How many of you actually use ray tracing in the games you play?

Do you use Ray Tracing in the games you play?

  • I only play games with Ray Tracing options.

    Votes: 28 17.5%

  • I will sometimes enable Ray Tracing in games.

    Votes: 57 35.6%

  • I will enable Ray Tracing momentarily check it out then turn it off to get better res/performance.

    Votes: 30 18.8%

  • I prefer not to use Ray Tracing.

    Votes: 30 18.8%

  • My GPU doesn’t even support it. 🤷🏻‍♂️

    Votes: 15 9.4%
  • Total voters
    160
F

FiveDollarBill

Weaksauce
Joined
May 8, 2023
Messages
91
RT performance is frequently discussed in GPU reviews and forum posts but how many of you actually use it?
 
I'm on a 4090 so I enable it whenever it's practical. There are some titles (Elden Ring comes to mind) where it isn't worthwhile, but those are the exceptions vs. the rule.
 
I pretty much only play Call of Duty these days so I need the frames more than the pretty pictures. If I ever play a single player game that supports it I'm sure I'll turn it on to check it out but will likely leave it off because even for single player games I'd rather give up some graphics quality for 100+ fps
 
I try it, find out its horribly broken and doesn't work as advertised and then shut it off. I play Cyberpunk 2077 with it on as it works decently, although the last patch updated DLSS and broke the hell out of it so now its not as practical at 4K.
 
I enable it, not a deal breaker for me if it is wonky. No gameplay advantage at all.
 
I will check it out but often just disable it and take the huge performance gain. I'm not a big graphics fanatic anyway and often immediately turn off stuff like DoF, motion blur, chromatic aberration, etc.
 
When I got a 6700xt, I turned it on just to see what all the hoopla was about, but I didn't see a huge visual improvement.

I have a 7900xtx on the way. Perhaps my attitude will change, but my priority is 1440@100fps in all things, which this card should easily hit even with RT.

That being said, I voted for "I prefer not to use Ray Tracing."
 
I use it in every game that has RT...I play at 1440p so the performance hit isn't as extreme...Dying Light 2, Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition, Witcher 3 RTX, Spider-Man PC, Cyberpunk 2077 are the standout RT implementations...Honorable Mention: Doom Eternal

I didn't vote in the poll as the first option, 'I only play games with Ray Tracing options' makes it seem that I only play games that use RT which is not true...
 
In games I've played with light RT like Far Cry 6 or Shadow of the Tomb Raider I leave it on because I still get great performance, when I played the updated Witcher 3 I turned it on to check it out but it didn't improve the visuals that much while hurtng performance so I turned it off pretty quickly.
 
I still haven't played a game that has RT. I wonder if the new System Shock has it?
 
I turn it on with DLSS if available. Unless it causes weird graphical glitches. Not sure if its improved now but Witcher 3 Next Gen at launch had all sorts of weird visual artifacts with RT on.
 
I turn it on if it's available but gaming in 4K is pretty demanding so certain titles I leave it off to get better performance.
 
I use it when available and NOT game breaking. Right now jedi survivor has a weird bug where I get shadow pools appearing in shaded areas with RT on. RT there doesn't really add much though. I love the rt in darktide, dark levels really get added creep factor. I've been replaying cp2077 with the path trace on too and it just looks amazing with it on.
 
I have a 6900XT and it runs most games well with RT. I will try RT out to see how it looks, then turn it off as it makes my card run hot as hell.
 
polonyc2 said:
I use it in every game that has RT...I play at 1440p so the performance hit isn't as extreme...Dying Light 2, Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition, Witcher 3 RTX, Spider-Man PC, Cyberpunk 2077 are the standout RT implementations...Honorable Mention: Doom Eternal

I didn't vote in the poll as the first option, 'I only play games with Ray Tracing options' makes it seem that I only play games that use RT which is not true...
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Me too. I didn't vote, either, because I play games regardless of the presence of ray tracing, but I always turn it on when it's available.
 
I always turn on RT to the max whenever it's available and with DLSS too so I can regain most of the performance hit. When it comes to reflections, I can't stand screen space and cube map reflections these days because they look pretty bad in motion particularly when background reflections glitch out when a moving object passes over the reflective surface.
 
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Depends on the game. Gast paced shooter type, no use in it. Slow or slower paced games that require you to look around for clues and such, it might be good.
 
I don't think any of the provided options truly represent what I think. "I only play games with Ray Tracing options." - This is ridiculous, I will not skip a game just because it has no ray tracing. But the next best option: "I will sometimes enable Ray Tracing in games." - Is too weak it would suggest I can take it or leave it, which is not true at all. If the option exists I'll always turn it on no question about it, not just sometimes. The only reason I'd turn it off is if I get unplayable FPS, even with DLSS. But it has to be really bad, like Hogwarts Legacy.
 
I'll most only ever use the rt reflection options as they are really the only things that you can notice is different. AO and high shadows are more than good enough, so rt shadows aren't worth it to me. Unless you running 4080/90's or a 7900xtx where the perf loss isn't going to matter to much.
 
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M76 said:
I don't think any of the provided options truly represent what I think. "I only play games with Ray Tracing options." - This is ridiculous, I will not skip a game just because it has no ray tracing. But the next best option: "I will sometimes enable Ray Tracing in games." - Is too weak it would suggest I can take it or leave it, which is not true at all. If the option exists I'll always turn it on no question about it, not just sometimes. The only reason I'd turn it off is if I get unplayable FPS, even with DLSS. But it has to be really bad, like Hogwarts Legacy.
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Correct me if I’m wrong but it seems like you sometimes enable ray tracing in games.
 
I sometimes enable ray tracing in games, if the game supports it and it doesn’t crush performance or require so much upscaling that overall image quality is reduced. Sometimes I replay a game just because it got an RT mod, like the recent Half-Life RT mod. It really does add a lot of atmosphere to the game and despite the fact that I have an AMD GPU it runs really well.
 
M76 said:
I don't think any of the provided options truly represent what I think. "I only play games with Ray Tracing options." - This is ridiculous, I will not skip a game just because it has no ray tracing. But the next best option: "I will sometimes enable Ray Tracing in games." - Is too weak it would suggest I can take it or leave it, which is not true at all. If the option exists I'll always turn it on no question about it, not just sometimes. The only reason I'd turn it off is if I get unplayable FPS, even with DLSS. But it has to be really bad, like Hogwarts Legacy.
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Quoted for truth.
 
It depends on the game. I see if there is a noticeable benefit, and if so, if there is a huge FPS hit or not. I am using it more with my 4080 than I did with my 2080, but there are still games where I turn it off.
 
Always depends on if its worth it. I played a ton of games on my 3060 ti before I sold it. Was it worth it playing Control with DLSS on? Yeah absolutely. Was it worth it in cyberpunk for me at 1440p? Absolutely not no. Ultra / high settings looked amazing in that game, so getting 30%+ performance back was worth shutting it off and just enjoying the regular raster graphics. Now I'm at 4k and I can't be bothered, although I did run it for a time in Spider Man and the reflections are cool, wasn't worth it on an AMD card. If I own a card that has 4090 like performance in the future (say I buy a 4090 or I get a blackwell card in 18 months or so when they release), then yeah i'm going to use it.
 
I always use it unless it's one of the UE4 games where it's a broken feature that causes massive stuttering. Works great in games like Cyberpunk, Control, etc though.
 
If RT improves the gaming experience I will turn it on. RT is not a magic bliss option, depends on the game, how implemented, performance impact, if DLSS or FSR does not degrade quality to negate what RT is doing for you etc. Some games you can't tell much of anything visually with RT on other than your performance is degraded. The first option OP listed, lol, yet some even voted for it :eek:.
 
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