AnandTech: NVIDIA Releases DirectX Raytracing Driver for GTX Cards; Posts Trio of DXR Demos

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Nvidia releases DXR drivers today for Pascal cards, along with the binaries of previously seen demos so there is something to play with:


DXR Tech Demo Releases: Reflections, Justice, and Atomic Heart
Along with today’s driver release, NVIDIA and its partners are also releasing a trio of previously announced/demonstrated DXR tech demos. These include the Star Wars Reflections demo, Justice, and Atomic Heart.
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AtomicHeart.jpg

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14203/nvidia-releases-dxr-driver-for-gtx-cards
 
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I do not see the quake 2 rtx demo to download?

do you know where I can download that one?
 
Does anyone actually use Ryatracing even on RTX cards?

Every consensus I have read on this topic is that it has a HUGE performance impact for a practically unnoticable visual improvement.

Why would I want this on my Pascal card?
 
Yeah, they posted a graphic basically showing how badly it runs on anything other than an RTX card.

Would be cool to try the Minecraft or Q2 ray tracing mods, though.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Does anyone actually use Ryatracing even on RTX cards?

Every consensus I have read on this topic is that it has a HUGE performance impact for a practically unnoticable visual improvement.

Why would I want this on my Pascal card?
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Well currently I don't play any games that benefit from it. But I will use it when I do find one that does. I may have to tweak settings or settle for sub optimal FPS performance but I'm ok with that.

They want you to see what it CAN look like. If you want to run the demo on your monster, and I'll run it on my system with a 2080 we can compare the RTX on performance differences.
 
Grimlaking said:
Well currently I don't play any games that benefit from it. But I will use it when I do find one that does. I may have to tweak settings or settle for sub optimal FPS performance but I'm ok with that.

They want you to see what it CAN look like. If you want to run the demo on your monster, and I'll run it on my system with a 2080 we can compare the RTX on performance differences.
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I'll do that, but my GPU is really no longer considered a monster :p It was when it was new, but now it's aging into mainstream :p
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I'll do that, but my GPU is really no longer considered a monster :p It was when it was new, but now it's aging into mainstream :p
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Yea it's still a 1k video card and mine is 800. (after tax)

You have me on cores, MHZ, RAM, and Video Memory. Should be interesting to see. Though by the looks of things you'll be running at 4k and I'm at 1440p. (Though the Demo may run at lower than native resolutions so who knows.)
 
Grimlaking said:
Yea it's still a 1k video card and mine is 800. (after tax)

You have me on cores, MHZ, RAM, and Video Memory. Should be interesting to see. Though by the looks of things you'll be running at 4k and I'm at 1440p. (Though the Demo may run at lower than native resolutions so who knows.)
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Well, in order to make things comparable for benchmarking purposes, we should run it at the same settings. Maybe even a few standardized settings for comparison purposes.
 
It's a nice tech demo kind of technology, but it's still an early technology. I won't invest in it until at least the next generation of cards where it won't take much of a hit and it'll be a bit more noticeable difference in games.

I wonder if X-Plane or Prepar3D would benefit from ray tracing support? Lighting is a huge deal with those things, and shadows more than reflections would be best with the scenery. Just a huge world view that would probably take a huge performance hit.

I'm definitely going to check it out on the supported games, even with the big hit. I like eye candy, and just want to see if it'd make a decent difference. I still won't upgrade until at least next gen, though. It may make a decent difference, but not a $1000 difference. In 18-24 months, I'll be ready for a major PC upgrade (hopefully if Intel can rock my socks by then and bring some good increases in performance).
 
The Atomic Heart demo seems to run at like, 5-10 FPS on my card. Meh.

Not worth it for a 4 GB download.
 
I don't get why nVidia did this. If they are hoping to get owners of Pascal to see how cool it looks in hopes that they'll run out and buy a Turing, then the only thing they're gonna get are a bunch of PO'd customers that dropped a lot of cash (equivalent tier) to realize that the RTX still isn't strong enough to overcome the performance hit that ray tracing dishes out. Even if not using ray tracing, the price can be hard to justify for the performance upgrade.
 
MavericK said:
The Atomic Heart demo seems to run at like, 5-10 FPS on my card. Meh.

Not worth it for a 4 GB download.
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I got less with the old Mad Onion/Futuremark demos and benchmarks. Sometimes a lot less (1-2 FPS), but I really enjoyed the visuals. Over the years, that FPS went way up, and it was always nice to see the improvements.

Sucks for real world play (which [H] was always focused on), but decent for tech demo to see the technology itself at work and some nice visuals. It still has a generation or two to go before it's a must-have option on my card.
 
DejaWiz said:
Even if not using ray tracing, the price can be hard to justify for the performance upgrade.
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That's my deal. Coming from a 1070, I'm not going to see a huge improvement. Building a new PC or upgrading an older card? Maybe, but the 1000 series can be a better bargain at times.

That said, I am getting my son a 2060 or 2070 to replace his old AMD 7950. Spending a little extra to get him some extra time in between upgrades. He'll be on his own soon, and money for PC upgrades will be in short supply.
 
DejaWiz said:
I don't get why nVidia did this. If they are hoping to get owners of Pascal to see how cool it looks in hopes that they'll run out and buy a Turing, then the only thing they're gonna get are a bunch of PO'd customers that dropped a lot of cash (equivalent tier) to realize that the RTX still isn't strong enough to overcome the performance hit that ray tracing dishes out. Even if not using ray tracing, the price can be hard to justify for the performance upgrade.
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It means 10s of millions of cards now support ray-tracing.
 
Ok I tried them. It makes a big differenece in the demo's.. OF COURSE but still the look is quite nice and it seems to run smoothly on my 2080.
 
DejaWiz said:
I don't get why nVidia did this. If they are hoping to get owners of Pascal to see how cool it looks in hopes that they'll run out and buy a Turing, then the only thing they're gonna get are a bunch of PO'd customers that dropped a lot of cash (equivalent tier) to realize that the RTX still isn't strong enough to overcome the performance hit that ray tracing dishes out. Even if not using ray tracing, the price can be hard to justify for the performance upgrade.
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1. Software updates will bring this more and more in line as time go's by.

2. Competitive gamer's that need every frame have ALWAYS cut resolution/cut graphical features to make sure they have every possible edge.

3. Casuals still running on non freesync/gsync monitors who are still happy with a smooth 60 or 30 fps can still game on these cards just fine.

I ran through the tests on my 2080 and they looked really good and I didn't chug on my 1440p display. So I was happy.

No I haven't loaded up battlefield 5 because honestly I'm a bit beyond pure twitch gaming. Maybe it isn't that and I'm sure I will some day soon to give it a shot.
 
This is neat.

I ran the Sar Wars Reflections demo last night on my 1080tiFTW. Looked good, was choppy (probably 10 ish fps).

Then ran the Atomic Heart. Looked amazing, but I was getting varying FPS, at points it was maybe 5 fps, but would jump up and smooth out a bit in places. But then it CTD'd on me... maybe it had reached the end? Downloaded but didn't yet try out that 3rd demo. Also downloaded the quake2 raytracing mod, but haven't tried that either. I suspect a 1080Ti can probably run the quake 2 raytraced smoothly.

Would be nice if these had fps counter/averager/benchmark capability, so we could compare various cards to each other...
 
Ur_Mom said:
I got less with the old Mad Onion/Futuremark demos and benchmarks. Sometimes a lot less (1-2 FPS), but I really enjoyed the visuals. Over the years, that FPS went way up, and it was always nice to see the improvements.

Sucks for real world play (which [H] was always focused on), but decent for tech demo to see the technology itself at work and some nice visuals. It still has a generation or two to go before it's a must-have option on my card.
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I guess, but somehow it seems way less impressive when it's a slideshow. ;)

If I was trying to benchmark my GPU, then sure.

Derangel said:
It means 10s of millions of cards now support ray-tracing.
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Yeah, but at completely unusable framerates. I mean, it's cool that they are allowing it, because then we can try stuff like those Minecraft and Q2 tests (though I'm not even sure those are playable, yet), but if I can't run anything at any sort of playable level, the feature really has no purpose to me.
 
MavericK said:
Yeah, but at completely unusable framerates. I mean, it's cool that they are allowing it, because then we can try stuff like those Minecraft and Q2 tests (though I'm not even sure those are playable, yet), but if I can't run anything at any sort of playable level, the feature really has no purpose to me.
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I would argue that the ability to see EXACTLY what you are missing at better frame rates is what they want to show you. :)

Now just wait until competitive games let players turn on reflections to 'peek' around corners with mirrors or reflective walls where without that you can't. So you're coming to a blind corner and can't see the guy waiting who is watching you because he has reflections and a card that can handle it.

Yea.. THEN the crying and gnashing of teeth will be real. "UNFAIR I HAVE TO SPEND 800 DOLLARS TO GET THAT ADVANTAGE!!" Game Makers... "no you don't you can turn it on and have the exact same advantage on any card." Customer "But then I get crappy framerates." Game makers "You can play the game with all features on your card. The fact that it isn't as fast as the other card is something we can't control." Player.. "Well that sucks I'm not going to play your game." Game maker "WE understand and are sorry you feel that way. But Nvidia did give us a coupon we can give to our special customers... like you. To save 5% on an RTX card of your choice!" Customer "WEll... ummm thanks I guess." Meanwhile in a dark room the evil green overlord laughs and laughs.

If you think the EXACT SAME SHIT didn't happen with 3d cards in games compared to those that didn't have them and had to rely on software rendering... well.. you are sorely mistaken.. They just didn't get the coupons. ;)
 
Grimlaking said:
I would argue that the ability to see EXACTLY what you are missing at better frame rates is what they want to show you. :)
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That might work, IF the current generation of cards could actually run ray-tracing at a decent quality/resolution. Even those cards seem to struggle, though.
 
I downloaded the new drivers but will pass on the demo. Doesn't seem to be worth it from what others are saying.
 
Well, tried the Quake 2 raytraced on my 1080Ti, getting like 10 fps.. wasn't playable.
 
Grimlaking said:
Now just wait until competitive games let players turn on reflections to 'peek' around corners with mirrors or reflective walls where without that you can't. So you're coming to a blind corner and can't see the guy waiting who is watching you because he has reflections and a card that can handle it.
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Will be interesting to see how this pans out for sure.
 
Not terribly exciting or informative. HWUB tests raytracing in game on Pascal Titan Xp. As expected it sucks. Worse performance than an RTX 2060.

 
So more confused than ever...
Rtx = special hardware implementation with the need of specific software sauce.
Non rtx ray tracing= using already available elements of the hardware (gpu shaders) and generic software sauce?
So amd is going for generic, and nvidia is (thankfully) going for both?
 
Uvaman2 said:
So more confused than ever...
Rtx = special hardware implementation with the need of specific software sauce.
Non rtx ray tracing= using already available elements of the hardware (gpu shaders) and generic software sauce?
So amd is going for generic, and nvidia is (thankfully) going for both?
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RTX is nvidia's raytracing implementation of the dx12 raytracing called dxr. Both amd and nvidia are aiming at the same thing, just nvidia has hardware acceleration for it right now while amd does not.
 
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