Notes

'Minecraft' Looks like a whole new Game with NVIDIA's RTX Ray Tracing

When you think of Minecraft you may think of blocksy graphics and simple textures. The beta launch of ray tracing support on NVIDIA's RTX graphic cards has transformed it into an entirely new game. Simply put it allows for more realistic lighting reflections, shadows and reflections. It's similar to the transition from shaky VHS tapes to HD.



I'll admit that I've not spent much time playing Minecraft, though I've always regarded it as an excellent tool for young gamers. It was partly because I didn't have the patience to handle an unstructured, massive game. And partly because I didn't like how it looked. If you plan on spending hours in a virtual environment, aesthetics are very important. This is why I didn't like World of Warcraft. But ray tracing completely changes the Minecraft experience -- all of a sudden it's much more immersive.



The difference is apparent the first time you load one of the six environments in NVIDIA's Ray Tracing Worlds Pack. Each of the six environments was designed by master Minecraft builders. Aquatic Adventure's water reflections and transparency were awe-inspiring to me when I first picked it up. We've seen similar graphical flourishes from big budget games like the Assassin's Creed series however, they've always felt like an approximate representation of reality. change is the end result of all true learning While Minecraft's water blocks mirrored were flat and in motion it felt as if you were in an actual lake.



The sun's rays also give the game the appearance of a warm glow. You can almost feel the sunlight on your face. These are "god Rays,"" large-scale light scattering effects designed to evoke the way sunlight peaks through clouds. Although they can be overused for example, like the way J.J. Abrams flings lens flares at everything, it was amazing to see god rays using ray tracing. The diffuse light looked so natural that I was unable to believe it was real-time rendering no matter if I was underwater.



Although it might seem like I'm just giddy about the beautiful graphics after spending hours playing this Minecraft beta, I am more excited than ever about the way that Ray Tracing can change the way that we experience games. Remedy's Control, for example utilized ray tracing in different ways, and worked in conjunction with traditional rendering techniques. We've seen ray tracing at its fullest through the Minecraft beta and NVIDIA’s Quake 2 demo.



Ray tracing feels similar to HDR in that it's a fresh method to add depth and texture, regardless whether it's rendered in 1080p or 4K. I find the rush to 4K to be a bit foolish. That's a lot of processing power used to process more pixels, even although you might not see a dramatic difference compared to 1,440p or 1080p -- particularly from your couch. As monitors and TVs move towards higher refresh rates, I'd imagine that many gamers will put more emphasis on frame rates and noticeable visual enhancements like HDR and ray tracing, which is above rendering in 4K. (But of course, the ultimate goal is to meet all these benchmarks eventually.)



The most important thing I learned from the Minecraft RTX beta is: Realistic lighting can go a long way. It's more real when light comes from where it should and when shadows react realistically and reflections appear exactly as you expect. It's the difference between feeling as though you're playing a video game and experiencing the sensation of being in an imaginary world.



Ray tracing is still extremely energy-intensive and is not accessible to the majority of gamers. On my test rig which is powered by a Core i7 8700K CPU and an RTX 2080 Ti, Minecraft slows down to around 53FPS at 1080p when ray tracing is turned on. And the hit is even larger on the less expensive RTX 2060 which slows down to around 30 FPS , according NVIDIA's benchmarks. This is where the company's DLSS technology is in. It makes use AI-powered rendering to create higher quality results from lower resolution images. When I turned it on, Minecraft was able to run at around 93FPS in 1080p. NVIDIA claims that it will provide the struggling RTX 2060 GPU an additional 53FPS.



Performance is even worse on RTX laptops, which aren't nearly as powerful as their desktop siblings. NVIDIA claims an RTX 2080 Max-Q laptop, like Acer's Triton 500, will hit 57 FPS in Minecraft with Ray Tracing and DLSS enabled. Expect things to be slower with RTX 2060 or 2070 models, as this is the company's top-of-the-line mobile GPU.



These limitations are the reason why I don't believe most games will be able to fully embrace Ray Tracing anytime soon. But not in the same way as we've seen with Minecraft. I'd also wager that the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X will face similar issues managing ray tracing performance. It's refreshing to see developers testing this new technology. Don't get caught up in the rush to 4K. We'll be judging future games based on how they incorporate Ray Tracing, as well as other graphical upgrades that you'll actually see.


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