Metro Exodus

Remedy have been uploading videos of their Northlight Engine featuring Nvidia's new XR API with ray tracing.
Metro will beat them out the gate, but other studios are using the technology.

But, this does not mean the title will be DX12 exclusive.

 

I don't understand why they would bother to do this, I mean the consoles this is being released on all have AMD gpu's.... unless Nvidia is actually paying them to implement it for PC?

 

It's not going to be DX12 'exclusive' although it appears that it will offer extensive DX12 support (and hopefully in some meaningful and compelling way for once).

 

Of course they pay them, like they paying everybody.

 

What do the consoles have to do with this? This technology is far beyond what the current gen consoles can attain.

 

When games are released like this for multiple platforms they are usually optimized for the console, so it just seems strange to me that they are adding this Nvidia tech onto it.... but then again now that I think about it there are so many ports that have Gameworks added to them so I guess it isn't that strange after all.

 

It seems strange until you scrutinize 4A Game's previous releases which used NVidia proprietary tech. Metro 2033 used GPU PhysX, and so did Metro Last Light. The Redux versions switched the GPU accelerated PhysX for CPU PhysX which was just as good, if not better in many respects and was available to Radeon owners.

So when you look at it from this perspective, it's not so strange for 4A Games to adopt NVidia RTX.

 

Actually, they initially wrote 4A engine for the PS3's nVidia GPU, because of their previous work on similar NV4x chips with STALKER's X-ray engine. Once they got the Metro 2033 deal from MS, they ported the engine to X360 (w. ATi chip!) over the weekend. So 4A's nVidia connection goes back about a decade and a half...and they never released a PS3 game LOL.

Because 4A engine is a proprietary engine, and they've been keeping up with their homework for all these years, 4A games can implement whatever feature they want whenever it comes out, I guess. They'd probably do it just to keep busy.

 

The PC gaming market is Nvidia.

Shouldn't be, as its on Steam.

 

Steam games can be DX12 exclusive just as well, it's not tied to UWP.

Unlikely though, I guess.

 

4A Games press release

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Very bad textures in some places(Wood etc).

 

Considering recent events relating to Nvidia's suck on it or get lost treatment of AIB and OEM's I guess you are right xD

i.... I will let myself out.

Spoiler

 

From my understanding NVIDIA is focusing on other areas with their RTX technology using ray-tracing not for lighting in general but to enhance the rendition of shadows, ambient occlusion and reflections.
Thus from the above video the reflections should be the water streams in the initial outdoor scene and then shadows and occlusion take the focus for the indoor environment.

Thus the overall look of things, ray-tracing can be used for illumination too but I assume they're using a form of global illumination for the effect as to not be too expensive on GPU hardware and I assume AMD has similar means for their OpenRays version where it can be used for various things to manage the GPU load between rendering to real-time work.

Still need to read up a bit more about it but I don't expect full ray-tracing to be a key thing for a while yet due to how expensive it would be to calculate everything via this although Microsoft has laid some of the groundwork now with this DX12 enhancement and I'm expecting Vulkan to have support for something similar eventually, probably extensions for OpenRays and RTX but we'll see I suppose.

I think the other showcases have also focused primarily on reflections so far, guess it would be the most obvious compared to soft shadowing and accurate occlusion shadows and then these effects can increase in scope and quality as GPU hardware continues to improve possibly together with DX12 and Vulkan's continued API development.

And down the line I guess the next XBox will have some of these features too but that's a few years away at the least. For now I expect the initial couple of games using the tech to be more selective whether it's NVIDIA or AMD though it looks like NVIDIA will be first with possibly Metro Exodus here as the initial showcase for their RTX tech and how it can be implemented.

EDIT: And PS5 I assume too but they won't be using this DX12 framework of course.


EDIT: Well I suppose accuracy to shadows, reflections and ambient occlusion does impact how a scene is perceived and lighting interacts with light and shadows plus reflective surfaces but it's not tracing light rays for the entire scene but instead it's used selective to enhance some effects though these can have a dramatic impact on visual quality. (Terrible explanation is terrible, but balance between visual quality and performance and enhancing a few key areas at least to start with I would guess.)

It's going to kill framerate but near fully accurate shadows and reflections for something like The Division would be amazing to see though the game has pretty spectacular looking effects already.

Frostbite and Unreal Engine tend to favor shiny materials and looks in their games with how physical based materials look and interact so it's no wonder they're also onboard with ray-tracing tech and more will probably be joining up whether it's licensed engines or internal and via programs such as GameWorks.

 

The worst part is the water looks like something from 2005.

 

I could buy that it would be Vulkan exclusive, but DX12 exclusive and thus cutting off Win7? No way

The previous Metro games were high-end while still maintaining support for older hardware. Metro 2033 supported DX9 to 11. The Redux versions released in 2014 still had DX10 and officially supported 8800GT.

 

I sincerely doubt the PS5 and Xbox Two are going to support hybrid ray tracing due to how expensive it is in terms of processing power. The feature is likely going to be PC only for at least the next two console cycles.

 

The vast majority of PC gamers that would be interested in, or planning on buying Metro Exodus are already running Windows 10. Windows 7 is an old, decrepit operating system that is slowly dying and isn't even being supported by Microsoft unless you're a corporation with the extended support plan. For there to be progress, there has to be a clean break from the past. There's no point in a modern AAA high tech shooter targeting Windows 7, because it hampers performance and features.

 

Windows 7 has more market share than 10, be mad not to support it still.