gone and all you can do is
see inside.
It basically looks like someone put a color matte.
a white color matte, reduced the opacity added a little bit of blur and called it a day.
So again here's another example of ray tracing, Jesse is standing in the middle of the hallway
and on the right hand side you have those beautiful reflections.
You can kind of see inside the room, but you also get the reflections from the other side
of the hallway.
Even the door has more texture to it, more high dynamic range, like you can see the different
textures of the brown compared to ray tracing off.
And finally the same idea this time the light is reflecting from the top of the ceiling
you see it on the floor with ray tracing on, whereas with ray tracing off, it just doesn't
exist.
And I think this gives you a different type of feel when you're playing the game.
Metro Exodus is this awesome RPG game set in a dark scary world and it uses ray tracing
to set the mood.
It uses it to add realism with global illumination for outdoors, it's bright, it's a little bit
sunny, so the light is hitting the weapon differently with ray tracing on compared to
ray tracing off.
With it off, it's not doing anything it just looks dark, you can't see the details inside
of the crossbow whereas on the left-hand side, you can make out those finer details.
Even the shadows are a bit different.
If you look in front of him on the path, they're very harsh with ray tracing off.
It’s llike they have these sharp edges with no roll off whatsoever.
Where on the left hand side it rolls off a bit more naturally.
The abandoned houses interesting because it has a darker tone to it with ray tracing on
and where it really changes the mood is when you enter the house itself.
Look at the left hand side.
There's harsher shadows you have light coming in through the window.
It's bouncing off the floor.
You can't see everything.
It gives you a sense of spookiness.
You don't know what's lurking in the shadows, that's gonna jump out on you.
The right-hand side is dark, it has kind of a scary tone too, but everything it doesn't
feel realistic as he turns around into the room he stares at the back cover and look
at the shadows going across it.
It's darker it's going inside of the shelves to give it some depth whereas on the right-hand
side, it just kind of looks fake.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare is a game that just came out.
It too incorporates ray tracing and you can play it with setting set to high at 1080p.
In this image right here, you can see the differences between RTX on and off.
Not as crazy as control but it's mostly in the shadows.
That pole the shadows on the left look a lot more natural compared to the right.
It looks like there's a nice gaussian blur around the edges of it making it blend into
the scene a lot more naturally.
On the right-hand side, there's a shadow but it just looks a bit more fake.
So again, another example of the shadows this time of the light is spilling out of a door.
left-hand side looks a lot more natural light is spilling out than rolling off and going
away whereas on the right-hand side, it doesn't look like that.
It just basically looks like someone cut a triangle filled it with light and didn't allow
any roll off whatsoever.
Shadow the Tomb Raider is really interesting because they used ray tracing to light the
scenes and as you can imagine there's tons of different scenes in this game.
You have caves, your outdoors, you're in cities.
It's nighttime.
It's daylight, like there's just tons of lighting that needs to be perfect.
There's five types of shadows being used and in this scene we're probably using a combination
of sunlight shadows and translucent shadows and what's happening is you have this directional
lighting hitting the earth bouncing off everywhere and what you get is different contrast in
the grass.
On the right-hand side, it just looks like one simple color on the left-hand side you
have separation in the grass where the light is going.
Some parts of it is being lit others are not which means it's being blocked by an object.
So in this scene, it's the opposite, it's nighttime, the sun is gone and the light source
happens to be coming from a bunch of small candles.
Now typically with candles you get big shadows, there's nice contrast but with ray tracing
off it doesn't exist.
It's really hard to do without ray tracing is just hard to mimic that naturally.
With ray tracing on you can see the difference!
The book is lit, you have proper roll off.
Mary's face or the statue is completely lit by all the candles surrounding her.You have
the big shadow behind her giving her some depth even the person sitting on the chair
across her chest, there's a little bit of light spanning across it from the candles
as there should be.
Then the ground you have the human shadows on the right-hand side with Ray tracing off
it's harsh, it doesn't look realistic.
On the left, it looks proper it looks diffused, the way it's supposed to be.
And finally the last game is Battlefield 5 This is such a great game and one of the first
games to get Ray tracing.
Ray tracing here is being used exclusively for the reflection so anything that is a mirror,
metal, water or glass has the potential to reflect you will see it!
With ray tracing on, right off the bat both of these tanks have a little bit of water
on top but you don't see any reflection with ray tracing off.
On the left-hand side, you can see stuff moving through the water, which means it's reflecting
its surroundings.
Now in front of it is also very noticeable.
You see a lot of water in the foreground and with that you can see the reflections happening
with ray tracing on whereas with ray tracing off it just looks like a very dark puddle.
So here's what I want you to take away from this video, Ray tracing does help with the
visual experience, especially when you're playing games that are campaign-based or RPG.
Every single visual detail helps you feel more immersed into the game, whether it's
a little shadow or crazy reflections like you have in Control.
Now, it doesn't mean you should always leave it on because I get it.
Some of us like playing multiplayer games and having the highest frames per second is
the most important thing ever, especially for those taking advantage of a high refresh
display.
But I think especially in a story setting, Ray tracing has a lot of benefits to make
that story even better.
Now if you have any questions about this video, let me know in the comments below.
Like the video if you liked it, subscribe if you haven't already and I'll see you guys
in the next video.