Microsoft to support Ray Tracing in Dx11

[CptStern]

This is breaking news. Microsoft has not only decided to support ray tracing in DirectX 11 but they will also be basing it on Intel's x86 ray tracing technology and get this... it will be out by the end of the year!

In this article, we will examine what ray tracing is all about and why it would be superior to the current raster-based technology. As for performance, well, let Intel dazzle you with some numbers. Here's a quote from the article :-

"You need not worry about your old raster-based DirectX 10 or older games or graphics cards. DirectX 11 will continue to support rasterization. It just includes support for ray-tracing as well. There will be two DirectX 11 modes, based on support by the application and the hardware

can we have a techie comment on what that means for the future of gaming/gpus?


http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=526

 

[Krynn72]

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! Assuming computers can handle real time raytracing by then, this will be awesome.

 

[Rico]

I'm willing to bet that what this'll mean (if implemented) is the usage of some of the CPU cores to do raytracing, and your GPU to render the rasterization.

Basically, take 2 cores from a quad core for raytracing, the GPU for rasterization. Most games don't even use dual core CPUs to their full potential, let alone 4 cores.

That'd be my guess.

 

[Hazar]

wow... out by the end of this year?

I'm surprised that they claim to get 100 fps in a ray-traced quake 4 engine at 1280x1024... they're further ahead than I imagined.

 

[Rico]

NvM... have you looked at the "Comments" section at the end of the article? Those comments supposedly made by industry reps look way out of place.

Sounds like the article might be a fake.

 

[CptStern]

agreed ..the VIA comment especially

 

[PvtRyan]

Curse you april 1st!

But Carmack already dismissed the possibility of using ray tracing in large-scale applications any time soon:
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=532&type=expert&pid=1

 

[Hazar]

I thought the comments thing was just the author of the article mocking up what each company would say or something.

 

[Asus]

Nvidia has commented on ray tracing before in an interview and said they could do it on their GPUs via CUDA (C programming for their GPU).
Another interview for ya.

As for ray tracing being in DX11... we will just have to see if this news stays past April 1st.

 

[No Limit]

Nvidia has commented on ray tracing before in an interview and said they could do it on their GPUs via CUDA (C programming for their GPU).
Another interview for ya.

As for ray tracing being in DX11... we will just have to see if this news stays past April 1st.

But doing it in software would have huge performance loss, by implimenting it in to directx that means hardware will do the processing. Am I correct in that assumption?

And of course this annoucement comes right after I buy my new DX10 vid card, a purchase I make every 3 years at most :stare:.

 

[Asus]

I think performance would be slower than if the hardware configuration was specifically configured for ray tracing. Like current hardware logic (shaders etc) are optimized for the current DirectX API. But I think using the GPU even via parallel C programing is faster than via the CPU for ray tracing. The GPU just excels at parallel calculations.

For example, Folding@home for ATI's GPU (via ATI's C programming) delivers more FLOPS per client than what is possible on the PS3 and then next comes x86 CPUs.
(not talking about total production)

 

[Iced_Eagle]

If it were true, it wouldn't mean much right away.

All of the industry is and has been using rasterization for a long time. It's not going to be a huge switch to Ray Tracing (that would involve rewriting portions of graphics libraries which isn't something that should be taken lightly) when this comes out. Let alone finding good hardware to run it on. When there are a lot more cores on both the CPU and GPU (think >8) then I see this being a lot more feasible.

I'd have to have more details though to really understand the situation.

 

[VirusType2]

NVM.

sounds good. the future is always cooler than the present.

 

[soulslicer]

That's awesome. Raytracing would mean pure real time soft-shadowing in an entire game scene for those who don't know.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Sounds like gpu rape. 11000gtx?

 

[DEATH eVADER]

wow... out by the end of this year?

I'm surprised that they claim to get 100 fps in a ray-traced quake 4 engine at 1280x1024... they're further ahead than I imagined.

Thats with every other setting down on low

 

[Krynn72]

confirmed april fools joke?

 

[Qhartb]

That's awesome. Raytracing would mean pure real time soft-shadowing in an entire game scene for those who don't know.

Umm... take a look at some ray-traced renders. Usually no soft shadows. There may be tricks to get soft shadows in ray-tracing (just like there are tricks to do it in rasterized graphics), but it certainly doesn't get it automatically. Ray-tracing automatically gives hard shadows, reflections and refractions.

I'm actually not looking forward to ray-traced graphics in games. I've seen some impressive real-time radiosity demos I'm far more excited about.