NVIDIA Recreates Lunar Landing with RTX Technology and Ray Tracing

[Raevenlord]

NVIDIA has released an exquisite lunar landing recreation powered by their RTX technology, bringing a fresh coat of paint to their previous iteration of the video. The new version goes to great lengths to showcase exactly what ray tracing is all about: those little, graphics-card-accelerated rays of light interact perfectly with objects and their physical qualities. This means reflections, ambient occlusion, shadows, and the entire graphics reality - no longer effects - that ensues.

Developed under Unreal Engine 4 with a ray-tracing capable graphics path, this is a serious showcase of actual physically-accurate lighting, and NVIDIA, of course, took the opportunity to throw in a time-travel joke for how good their RTX graphics cards are in rendering reality. Can't really blame the green company, though.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[lexluthermiester]

Bloody beautiful that. Perfect example of what RTRT has to offer.

 

[ZoneDymo]

Bloody beautiful that. Perfect example of what RTRT has to offer.

now what was the rig used for this and the fps I wonder

 

[lexluthermiester]

now what was the rig used for this and the fps I wonder

Very likely a pair of 2080ti's on an HEDT CPU based system.

 

[Xaled]

Yeah really as long as it is nvidia. many quistions popup
1-What rig is used for this? what type of cards and how many of them?
2-is this a gameplay or just a video?
3- is it really Real-Time?
4- how much did it take to render and to prepare in UE4 when compared to preparing it with classics methods?

 

[lexluthermiester]

Yeah really as long as it is nvidia. many quistions popup
1-What rig is used for this? what type of cards and how many of them?
2-is this a gameplay or just a video?
3- is it really Real-Time?
4- how much did it take to render and to prepare in UE4 when compared to preparing it with classics methods?

Here's a better question; Why the skepticism? This is an exciting new technology that has great and far reaching potential for the future of consumer computing. Why do so many people effort to tear it down? What do they fear?

 

[Xaled]

Here's a better question; Why the skepticism? This is an exciting new technology that has great and far reaching potential for the future of consumer computing. Why do so many people effort to tear it down? What do they fear?

i am really skeptical because nvidia has very bad hisyory in renaming existing stuff, present them under different names and then asking wealths for them. like they did in Gsync. nVlink..and so on.

 

[lexluthermiester]

i am really skeptical because nvidia has very bad history in renaming existing stuff, present them under different names and then asking wealth's for them. like they did in Gsync.

That is needless negativity. Try a bit of optimism.

 

[Divide Overflow]

That is needless negativity. Try a bit of optimism.

Since when did asking for basic, relevant facts become "negativity"?

 

[Nuckles56]

Oh goodie, the conspiracy theorists will use this as more evidence that the moon landings were faked

 

[Xaled]

That is needless negativity. Try a bit of optimism.

Personally i really like nvidias ray tracing tech i used it for many years in 3dsmax for still images rendering and it is true that it gives the best physically based lighting but it is really resource intensive and even a single frame may take minutes on standard resolutions so i just cant imagine nvidia make it run in real time not even in 20 years ..

 

[lexluthermiester]

Since when did asking for basic, relevant facts become "negativity"?

When it is presented in an accusatory manner with the very obvious vocabulary chosen.

Personally i really like nvidias ray tracing tech i used it for many years in 3dsmax for still images rendering and it is true that it gives the best physically based lighting but it is really resource intensive and even a single frame may take minutes on standard resolutions so i just cant imagine nvidia make it run in real time not even in 20 years ..

When the Pentium 200 was released few ever envisioned that we would running CPU's in the ghz and multi ghz speeds a few years later all with a great number of cores. The last 20 years have seen great advancements in technology. Ray-Tracing is no different. It was only a matter of time before the advancements in computing power would make RTRT common, and here we are. Instead of crying wolf at NVidia let's instead look forward to more advancements, which are bound to come, and have fun with it along the way. I personally can't wait to see AMD's answer to RTRT.

 

[xorbe]

Needs more polygons on the helmet/suit at the close-up at 0:15.

 

[Mistral]

So, how well does this run on Vega?

 

[lexluthermiester]

So, how well does this run on Vega?

There's the $64 question.. Is it even possible?

 

[Vayra86]

Here's a better question; Why the skepticism? This is an exciting new technology that has great and far reaching potential for the future of consumer computing. Why do so many people effort to tear it down? What do they fear?

- Timing
- Price
- Overall performance
- Complete lack of real content
- The existing capabilities of engines, that are really quite close.

That's not something to really get all warm and fuzzy about. So far its a minor improvement at a very high cost. Also, it doesn't guarantee better games or content. It just makes it more beautiful.

What is really missing here, is a true showcase of how gaming will change because of RT. Examples? How about a game that uses realistic lighting scenarios to create puzzles. Rays of light and mirrors, for example. How about games like some horror games we've seen where a flashlight is a real weapon?

Nvidia have created a chicken-egg situation and the eggs that pop out so far, are either not going to become living, playable things or they (will) suck at life, performing badly.

Its real simple: seeing is believing. We haven't seen much and tech demo's do not change that. We've had those for years.

Don't get me wrong though: I'm ready to be converted to RT holiness. But the story just isn't convincing so far.

 

[lexluthermiester]

That's not something to really get all warm and fuzzy about.

That's an opinion. When every major dev(and even many of the smaller ones) are chomping at the bit to take advantage of RTRT, that is something to get the warm fuzzies over. I think about the Quake series, the C&C series and even the Wolfenstein series remastered with RTRT and it get's me a bit excited to play them again, assuming of course someone does so. Then there are new titles on the horizon. For those who can see the big picture, it's a very exciting time.

Also, it doesn't guarantee better games or content. It just makes it more beautiful.

That's true, depends greatly on the devs..

 

[Vayra86]

That's an opinion. When every major dev(and even many of the smaller ones) are chomping at the bit to take advantage of RTRT, that is something to get the warm fuzzies over. I think about the Quake series, the C&C series and even the Wolfenstein series remastered with RTRT and it get's me a bit excited to play them again, assuming of course someone does so. Then there are new titles on the horizon. For those who can see the big picture, it's a very exciting time.

Oh I can see thát. I've even given some examples right here of content I would like to see with RT.

What's missing though is the actual product.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Don't get me wrong though: I'm ready to be converted to RT holiness. But the story just isn't convincing so far.

Ah, but at least you see the potential and have some optimism.

 

[Vayra86]

Yeah sorry about my ninja edits. Don't want to fill a page with separate posts

 

[lexluthermiester]

What's missing though is the actual product.

Unfortunately, like any new advance in technology, it will take time to be taken advantage of. Like MMX, 3DNow and SSE extensions back in the day. When they first released they were useless, but as devs learned to use them they quickly became must have features that greatly improved and enhanced performance. Then there was vertex shaders and pixel shaders, etc, etc.. It'll come, by this time next year the results will be easy to see.

Yeah sorry about my ninja edits. Don't want to fill a page with separate posts

No worries, I do the same.

 

[INSTG8R]

This so far is just PhsyX 2.0. Currently just a “novelty” that kills performance. I really can’t see this taking off until the next Gen of cards that can actually do it with any decent level of performance.

 

[lexluthermiester]

This so far is just PhsyX 2.0. Currently just a “novelty” that kills performance.

How so? There aren't any games currently out that have been patched to do RTRT instead of standard lighting. Until that happens there are no reference basis of comparison benchmark numbers available to render such a statement.

I really can’t see this taking off until the next Gen of cards that can actually do it with any decent level of performance.

Again, how do you arrive at that conclusion? There aren't any games out yet to showcase the tech. It's best to reserve judgment until there's at least something to judge. Until then, this new generation of GPU's still offers improved performance over the previous offerings for current gaming.

 

[INSTG8R]

How so? There aren't any games currently out that have been patched to do RTRT instead of standard lighting. Until that happens there are no reference basis of comparison benchmark numbers available to render such a statement.

Again, how do you arrive at that conclusion? There aren't any games out yet to showcase the tech. It's best to reserve judgment until there's at least something to judge. Until then, this new generation of GPU's still offers improved performance over the previous offerings for current gaming.

Because any showcase so far has shown that actual performance is terrible when it’s on. Yeah there’s no games but what’s has been shown has run quite poorly just like PhysX did when it was introduced.
Not sure why your being such a cheerleader on this... Yes it’s cool tech no denying it, but it’s not gong to be practical this generation , it’s as I said a novelty. The new cards offer performance over the previous gen until you turn on the “novelty” then it’s crippled.

 

[TheGuruStud]

Because any showcase so far has shown that actual performance is terrible when it’s on. Yeah there’s no games but what’s has been shown has run quite poorly just like PhysX did when it was introduced.
Not sure why your being such a cheerleader on this... Yes it’s cool tech no denying it, but it’s not gong to be practical this generation , it’s as I said a novelty. The new cards offer performance over the previous gen until you turn on the “novelty” then it’s crippled.

1080p is the new 4k!