PC Gamer recently spoke with Id Software co-founder John Carmack about some of the technical benefits PC gamers get from playing Rage on PC instead of consoles. Without the texture memory limits of the Xbox 360 and PS3, we can expect sharper textures, even at lower resolutions. At high resolutions, PC gamers can expect close to “three times the unique pixels the consoles can.”
It’s best to let technical wizard John Carmack explain this one. “One of the significant things that’s not really obvious is that because we break everything up into these texture pages, the consoles are limited because they don’t have enough memory and on the PS3 you can’t go larger than a 4096 squared texture,” he says.
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Rage from id Software and Bethesda Softworks was largely overlooked, yet its handcrafted FPS open world and memorable characters transcend genre convention.
YouTube’s members ‘Digital Dreams’ and ‘Jose cangrejo’ have shared some videos, showcasing Pascal Gilcher’s Reshade mod – which adds Ray Tracing/Path Tracing effects – in some really old games such as Star Wars The Force Unleashed, Crysis 2, RAGE and Resident Evil 6.
I'm still learning how to look for the differences. At first I was focusing on shadows for some reason but I don't think that changes much, is it reflections that change?
It is supposed to be simulating how light actually works- so yes if light is reflecting off a surface accurately it should show reflection or an effect that matches what you are looking at in the environment. Next time you play a game look at a puddle of water there may be just a "baked" in texture that if you aren't paying attention seems like it is reflecting but it isn't. I would say though if the light is reflecting more accurately I would think that would give more accurate shadows as well.
I am still not 100% sold on it- it looks okay but I can't get over the hardware price jump for better reflections..
While games won't look immensely better, it opens up more possibilities overall. Understandably, the price jump is huge. But, that can be said for being at the forefront for any new technology. I'm currently using a 2080ti and while I've played a few games that enable it, the gpu also plays everything else incredibly well so it's not like you're buying this tech for ONLY that option. Enthusiasts will pay top dollar to check out the newest things, but this will eventually become an everyday consumer and by then they'll have optimized and become a lot cheaper.
Ray/path tracing can be used how the developer wants it to be. Tracing can be used to calculate shadows/lighting, reflection and even audio, where audio waves are calculated on the bounce off material types to simulate enviroment and echos accuratly.
Should also keep in mind that this ray/path tracing system is different and less accurate option from Nvidias RTX branded type. McFly's is a reshade that layers over the top of the game and therefor the quality will vary drastically. For example you can see nice reflection in the Star Wars demo here but it then introduces colour clipping with the light saber. On a video of GTA 5 for example it was incorrectly projecting a reflection of a red car onto the road which caused a very faint red glow on the ground around the car.
If you want to see a good example of a game developed with ray tracing reflection and lighting in mind then you could look up the youtube video of "Control - Exclusive E3 RTX GAMEPLAY Trailer".
It supposed to add more realistic light Not actually more light effects and explosions
I hate to say it but I’m fine with fake lights, shadows, reflections. I just kind of like the effect, it’s also great it saves resources for other things.
I’ve been checking out some original Xbox games on x360/x1x and the engine has fake light streaming in through a stained glass window, and I love it even though I know it’s not real time lighting. Heck it even shifts as I move about.
I’ve about convinced my self rt and hdr just doesn’t work for me. Before hdr I would even complain damn why are the headlights killing me they are so bright.
I notice most frame rate, then jaggies, then resolution; with the last two interchangeable depending.
Other day watched an enthusiast rave over 4k and the poor guy was in 1080p. I played the same game the night before and thought wow this is clean, I wonder if it’s 4k, but knew differently and I thought wow even resolution is not always important. The next day he apologized and was surprised he could be fooled.
How come the lightsabers don't give off any light? Even in the EA star wars game the guy uses it to light up a dark cave. I guess if it is using frostbite it will support rtx cards.
Thank you for pointing out the obvious, pcgamer.
wait, that's what John Carmack looks like? He's such a nerd.
not to mention anti aliasing, 100x better shadows (the shadows on most console multiplats look horrendous), better lighting, better texture sizes, better draw distance, less pop in, faster load times, mods eventually, better/more control options, better framerate, better texture filtering, depth of field,blur,post process
he left out a few things. the pc ALWAYS does better everything!!!
I love hearing these devs skim over the glaring ineptness of the consoles, you know they want to be like
"i cannot freaking believe these 7 year old hunks of shit are still here, what do you want me to say, the game looks similar to what we made on pc, in the way a festiva looks like a bmw in that they are both cars and they go forward and backward"
If PC didn't run better,look better why would anyone buy gpu's,lol.
This article is an insult to just about anyone with half of a brain. If anyone had to actually read the article then they need to stop playing games all together. Of course it will run better. Also, it will be riddled with bugs because the vast resources of the pc makes programmers lazy, and so the game wont be optimized. So 4 patches later, of course it will run better.