Thurrott: Minecraft Is Getting a Whole New Look With Ray Tracing Support

S

Snowdog

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Apr 22, 2006
Messages
11,262
Microsoft is updating Minecraft to support Ray Tracing, presumably through DXR, but they only mention NVidia RTX.

https://www.thurrott.com/windows/wi...ing-a-whole-new-look-with-ray-tracing-support
Microsoft is today announcing some new features for Minecraft: Ray Tracing and a new Render Dragon gaming engine.

Mojang, the makers of Minecraft, is teaming up with NVIDIA to bring Ray Tracing support to Minecraft on NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX GPUs. The support for Ray Tracing will essentially introduce a new look for Minecraft, adding realistic lighting, volumetric water, vibrant colors, and emissive textures. Here’s a video showing off Ray Tracing in action on Minecraft (spoiler: it’s pretty gorgeous):
Click to expand...


Minecraft-rt-2.jpg



 
It may be blocky “bad” graphics but it’s the perfect example of a excellent raytracing. So many possible light sources, a large array of colors playing together, and even translucent blocks for light to stream through.

It’s like Super Luckys Tale with its color palette actually being a great choice to showcase the Xbox One X and HDR.

Also I thought even alpha versions of minecraft had pathtracing in them? Obviously not the same buuuuut.
 
I think the mix of intentionally low-res graphics + ray-tracing is a very cool look, though. I would have assumed they would never mix properly (one would be too "real" to match with the other), but this looks pretty good.

Also curious how the performance would be, since only the ray-tracing part will be heavily utilizing the GPU (instead of high-res modern games where the GPU is already taxed just rendering the game without RT)

Good enough to get RTX? Meh, I'm not really that into ray-tracing while it's still this early.
 
I have to wonder if this feature will only be available on the more heavily locked down "Bedrock" version of Minecraft (ie the version powering the Xbox, portable versions etc), or if it will come to the Java version (the original,modding and PC friendly version that is cross platform) as well. If they can bring it to the latter so much the better!

As for raytracing itself, as others have mentioned it is actually a cool effect on a low-poly title such as Minecraft as its not really ready for primetime elsewhere, but I am not happy to see focus on Nvidia's RTX methodology vs some open way of doing raytracing. I don't want to see Nvidia's RTX raytracing become yet another proprietary way of doing things they push - from PhysX, CUDA, Gsync, GameWorks, GameStream, etc - that ends up only working on their cards. Open standards and relatively hardware agnostic implementations move things forward whereas Nvidia's way of things puts an impediment into the road - I hope that over the next year or two as raytracing becomes more feasible developers won't have to decide how or if to support several totally incompatible and redundant raytracing methods, or worse these companies pushing partnerships to only use one and if you don't have Nvidia's card well too bad for you.
 
wasnt there a minecraft mod already to make it has ray tracing?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Youn
like this
Yeah, I would also prefer that ray-tracing not be proprietary to one company. I am an Nvidia user, but the focus on RTX stinks.
 
RanceJustice said:
I have to wonder if this feature will only be available on the more heavily locked down "Bedrock" version of Minecraft (ie the version powering the Xbox, portable versions etc), or if it will come to the Java version (the original,modding and PC friendly version that is cross platform) as well. If they can bring it to the latter so much the better!

As for raytracing itself, as others have mentioned it is actually a cool effect on a low-poly title such as Minecraft as its not really ready for primetime elsewhere, but I am not happy to see focus on Nvidia's RTX methodology vs some open way of doing raytracing. I don't want to see Nvidia's RTX raytracing become yet another proprietary way of doing things they push - from PhysX, CUDA, Gsync, GameWorks, GameStream, etc - that ends up only working on their cards. Open standards and relatively hardware agnostic implementations move things forward whereas Nvidia's way of things puts an impediment into the road - I hope that over the next year or two as raytracing becomes more feasible developers won't have to decide how or if to support several totally incompatible and redundant raytracing methods, or worse these companies pushing partnerships to only use one and if you don't have Nvidia's card well too bad for you.
Click to expand...

Where do you people come up with these ideas? The developers are using DXR, a part of DX12. Nothing proprietary about it other than it requires Windows 10 and ANY GPU that supports DXR.
 
DooKey said:
Where do you people come up with these ideas? The developers are using DXR, a part of DX12. Nothing proprietary about it other than it requires Windows 10 and ANY GPU that supports DXR.
Click to expand...

That's good for this particular title (though I admit I'd prefer Vulkan vs DX12 as its more cross platform), but Nvidia has a long history of pushing proprietary ways of doing things. Given they've stepped out front with RTX, they get to start showcasing the tech in the way they choose. Given their legacy, I want to ensure they don't begin to push RTX-specific methodology. There were many times in the past where developers could have used open alternatives, but Nvidia encouraged the use of their preferential tech - I'd hate to see that happen to raytracing.
 
xx0xx said:
Yeah, I would also prefer that ray-tracing not be proprietary to one company. I am an Nvidia user, but the focus on RTX stinks.
Click to expand...
In fairness, the other company didn't bother to show up.

DXR and Vulkan's raytracing aren't proprietary, and RTX is just an extension to accelerate RT on certain NV cards. But it's Nvidia that is the first mover here, doing the heavy lifting and blazing the trail - and taking all the heat for "overpriced RT that iSnT rEaDy fOr PrimlMeTiMe". Someone had to do it, and Nvidia has to justify the R&D so they're obviously going to push GPU sales to pay for it. With no profit motive we wouldn't even be talking about raytracing.
 
Last edited:
DooKey said:
Where do you people come up with these ideas? The developers are using DXR, a part of DX12. Nothing proprietary about it other than it requires Windows 10 and ANY GPU that supports DXR.
Click to expand...

It's not hard for people to get that idea, when (IIRC) the Video doesn't mention DXR even once, and talks about how this was done with NVidia RTX. Ex: "With RTX and Minecraft, water now looks like water:
 
  • Like
Reactions: xx0xx
like this
I liked Minecraft up until around the time Notch introduced biomes. Before then you had cool random terrain, wild mountains, natural-looking hills, grasslands, pebble/sand beaches... now no matter where you go the game always looks basically the same and coasts/rivers/biome boundaries look awful. This looks like a cool graphics mod, but I'm not going to run out and buy an Nvidia card or run Windows 10 for it.

Now, if somebody bankrolled a new Thief game (or even a remake of the original two) with ray tracing support... that would be a lot more interesting. I can't think of a better game to show off ray-traced lighting and shadows.
 
RanceJustice said:
I have to wonder if this feature will only be available on the more heavily locked down "Bedrock" version of Minecraft (ie the version powering the Xbox, portable versions etc), or if it will come to the Java version (the original,modding and PC friendly version that is cross platform) as well. If they can bring it to the latter so much the better!
Click to expand...

Is the Java version in active development anymore? Seemed like there was a big push to move towards the "Microsoft" version. The Java version was a hassle, and I'm kinda grateful it's out of my life now. Kids would watch mod videos on YouTube and want a mod that's a year old, but it doesn't work unless you create a separate branch of a certain version, but then this other mod they want to use doesn't work. And the random crashes.

Now we can play on Xbox, iPad and Oculus all together at the same time, and it really never seems to have any problems. Have to pay for mods....but they work the first time and I don't feel like I'm getting digital STD's going to seedy file hosting sites.
 
How about put RT in a good game like say, Half Life 1 or 2 or The Witcher 3.....

You suck Nvidia!
 
may get on board later on but, heavy lifting and trailblazing at $1200 that"s BS .RT minecraft please.
 
The point of choosing minecraft is rather crafty, grabbing a game with the worst 3d graphics ever, designed to run on potatoes, and jumping it to rtx artificially makes it look like an amazing technological jump, while hiding the impressive performance dip that the current iteration implies.

It would have been way less impressive to grab something like ps4 "The Order 1886" and adding raytracing to it since the base graphics are already pretty impressive and I bet that in pc and at 4k they would be already at a lower average performance that may end up giving you unplayable frame rates. (this example is impossible to actually happen since The Order is a console exclusive but you get the idea)


It's almost like grabbing pong, the original flavor with the huge pixel ball and then converting it into a proper 3d game with raytracing at 720p and implying that THAT is the technological jump of your hardware.


AKA marketing 101.
 
Revdarian said:
The point of choosing minecraft is rather crafty, grabbing a game with the worst 3d graphics ever, designed to run on potatoes, and jumping it to rtx artificially makes it look like an amazing technological jump, while hiding the impressive performance dip that the current iteration implies.
Click to expand...

Yeah, reminds me a lot of the Quake II RTX version. Updating something with low poly counts, and mediocre lighting is the biggest bang/buck.

A modern game with high poly counts, and impressive faked lighting will take much more effort, and the results will be much more subtle.

I hope NVidia throws some more cash at updating older games. The Jedi Knight Games (Academy, Outcast) on the Q3 engine would be awesome to upgrade with RT lighting.
 
Minecraft..... really?

I get it, it's "cheap" and easy but come on now.

Give me a RT version of the original Quake. Please and thank you.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DrDoU
like this
horrorshow said:
Minecraft..... really?

I get it, it's "cheap" and easy but come on now.

Give me a RT version of the original Quake. Please and thank you.
Click to expand...

As long as they don't butcher the gamma/ambiance of the game like in Q2 it could be interesting to see.
 
SEUS minecraft mod also does RT without platform lock, and works on amd gpus.
 
Minecraft already had it, Nvidia just bought them out so they could make a "claim". Also, I am not the least bit surprised many have not pointed it out, because that would show a certain company in a bad light........
 
While this is neat, I am really disappointed about the Super Duper pack.
 
Minecraft has already been able to Raytrace.. old news:
tree-house.jpg


Rendered with 2048xMSAA, using the nVidia DLSS cores/algorithm. Amazing raytraced reflections, just look at the glass!
 
GoodBoy said:
Minecraft has already been able to Raytrace.. old news:
Click to expand...
Difference between built-in support with a one-button toggle, and having to install four different garage hacks - each with their own complicated install procedures, some behind a patreon paywall.

Any case, the more RT the merrier.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top