NVIDIA Previews and Releases Path Tracing SDK at GDC 2023

[GFreeman]

As promised and detailed earlier, NVIDIA has now released the first SDK for Path Tracing. Path Tracing, which should accurately re-create physics of all light sources in a scene, has been around and we already had a chance to see it in some demos like Quake RTX and Portal RTX, but now, thanks to some previously available NVIDIA tools and features, it could be finally coming to more games and not just tech demos.

According to NVIDIA, the thing that makes Path Tracing possible now, and more accessible to developers, is the combination of previously available NVIDIA technologies, as well as some new ones, including the new performance multiplier in DLSS 3, called the DLSS Frame Generation. The DLSS Frame Generation, working on GeForce 40 series cards and using the Optical Flow Accelerator, is what made real-time path tracing possible. The RTX Path Tracing SDK, according to NVIDIA, should re-create the physics of all light sources in a scene in order to reproduce what the eye sees in real life, and allows to build a reference path traces to ensure that lighting during production is true to life, while accelerating the iteration process; or build high-quality photo modes for RT-capable GPUs or real-time, ultra-quality modes that take advantage of the Ada Lovelace architecture.



As noted, the RTX Path Tracing SDK combines NVIDIA's previously available tools and features, including:

• DLSS 3 for super-resolution and frame generation, to multiply performance.
• RTX Direct Illumination (RTXDI) for efficient sampling of a high number of shadow casting and dynamic lights.
• NVIDIA Real-Time Denoisers (NRD) for high-performance denoising of all light sources.
• Opacity Micro-Map (OMM) for improving RT performance in scenes with heavy alpha effects.
• Shader execution reordering (SER) for improving shader scheduling, thus increasing performance.

The launched Path Tracing SDK v1.0.0, which is now available over at the NVIDIA GameWorks Github page, comes with all the necessary NVIDIA RTX components, documentation, and sample application.

NVIDIA is also releasing the new Opacity Micro-Map (OMM) SDK 1.0 at GDC 2023. Announced back at the GTC 2022, the OMM allows developers to efficiently map complex geometries, such as dense vegetation and foliage, onto triangles and micro-meshes, providing high-level performance in detailed scenes. In turn, this improves the performance of real-time path tracing. NVIDIA is releasing an update to Nsight Systems, allowing developers to inspect and debug the OMM performance gain.

NVIDIA has also announced a new set of ray tracing features that will be available in the NVIDIA Caustics branch of Unreal Engine 5, bringing path tracing to that same game engine. NVIDIA Caustics, as it is called, is a set of features in Unreal Engine 5 that includes ray tracing effects, including depth of field in translucent objects, something that is apparently pretty hard to do with traditional rasterization workflows.

NVIDIA released two videos showing a bit more information about the DLSS Frame Generation, Path Tracing, and Nsight developer tools in Cyberpunk 2077 and its Ray Tracing: Overdrive mode.

More information from NVIDIA should be available as the GTC 2023 kicks off later today.

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[HalfAHertz]

Hard shadows everywhere just like in real life..

 

[Bwaze]

Below 30 fps on a 1700 EUR graphics cards and at 1080p here we go!

 

[stimpy88]

So this is 3 or 4 generations of $1700+ graphics cards away from 4K 60Hz. Wake me up in 10 years time.

 

[Bwaze]

"The DLSS Frame Generation, working on GeForce 40 series cards and using the Optical Flow Accelerator, is what made real-time path tracing possible."

And another artificial way of making RTX 3090 Ti slower than RTX 4060, although there is no hardware reason, just by limiting functions to latest cards. Just as with DLSS 3.

Of course this also means that" future proof" 1700 EUR RTX 4090 will lose support as soon as the next generation is launched.

 

[Selaya]

frame generation just doesn't work like that
imagine half a second of input lag playing your almost-slideshow

yeah i can think of at least fifteen other forms of self-torture that don't involve spending $1,500

 

[Vayra86]

Fucking jokers living in alternate corporate reality. Dream on bois, nobody cares

So this is 3 or 4 generations of $1700+ graphics cards away from 4K 60Hz. Wake me up in 10 years time.

...to achieve a tech demo launched in 2023.

Progress, they call it. I reckon by the time we've achieved a steady curve towards 4 degrees C global warming, we'll run this at 60 fps

 

[wolf]

Pushing the envelope of what's possible? No. we wanted more of the same dammit, just keep increasing raster performance ad infinitum, true gamers never wanted anything more than that, as long as mrsps never increase for a given product segment naturally.

When will you get the hint nvidia? Literally nobody wants this path tracing sdk or DLSS3, both of these techs are dead in the water and will be gone within a year.

 

[Lucas_]

more crippled hardware "called" specific technologies " which make the game looks 1 % better get consummer to buy new GPU with insane Price. " Hello Sheeps, Welcome to my World "

 

[Vayra86]

View attachment 288648

Hard shadows everywhere just like in real life..

Don't forget to take a long look at that beautiful low res skybox, could've been straight out of UT'99 or Quake 2. Shit, I remember Quake being this very color palette almost all the way through as well.

Its also nice how there is a sunset with no sun even though they've got a pretty high camera viewpoint. And how all foliage is pitch black. Fantastic example of true realism here

 

[usiname]

Am I the only one annoyed by these mirrors (puddles) on the floor

 

[dir_d]

This really seems like it was pushed out for Stake holders and Investors more than actual gamers. This wont be useful for another 3 generations with DLSS3.0 if NVidia cares on their current path.

 

[Dimitriman]

What bothers me: as far off as this is, it is once again Nvidia pushing the technology and 100% tightly locked in their proprietary software. History repeats itself and maybe after two generations of Nvidia doing the thing, we will see AMD finally do the thing but a generation behind in perpetuity. Dejavu.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

I find it confusing that Nvidia is gimping everything below the 4080 so hard but at the same time trying to push real time rendering well beyond what the current hardware is capable of. without frame generation/Ai upscaling.

Classing 1 step forward 2 steps back I guess.

Don't get me wrong I actually enjoy frame generation in CDPR games they by far do it the best compared to how it's implemented in games by other studios at the same time I still think it's stupid for a patch to require it to just run acceptably at least till FG gets to the point where it's almost a no brainer to turn on.

 

[Minus Infinity]

Oh great, RT is already slow and now we are talking up the far slower path tracing that will 100% need to rely on AI fake frame BS.