Portal with RTX

[vmarv]

This Portal remix was done by the NVIDIA team probably, not by enthusiasts modders.
The important thing here is that there is a free modding tool that allows the modding community to basically remaster every old game they want. Will be them to try and test these tools and tell NVIDIA where to adjust things. It won't be a process of a couple of months, but of a couple of years of trials and errors, and of patches and updates.
During this period of time the tool will be improved, the mods polished and the gpu drivers optimized. In the end will be a win win for the players.

 

[Zareek]

There is definitely something not right with this. The performance drop does not equal the increase in image quality. It seems Nvidia is purposely doing something to make the 40 series look reasonable. Portal was about fun factor, not graphics anyway. What a waste of time and resources.

I wonder how ARC does with it, is the performance drop similar to other RT games, or does it also get unreasonably punished for not being from Ngreedia?

 

[vmarv]

 

[mechtech]

Only 15 years late……not too bad

 

[b1k3rdude]

The guy doing the voice over on the video above is an idiot, quite possibly a shill. It has been posted that this is the DX8 version of the game, so not that taxing to begin with and some how we are all supposed to be impressed now that it has RTX. yawn.

 

[AusWolf]

It's published by Nvidia so almost certainly this is a case of Nvidia pulling another gamesworks and doing everything it can to nuke AMD performance. The 6900 XT is much faster than the 3060 in RT yet here is much lower. This is more or less what I expected of these Nvidia RTX mods. Nvidai seems to only be accelerating it's anti-competitive anti-consumer practices of late.

That's what I was thinking. It's shocking, though. Someone should really tell Nvidia to F right off. I'm wondering if a future AMD driver update will help it a little.

 

[vmarv]

Its been posted that this is the DX8 version of the game, so not that taxing to begin with and some how we are all supposed to be impressed now that it has RTX. So no bothered or interested by this.

The guy doing the voice over on the video above is an idiot, quite possibly a shill.

Lol, never seen kliksphilips videos? He's weird, but certainly not a shill.

 

[evernessince]

To me this just shows that RT is a waste of die space and the computational power requirement is unrealistic for current technology. A game without complex and realistic geometry manages to bring the 4090 to its knees, imagine if the focus was to create a photorealistic game, with physics and geometry close to reality, would this U$ 1600 GPU run at 2fps? Why waste resources on photorealistic lighting if everything else is not photorealistic ??

Even on older gamers current real time RT implementations still use very few primary rays per pixel. You'd first need to be able run older titles with higher primary ray counts before you even consider newer titles. You'd need about 10-20x the number of primary rays to get close to movie quality so take the numbers given in this article and divide by 20.

Then consider that you'd need vastly more VRAM as memory requirements increase greatly with more complex scenes. Ray tracing performance tanks when you thrash, as evidenced by the 3070's 1 FPS at 4K.

This Portal remix was done by the NVIDIA team probably, not by enthusiasts modders.
The important thing here is that there is a free modding tool that allows the modding community to basically remaster every old game they want. Will be them to try and test these tools and tell NVIDIA where to adjust things. It won't be a process of a couple of months, but of a couple of years of trials and errors, and of patches and updates.
During this period of time the tool will be improved, the mods polished and the gpu drivers optimized. In the end will be a win win for the players.

As a long time modder and mod creator myself, I would not recommend anyone touch a tool that effectively only works on Nvidia cards. It's completely counter to the ethos of PC modding to require people to buy a specific brand in order to use a mod. 1 FPS on the 6900 XT is completely unplayable and unacceptable given the 6900 XT beats the 3060 in RT performance but is somehow slower than it with this mod.

This tool is nothing but a promotional prop for Nvidia until they get performance on other brands sorted out.

That's what I was thinking. It's shocking, though. Someone should really tell Nvidia to F right off. I'm wondering if a future AMD driver update will help it a little.

It depends how Nvidia is doing things. AMD was able to fix performance in Crysis 2 by limiting tesselation from the unreasonable amount set by Nvidia. The problem this time around is that Nvidia might just be using an inferior code path all around for non-Nvidia cards. Even with vastly more complicated driver hackery you might be able to get some additional performance but you'd still be SOL. The performance of AMD cards in this mod is really unacceptable, almost like it's purposefully avoiding using RT acceleration capabilities of those products.

 

[mrlance2022]

As someone who missed the original portal launch( never got it it ) and who has a 4090 now, if I were to download this with rtx, this would literally be my first run through impression with rtx on

 

[vmarv]

Even on older gamers current real time RT implementations still use very few primary rays per pixel. You'd first need to be able run older titles with higher primary ray counts before you even consider newer titles. You'd need about 10-20x the number of primary rays to get close to movie quality so take the numbers given in this article and divide by 20.
Then consider that you'd need vastly more VRAM as memory requirements increase greatly with more complex scenes. Ray tracing performance tanks when you thrash, as evidenced by the 3070's 1 FPS at 4K.

As a long time modder and mod creator myself, I would not recommend anyone touch a tool that effectively only works on Nvidia cards. It's completely counter to the ethos of PC modding to require people to buy a specific brand in order to use a mod. 1 FPS on the 6900 XT is completely unplayable and unacceptable given the 6900 XT beats the 3060 in RT performance but is somehow slower than it with this mod.
This tool is nothing but a promotional prop for Nvidia until they get performance on other brands sorted out.

It depends how Nvidia is doing things. AMD was able to fix performance in Crysis 2 by limiting tesselation from the unreasonable amount set by Nvidia. The problem this time around is that Nvidia might just be using an inferior code path all around for non-Nvidia cards. You'd need some vastly more complicated driver hackery to fix that but really it's not something gamers should tolerate. The performance of AMD cards in this mod is really unacceptable, almost like it's purposefully avoiding using RT acceleration capabilities of those products.

So what you suggest to NVIDIA? Going back to stone age because AMD can't improve and innovate itself. They should get rid of Tensor cores, Cuda cores and RT cores, because AMD can't keep up?
AMD is miles behind NVIDIA when it's about 3D and rendering. You should know that, since you say you are a modder.
Also, don't forget that this tool has been just released and the modding community hasn't started to play with it yet. So it's normal that there are performance problems. NVIDIA will make use of the feedbacks from the modders to improve it.

 

[AusWolf]

So what you suggest to NVIDIA? Going back to stone age because AMD can't improve and innovate itself. They should get rid of Tensor cores, Cuda cores and RT cores, because AMD can't keep up?
AMD is miles behind NVIDIA when it's about 3D and rendering. You should know that, since you say you are a modder.
Also, don't forget that this tool has been just released and the modding community hasn't started to play with it yet. So it's normal that there are performance problems. NVIDIA will make use of the feedbacks from the modders to improve it.

It's not that AMD can't innovate. It's Nvidia making code that only runs on their own hardware. AMD can't even have CUDA cores because it's a trademark of Nvidia. There is a huge difference. There is literally no way to keep up with closed, in-house and trademarked technologies. It's the same reason why you'll only ever find a heated windscreen in Ford cars. The technology behind it isn't new or complicated, but other brands are not allowed to use it.

The more the gaming community turns a blind eye to such practice, the more we support Nvidia's monopoly and high prices.

 

[The Von Matrices]

The problem for me is, imagine a remaster of Portal using only rasterization. But targeted for 60 fps with an RTX 4090. Good god, that would look good. Way better than this

I'm sure it would, but I imagine that if you wanted the result to have great lighting then the amount of development work required would be an order of magnitude higher than adding raytracing.

 

[vmarv]

It's not that AMD can't innovate. It's Nvidia making code that only runs on their own hardware. AMD can't even have CUDA cores because it's a trademark of Nvidia. There is a huge difference. There is literally no way to keep up with closed, in-house and trademarked technologies. It's the same reason why you'll only ever find a heated windscreen in Ford cars. The technology behind it isn't new or complicated, but other brands are not allowed to use it.
The more the gaming community turns a blind eye to such practice, the more we support Nvidia's monopoly and high prices.

You know what AMD could have done all these years to increase its chances to compete with NVIDIA in the professional field? Make a partnership with some of the big dogs of the 3D and graphic industry (such Autodesk, Adobe, Maxon, etc.) and optimize its hardware for their softwares.
They been able to kick Intel'ass with the introduction of Ryzen, no? So they proved that they can be successfull when they want.
NVIDIA doesn't have to make the Cuda cores tech open source: they spent some billion to engineer it and many more billions to improve it and work with software houses to get support for it. Instead it's AMD that has to introduce a new hardware technology that proves to be way faster than Cuda. Damn, they developed their own rendering engine (Radeon ProRender) and the NVIDIA gpus were faster with it. I mean, they need to get their shit together in the 3D industry, because they are leaving a tons of billions to NVIDIA there. The 3D is the foundation of the multimedia industry nowadays: videogames and movies make all use of that.
We all want and need to see AMD gpus to get on top, but AMD seems to focus just on games.
Porsche and Ferrari are competitors and none of them stop the innovation process to wait for the other to keep up. That's the business world.

 

[Ando]

You know what AMD could have done all these years to increase its chances to compete with NVIDIA in the professional field? Make a partnership with some of the big dogs of the 3D and graphic industry (such Autodesk, Adobe, Maxon, etc.) and optimize its hardware for their softwares.
They been able to kick Intel'ass with the introduction of Ryzen, no? So they proved that they can be successfull when they want.
NVIDIA doesn't have to make the Cuda cores tech open source: they spent some billion to engineer it and many more billions to improve it and work with software houses to get support for it. Instead it's AMD that has to introduce a new hardware technology that proves to be way faster than Cuda. Damn, they developed their own rendering engine (Radeon ProRender) and the NVIDIA gpus were faster with it. I mean, they need to get their shit together in the 3D industry, because they are leaving a tons of billions to NVIDIA there. The 3D is the foundation of the multimedia industry nowadays: videogames and movies make all use of that.
We all want and need to see AMD gpus to get on top, but AMD seems to focus just on games.
Porsche and Ferrari are competitors and none of them stop the innovation process to wait for the other to keep up. That's the business world.

Your entire post is moot. Virtually every other game with Ray Tracing has competent performance on AMD cards at 1080p, especially the Navi 21 cards. Somehow those other devs can get it working just fine on AMDs "stone age" (???) ray tracing cores. Rx 6000 series was neck and neck with 30 series in raster as well, but you make it out as if we are back in the days of polaris.
It is blatantly obvious Nvidia's devs sabotaged AMD performance, and probably Arc performance too. Whole thing is a joke and doesn't push anything forward, just more marketing garbage to try and sell you overpriced GPU's. Clearly it's working since so many of you fall for it, so I can't blame Nvidia for doing it.
And as for AMD beating Intel, that's due to Intel's incompetence moreso than AMD innovation to be frank (which was put on display once again with how disastrous the Arc launch was). Nvidia pulls even more scumbaggery than Intel, but have the competence to not let the success make them totally complacent. Because of people like you making endless excuses for Nvidia, they will never lose substantial market share.

 

[Fluffmeister]

Luckily AMD fans don't care about RT, well that's what you hear time and time again.

But seriously, AMD may drop a driver in a day or two that brings their performance up to scratch.

 

[Guwapo77]

"The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT really isn't fit for this level of ray tracing. It starts out with 5 FPS at 1080p and almost runs in "seconds per frame" mode at 4K."

I believe this wholeheartedly. Fortnite's new UE 5.1 patch has my 6900XT running at between 30-40 fps. I turned off RT and got 40-50. I said eff it and went with the recommend settings and got between 100-120 fps @ 1440p. This is why I'm going Nvidia after 20+ years.

 

[QUANTUMPHYSICS]

My biggest problem with Ray Tracing is they can't even have a real-time mirror in Cyberpunk.

It's a nice gimmick, but it's not worth the performance hit often.

Current shadows and particle effects tend to be so good that RTX isn't necessary.

 

[AusWolf]

Your entire post is moot. Virtually every other game with Ray Tracing has competent performance on AMD cards at 1080p, especially the Navi 21 cards. Somehow those other devs can get it working just fine on AMDs "stone age" (???) ray tracing cores. Rx 6000 series was neck and neck with 30 series in raster as well, but you make it out as if we are back in the days of polaris.
It is blatantly obvious Nvidia's devs sabotaged AMD performance, and probably Arc performance too. Whole thing is a joke and doesn't push anything forward, just more marketing garbage to try and sell you overpriced GPU's. Clearly it's working since so many of you fall for it, so I can't blame Nvidia for doing it.
And as for AMD beating Intel, that's due to Intel's incompetence moreso than AMD innovation to be frank (which was put on display once again with how disastrous the Arc launch was). Nvidia pulls even more scumbaggery than Intel, but have the competence to not let the success make them totally complacent. Because of people like you making endless excuses for Nvidia, they will never lose substantial market share.

Thanks for saying what I wanted to say.

It's not that AMD doesn't have the technology - it's that Nvidia is making sure game developers use code that runs poorly on AMD. They're not making GeForce cards look good - they're making Radeons look shit.

Winning on the x86 front that is available to use by both Intel and AMD is one thing - working together with game devs just to make sure the code doesn't run on the competition's hardware is something entirely different. It reeks of anti-competition and anti-consumer attitude, and the longer we put up with it, the longer Nvidia keeps increasing prices.

My biggest problem with Ray Tracing is they can't even have a real-time mirror in Cyberpunk.

It's a nice gimmick, but it's not worth the performance hit often.

Current shadows and particle effects tend to be so good that RTX isn't necessary.

Yet Doom 3 had proper mirrors 14 years before ray tracing appeared in consumer graphics.

 

[QUANTUMPHYSICS]

I have a 4090 ROG Strix...and apparently, if you don't, you can't play this game properly.

Thanks for saying what I wanted to say.

It's not that AMD doesn't have the technology - it's that Nvidia is making sure game developers use code that runs poorly on AMD. They're not making GeForce cards look good - they're making Radeons look shit.

Winning on the x86 front that is available to use by both Intel and AMD is one thing - working together with game devs just to make sure the code doesn't run on the competition's hardware is something entirely different. It reeks of anti-competition and anti-consumer attitude, and the longer we put up with it, the longer Nvidia keeps increasing prices.


Yet Doom 3 had proper mirrors 14 years before ray tracing appeared in consumer graphics.

GOOD POINT.

I was surprised that I couldn't use mirrors in Cyberpunk.

And Shadows/reflections and transparency technology was already excellent in games as old as Crysis.

 

[AusWolf]

I was surprised that I couldn't use mirrors in Cyberpunk.

And Shadows/reflections and transparency technology was already excellent in games as old as Crysis.

Yep. In my opinion, we don't need more realistic lighting. What we need is more realistic skin textures, higher polygon count and better facial animations. The environment looked awesome 10 years ago, but characters still look like crap.

I'm talking about games in general, of course.

 

[jallenlabs]

Thanks for this review! Been waiting anxiously for this to come out. Wow does RT kick gpus in the pants! My 3090 is enough for 60fps at the res I will play at, with DLSS of course.

 

[renz496]

It's not that AMD can't innovate. It's Nvidia making code that only runs on their own hardware. AMD can't even have CUDA cores because it's a trademark of Nvidia. There is a huge difference. There is literally no way to keep up with closed, in-house and trademarked technologies. It's the same reason why you'll only ever find a heated windscreen in Ford cars. The technology behind it isn't new or complicated, but other brands are not allowed to use it.

The more the gaming community turns a blind eye to such practice, the more we support Nvidia's monopoly and high prices.

CUDA cores is just fancy names nvidia gives to their stream processor. AFAIK AMD still call theirs as stream processor instead of something like OpenCL core or ROCm core. So there is no such thing like "AMD can't have CUDA cores" to begin with.

Another thing to note: nvidia never stops anyone from utilizing their CUDA stuff. There are several vendors out there make their hardware run nvidia CUDA like Qualcomm. Even AMD many of the initiatives like HIP actually directly take the work that nvidia has done on CUDA and then try to "translate" them to work on their hardware. From there developer will work to optimize their software on AMD hardware after the transition. AMD doing this because it saves them a lot of trouble to build everything from the scratch and just modify the proven work that has been done on nvidia CUDA before.

 

[Camm]

I smell Crysis 2 Tesellation-esque antics with this

Crysis 2 tessellation: too much of a good thing? - The Tech Report

 

[AusWolf]

CUDA cores is just fancy names nvidia gives to their stream processor. AFAIK AMD still call theirs as stream processor instead of something like OpenCL core or ROCm core. So there is no such thing like "AMD can't have CUDA cores" to begin with.

Another thing to note: nvidia never stops anyone from utilizing their CUDA stuff. There are several vendors out there make their hardware run nvidia CUDA like Qualcomm. Even AMD many of the initiatives like HIP actually directly take the work that nvidia has done on CUDA and then try to "translate" them to work on their hardware. From there developer will work to optimize their software on AMD hardware after the transition. AMD doing this because it saves them a lot of trouble to build everything from the scratch and just modify the proven work that has been done on nvidia CUDA before.

Sorry, I didn't word it properly. I didn't mean CUDA cores - I meant CUDA as a technology, as in using it for physics in games and such.

Nvidia may not actively prevent anyone from using CUDA but they certainly work with game devs to make sure it only runs well on Nvidia hardware.

 

[evernessince]

Also, don't forget that this tool has been just released and the modding community hasn't started to play with it yet. So it's normal that there are performance problems. NVIDIA will make use of the feedbacks from the modders to improve it.

Which is why I stipulated in my comment:

This tool is nothing but a promotional prop for Nvidia until they get performance on other brands sorted out.

So what you suggest to NVIDIA? Going back to stone age because AMD can't improve and innovate itself. They should get rid of Tensor cores, Cuda cores and RT cores, because AMD can't keep up?

This isn't a matter of AMD not being able to keep up, this is a matter of AMD performing vastly worse in only this example as compared to every other use of RT in games. As I previously stated:

the 6900 XT beats the 3060 in RT performance but is somehow slower than it with this mod.

AMD is miles behind NVIDIA when it's about 3D and rendering. You should know that, since you say you are a modder.

I'm not going broach this one aside from the fact that it isn't relevant to real time ray tracing performance. As I've pointed out twice, the 6900 XT does in fact have superior RT performance compared to the 3060 and that's what is relevant here.