AMD to Redesign Ray Tracing Hardware on RDNA 4

[freeagent]

Bah.. I use it all the time, looks good.

 

[kapone32]

The funniest thing about RT is that the first time I heard it used was by Trip Hawkins on a show called "The Computer Chronicles". Yes it is that Trip Hawkins of EA fame. Now today just like everything else people bash AMD for a product that has not even been released yet.

 

[Naito]

Ummm, no. All that will happen is that they will get more complex. Even if AI generates them the models, textures and materials are still raster. RT/PT only affects the lighting and how the light reacts with materials/textures. What is so hard to grasp about this?

I understand that RT/PT only affects lighting (and thus shadows, reflections, and refractions), was just saying that, if used properly, should minimise certain workloads for the developers otherwise trying to provide the illusion of light with trickery.

The AI comment was just a random thought - I'm by no means an expert in this area. But it could be possible that a game would not require models, textures, materials, or even and engine in a traditional sense, just an AI model which takes inputs and follows rules described by the developers. Just as Sora can create an image from text to generate a video, would it not be possible for a different type of game engine to take the input of the player, motion vectors, the scene described, the rule set, source of truth, etc, and generate a frame? I mean, a very primitive form exists with Nvidia's DLSS frame generation...

I think the main question would be stability (AI hullucinations) and consistency of the final presentation between players, and play throughs.

 

[RGAFL]

The funniest thing about RT is that the first time I heard it used was by Trip Hawkins on a show called "The Computer Chronicles". Yes it is that Trip Hawkins of EA fame. Now today just like everything else people bash AMD for a product that has not even been released yet.

The thing is i've been hearing this RT thing since developing games on the Amiga. Yes a few were released for that. Don't get me wrong, crude by todays standards but it puts it in perspective.

 

[Vayra86]

Happy for AMD fans that are going to finally check out how cool path tracing looks in CP77 and Alan Wake 2 but I regret to inform them that the performance was complete garbage even on 4090 and they'll have to join everyone else in dreaming of some distant future cards that will be able to run stuff like this properly.

What do you mean, I already did this on a 7900XT. And the performance was complete garbage. I'm not dreaming of those distant future cards either tbh, I just turned it off again and called it a day, after comparing many nice scenes in Night City between PT and RT and off. And then I stopped caring about it, to be fair. And yes, it does have some pretty nice aspects to it, but there's also so much waste; it can cut your FPS in half and look the exact same too.

This hasn't changed, I have zero interest in the state of the tech as it is now. It doesn't add much if anything, but does detract from latency and performance. I don't think PT is going to happen anytime soon, if ever. Far too expensive.

 

[Dr. Dro]

What do you mean, I already did this on a 7900XT. And the performance was complete garbage.

Precisely the point, though. You can't really experience it if it's running like a slideshow as if it's some sort of futuristic tech demo, it's the kind of thing that doesn't even look right if the frame rate is low, because of the way that the atmospheric simulation works.

AMD's cards are so utterly incompetent at this that it's baffling. It's not like nobody saw it coming, though. Nvidia's been developing their raytracing technology for more than 15 years, I find it hard to believe no one at AMD had the same foresight.

 

[AusWolf]

AMD's cards are so utterly incompetent at this that it's baffling.

Everything except for the 4090 is utterly incompetent at this, and even the 4090 only does it with brute force by having a bazillion compute/RT units and a 450 W TDP, and not because it's so advanced. The performance you're sacrificing with RT is ridiculous on every hardware. It's pointless to argue that it's a couple percent worse on AMD, because it's crap on Nvidia, too.

This image represents my point very well. If I have to spend $1500+ on a graphics card (which is about 3x my theoretical limit) just to be able to enjoy a technology, then that technology is not ready to be enjoyed.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Everything except for the 4090 is utterly incompetent at this, and even the 4090 only does it with brute force by having a bazillion compute/RT units and a 450 W TDP, and not because it's so advanced. The performance you're sacrificing with RT is ridiculous on every hardware. It's pointless to argue that it's a couple percent worse on AMD.

This image represents my point very well. If I have to spend $1500+ on a graphics card (which is about 3x my theoretical limit) just to be able to enjoy a technology, then that technology is not ready to be enjoyed.
View attachment 346269

Upscaling or 4090 is still necessary to retain higher frame rates with native image, but the 40 series are now about to turn 2 years old and their replacements are on the way. Nvidia still offers advanced features like ray reconstruction that can further boost performance at minimal to no visual loss, which means that these benchmarks that are running fully native image, while more accurate/correct, actually help the Radeon cards in the charts since they don't have the capabilities to use these features and FSR 3 doesn't offer them - realistically, GeForce gamers can just enable these and off they go. That the vanilla 3090 (which is now an almost 4 year old card) outperforms the 7900 XTX by more than 50 percent, even without DLSS-G and DLSS-RR proves my point.

I'm probably going to buy the AMD card next generation and keep my 4080. That way i'll have both handy, as I expect Ada to be well supported for some time to come. Most games don't really take advantage of its hardware features yet, and I'm having some difficulty picturing what Blackwell can do outside of efficiency improvements and "AI".

 

[AusWolf]

Upscaling or 4090 is still necessary to retain higher frame rates with native image,

Exactly. That's why it's pointless to argue how much more advanced Nvidia's RT is. If it's only a few percent faster than AMD, it's still well within useless territory. When we get 60 FPS with PT on a mid-range card at 1440p, I'll agree that it's something.

Nvidia still offers advanced features like ray reconstruction that can further boost performance at minimal to no visual loss, which means that these benchmarks that are running fully native image, while more accurate/correct, actually help the Radeon cards in the charts since they don't have the capabilities to use these features and FSR 3 doesn't offer them - realistically, GeForce gamers can just enable these and off they go. That the vanilla 3090 (which is now an almost 4 year old card) outperforms the 7900 XTX by more than 50 percent, even without DLSS-G and DLSS-RR proves my point.

+3 FPS is nothing to write home about, especially with DLSS enabled.

I'm probably going to buy the AMD card next generation and keep my 4080. That way i'll have both handy, as I expect Ada to be well supported for some time to come. Most games don't really take advantage of its hardware features yet, and I'm having some difficulty picturing what Blackwell can do outside of efficiency improvements and "AI".

Why would you buy an AMD card next generation? It is rumoured to be around 7900 XT level, which isn't faster than your 4080.

 

[wolf]

Bout time AMD prioritised RT, been enjoying it for a long time now on my 2 Ampere cards, so it would be nice if RDNA 4 or 5 are compelling enough in RT and upscaling for me to be drawn to them.

Multiple disengenuous arguments, like usual... Sigh. Many consumers have absolutely been wanting [the result of] this tech for years, but typically consumers don't know the nuts and bolts of how it will actually work. For example, for 1-2 decades before RT, I've absolutely wanted more realistic lighting, up to and including photo realistic. Did I know the technical implementation I wanted? No, I wasn't that well read back then, but did I want the result? You bet. As if consumers not explicitly asking for RT in games before Nvidia innovated is an argument worth a damn anyway, yet it's presented as if to be a mic drop moment lol.

 

[AusWolf]

Bout time AMD prioritised RT, been enjoying it for a long time now on my 2 Ampere cards, so it would be nice if RDNA 4 or 5 are compelling enough in RT and upscaling for me to be drawn to them.

Multiple disengenuous arguments, like usual... Sigh. Many consumers have absolutely been wanting [the result of] this tech for years, but typically consumers don't know the nuts and bolts of how it will actually work. For example, for 1-2 decades before RT, I've absolutely wanted more realistic lighting, up to and including photo realistic. Did I know the technical implementation I wanted? No, I wasn't that well read back then, but did I want the result? You bet. As if consumers not explicitly asking for RT in games before Nvidia innovated is an argument worth a damn anyway, yet it's presented as if to be a mic drop moment lol.

I'm fine with rasterized lighting in modern games. Alan Wake 2 looks absolutely fabulous with or without RT. What I want is better geometry, animations and more detailed skin textures. Shadows and reflections look good anyway, but people still look like porcelain dolls even to this day, especially in the rain. I don't care about better lights, but I've been crying for more character detail for a decade. But each to their own, I guess.

 

[wolf]

I'm fine with rasterized lighting in modern games. Alan Wake 2 looks absolutely fabulous with or without RT.

Well yeah when it's painstakingly crafted to 'fake' realism, that's a good result, but it's evident RT / PT makes the end result even better and is easier to make.

What I want is better geometry, animations and more detailed skin textures. Shadows and reflections look good anyway, but people still look like porcelain dolls even to this day, especially in the rain. I don't care about better lights, but I've been crying for more character detail for a decade. But each to their own, I guess.

Being off topic not withstanding, I want those things too, they're not necessarily at odds with wanting better lighting, in fact the lighting can make characters pop and shine heaps more in various ways, just check out the DF video on dragons dogma 2 PT mod.

 

[Beginner Macro Device]

Like I said earlier, RT/PT is now expensive and mostly funky, yet it's also caused by us only having one interested party. Monopoly and progress don't really come along.

Introducing new RT concepts and optimising it in RDNA4 is cool and all that but it's overdue. Knowing AMD, one can only hope it won't be a complete disaster. Feels like they do enjoy trailing. Also some gents were pointing out that AMD have to introduce their own innos. TRUE THAT. "I switch to AMD because their GPUs have some cool technique that allows lossless grass render and much higher FPS whilst roaming over vegetation heavy game areas" would've been grass touching for NV shareholders.

Realistic graphics will probably come... but not this decade I'm afraid.

 

[AusWolf]

Well yeah when it's painstakingly crafted to 'fake' realism, that's a good result, but it's evident RT / PT makes the end result even better and is easier to make.

It makes it better, but only slightly, while costing your performance dearly. 5% better visuals for 50% loss in performance in an already good-looking game. Not worth it if you ask me.

Being off topic not withstanding, I want those things too, they're not necessarily at odds with wanting better lighting, in fact the lighting can make characters pop and shine heaps more in various ways, just check out the DF video on dragons dogma 2 PT mod.

Of course they're not at odds. The problem is, we've got out priorities wrong. We're focusing on shinier lights while characters still look crap, and no one does anything about it because RT is more important.

It's like some other aspects of life. You pay way more than you should on basic necessities just because some asshole companies said so, but don't worry, you can enjoy the latest Disney series in 4K. Yay!

But that's really off topic now.

 

[Mine18]

As someone who hasn't tried RT, I think RT needs to be evaluated on a per-game basis and a per-individual basis, some games look significantly better with it while others don't, and some players prefer visuals over performance (especially in slower paced games).

So if you're one who prefers RT, then it's fine for you to want major improvements in RT, but I reckon most people would prefer performance over visuals, and mostly play games which don't have RT, not everyone buys the newest RT/PT games and not every new game comes with them anyway, so most people would evaluate the whole package over just RT performance.

Do I think RT/PT is the future for high fidelity lighting? Possibly, but we're nowhere near that future, we're still in the bleeding edge experimental phase. Just because AMD's RT may not match Blackwell's RT performance doesn't mean AMD is "Finished" or "not a competitor" in the gpu space, AMD focusing on providing a high value gpu with "decent enough" RT performance is very welcome in my opinion as most people are unwilling to upgrade due to high prices or low vram.

 

[RGAFL]

Well yeah when it's painstakingly crafted to 'fake' realism, that's a good result, but it's evident RT / PT makes the end result even better and is easier to make.

Not really easier to make, not by a long shot. When the two commercially released PT games, Cyberpunk and Alan Wake, and the others like Quake II RTX and Portal have the full development weight of Nvidia behind them then it proves it not easy to develop full PT. Good luck to a normal dev studio getting them in for every game. That's going to cost mega money. Like I said before until enough programmers are proficient in shader programming PT outside of Nvidia and another two to three (at least) generations of graphics cards have passed good luck getting PT running at 60fps at 4k consistently even with upscaling.

 

[Mine18]

Not really easier to make, not by a long shot. When the two commercially released PT games, Cyberpunk and Alan Wake, and the others like Quake II RTX and Portal have the full development weight of Nvidia behind them then it proves it not easy to develop full PT. Good luck to a normal dev studio getting them in for every game. That's going to cost mega money. Like I said before until enough programmers are proficient in shader programming PT outside of Nvidia and another two to three (at least) generations of graphics cards have passed good luck getting PT running at 60fps at 4k consistently even with upscaling.

While not on the same scale as Cyberpunk or Alan Wake 2, DESORDRE: A Puzzle Game Adventure is an independently made game which offers a path tracing mode.

 

[RGAFL]

While not on the same scale as Cyberpunk or Alan Wake 2, DESORDRE: A Puzzle Game Adventure is an independently made game which offers a path tracing mode.

I have been following this game. Does seem interesting but a perfect example of what I said. PT seems a bit hit and miss and buggy. Needs upscaling really to perform well and it is quite a simple game graphically. Really is a good effort though and bodes well for the future.

 

[Godrilla]

A few days ago I was like imagine of Battlemage has better Rt than rdna 4 then this comes out. With Lisa Sue mentioning ai several dozen times you would think AMD would have ai dedicated silicone in rdna 4 gaming gpus, but there is no mention of that. Even Intel as an ai upscaler with Xess. This would be funny of Rdna4 will lose to Battlemage rt performance. Can't wait.

 

[Mine18]

I have been following this game. Does seem interesting but a perfect example of what I said. PT seems a bit hit and miss and buggy. Needs upscaling really to perform well and it is quite a simple game graphically. Really is a good effort though and bodes well for the future.

Ironically I think simple looking games look the best with ray traced (or realistic lighting in general), DESORDRE, Amid Evil ,Minecraft with Shaders, Quake 2 RTX, Portal RTX (not entirely since I don't like the different textures and it can be overly bright) all look pleasing to me, I'm probably a minority on this opinion.

 

[Space Lynx]

such a dumb move by AMD, I'm still going to keep it turned off cause it will still be a mass performance hit just like it is on Nvidia. they should have instead focused on trying to match DLSS quality and frame gen quality. a mistake by AMD imo, but oh well my AMD rig was cheap as fuck, so AMD it is

 

[Mine18]

such a dumb move by AMD, I'm still going to keep it turned off cause it will still be a mass performance hit just like it is on Nvidia. they should have instead focused on trying to match DLSS quality and frame gen quality. a mistake by AMD imo, but oh well my AMD rig was cheap as fuck, so AMD it is

FSR and Frame Gen are software features, RT is mostly a hardware feature, it's likely that very different teams worked on either feature. Also FSR 3.1 is going to significantly improve image quality, although unlikely to match DLSS.

 

[Space Lynx]

FSR and Frame Gen are software features, RT is mostly a hardware feature, it's likely that very different teams worked on either feature. Also FSR 3.1 is going to significantly improve image quality, although unlikely to match DLSS.

they could still distribute how they spend their R&D money differently. really they should give up on Ray tracing and focus solely on matching DLSS, I plan to buy a 5090 or 6090 and sell my 7900 XT when I do that and its largely because DLSS is the future and there is no stopping it. unfortunately.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Exactly. That's why it's pointless to argue how much more advanced Nvidia's RT is. If it's only a few percent faster than AMD, it's still well within useless territory. When we get 60 FPS with PT on a mid-range card at 1440p, I'll agree that it's something.


+3 FPS is nothing to write home about, especially with DLSS enabled.
View attachment 346271


Why would you buy an AMD card next generation? It is rumoured to be around 7900 XT level, which isn't faster than your 4080.

The small things obviously add up. That the 3090 went from 22 to 49 fps there is a ~120% jump. That's more than substantial.

As for the AMD card, why not? It's supposed to be focused on power efficiency. If the price is right, sounds like fun to me.

 

[Vayra86]

Like I said earlier, RT/PT is now expensive and mostly funky, yet it's also caused by us only having one interested party. Monopoly and progress don't really come along.

Introducing new RT concepts and optimising it in RDNA4 is cool and all that but it's overdue. Knowing AMD, one can only hope it won't be a complete disaster. Feels like they do enjoy trailing. Also some gents were pointing out that AMD have to introduce their own innos. TRUE THAT. "I switch to AMD because their GPUs have some cool technique that allows lossless grass render and much higher FPS whilst roaming over vegetation heavy game areas" would've been grass touching for NV shareholders.

Realistic graphics will probably come... but not this decade I'm afraid.

We already have realistic graphics, and its not even recent. The vast majority of games just don't benefit from realism though, and neither do they benefit from RT'ing all the things.

Its a fallacy to think you can get everything photorealistic and still have a pleasant gaming experience. You will find yourself in hand crafted scenery nonetheless, simply because life ain't a movie reel. We've seen this in early RT implementations, like Metro Exodus' GI implementation, which in RT mode, can give scenes lighting that really isn't preferable or additive to a good gaming experience. It also hits home in many places. But where it doesn't, you see that nothing will change in the end. Devs will still have to craft scenes to their liking. Is it easier? I just think the toolbox has expanded, and generally that doesn't make it easier, the simple fact is, devs now have to optimize for a raster based lighting AND do an RT pass.