[Digital Foundry] Dragon's Dogma 2 Path Tracing: It's Real, It Works And Here's How It Looks

nanoUFO@sh.itjust.worksmod to Games@sh.itjust.works – 36 points –
Dragon's Dogma 2 Path Tracing: It's Real, It Works And Here's How It Looks
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Somewhat off-topic here as it's not about DD2 but I was wondering about raytraced shadows the other day and what the real advantage even was to it. I have some PS5 games with raytraced shadows (no reflections unfortunately) and swapping between RT and non RT, I honestly can't see a difference in the quality of the shadows. If the previous methods of soft shadowing is already really good looking, what's the point of ray tracing them and losing the speed? Other lighting and reflection effects look way better than the current methods of faking it, but shadows not so much.

In short

Raytracing is pure math. Its sort of a realistic simulation of real light and how it interacts with materials. As you now color is light and colors can bleed and mix trough light even on non transparent materials.

Of course the games implementation matters a lot, i bet not a single game is capable of using the full capacity of what raytracing can offer.

On the point of traditional light still looking as good (or better in some cases) that makes alot of sense because this is done with manual labor and intend. (Yes even with dynamic lighting though gamd engines make it easier) The results are technically leas realistic (but depending on cut corners neither is rtx) but they may be more creative and atmospheric if done by skilled artists.

For a player its going to be up to preference and realistically non rtx light will remain just fine but now imagine the dev perspective where rtx may be far easier to implement.

Though i never heard of a game ditching traditional ligjt for exclusively raytracing but as the tech goes fully mainstream we may see that happen.

Edit: not so short but still far from complete

Though i never heard of a game ditching traditional ligjt for exclusively raytracing but as the tech goes fully mainstream we may see that happen.

Teardown's renderer uses raytracing exclusively. Interestingly it doesn't even need a raytracing-capable card, it just runs slowly without one.

What’s the game?

Elden Ring, Control, Deathloop, and Rift Apart. Rift Apart is the best looking of the bunch, but also has the most ray tracing features afaik.

I did most comparisons of the shadows alone in ER because I know for sure that it only has RT shadows. The games only give you RT on or RT off or Quality vs Performance, so it was the best I could do to eliminate variables. My PC still has a 1660 super so I can't exactly test on that lol

I can agree ER doesn’t have an interesting implementation. I always assumed they added it just to get some experience with the tech rather than anything practical. It was just randomly dropped in an update.

Can someone help me out? I saw a trailer in the past couple weeks for a new medieval game hat looks sort of like an open world third person game, not an MMORPG. But I’m looking back and I can’t find it anywhere. What are the new knight/feudal era games coming out besides Manor lords? Thanks! I’m not really a gamer, but rdr2 has changed me and I’ve been playing a lot more games these days.

Kingdom Come 2?

Fuck yes! That’s the one. That one looks cool as fuck. Thank you

Try Kingdom Come 1 first. It's good, but not for everyone. The combat in particular takes a bit of getting used to

The first one is so good, it's one of those games that sticks with you.

Surely by now its people who dislike digital entertainment that is the atypical niche group? The digital world is only expanding, games are everywhere even my grandma plays candycrush.

What is commonly understood as being a real gamer has grown more into a subgroup of dedicated competitive multiplayer enjoyers. In the early days you couldn’tbe a gamer without being into computers in general and you werent into computers without owning a figurative math nerd membercard.

Imagine “If you don’t binge watch you don’t really watch tv” similar silly sentiment

For a second I thought you might’ve been replying to the wrong comment. But I see what you’re saying. I was having a similar convo with my friend the other day. I’ve never been a “gamer,” but I’ve pretty consistently had fifa, would play gta at my friends houses. My brother and I played the halo games. But I distinguished myself from my other friends because they were all “gamers” that would spend all day playing video games, would have a bunch of different ones, would play online (when that became a thing), etc. And even by those standards I’m still not really a “gamer.” I have one game I’ll play at a time, but now I’ve had a couple I’ll play for longer than I ever had. But rdr2 really did change everything. I couldn’t stop playing, I played it over and over again, I read up on it, and in that fun I had, I looked for other games to buy to enjoy, hoping to find another that would bring me that much entertainment. Still haven’t found one, though. And I’m still replaying the rdr2 campaign lol

I just fuckin love that game to death. I gotta update my console though. Eyeing a ps5 at the moment bc I wanted to play the RE4 remake and more recently cyberpunk or whatever that one is called. I got assassin’s creed mirage and it was…okay. I never even finished it and haven’t turned it on it like a week. The story didn’t grab me, the animation was constantly subpar. Rdr2 gave me exactly what I want in a game: an open world, beautiful graphics, but mostly, that fuckin story, ugh. It gets me where I live every goddamn time I’ve played it. And I’ve replayed that campaign probably more than 90% of people. I’m a show rewatcher, though. I love stories, and can be affected by them even if I know how they go.

Do you know kingdome come deliverance? If not, i highly recommend it.

I would describe it pretty much as rdr2 in medieval times as far as gameplay is concerned.

A fair warning though, rdr is a highly polished big money AAA game.

Kingdome come is.. sm else. Hard to explain but you have to get kinda used to it and its unique (very fun when mastered) combat system.

Some general recommendations to expand your horizon of whats out there.

Thomas was alone

Portal 1 (and if you enjoy the puzzles also 2)

The forgotten city

The outer wilds

Currently enjoying death stranding which i can also recommend.

Have fun!

Hopefully someone takes the time to add the other objects into the tracer and a denoiser. I'd love to play it that way!

But they gotta fix it first before I'll buy it!