The Still New What Did You Last Do Thread

[Dancso]

Just tried Quake 2 RTX to see what all the rage was about.
I was expecting it to be a showcase of "what we could have in next gen games". But a lot of the effects were still based on trickery (water being the main culprit, but in general the lighting is only slightly less fake looking than traditional lighting in other games, it doesn't convince me)
The ghosting absolutely kills it for me.

Very glad I did not buy into nvidia this time. This tech is going to be the bane of performance & release schedules for years to come.
I believe it's actually decent in minecraft. But I ain't paying for bedrock edition. Shader packs look almost as good and support the glorious java edition.

I'm sure some worthwhile games will feature it in a couple years but for now all I can say is, yikes

[Graf Zahl]

Very glad I did not buy into nvidia this time. This tech is going to be the bane of performance & release schedules for years to come.

Don't blame the tech for poor use of it. More importantly, don't expect an old game to suddenly gain photorealistic lighting just because new tech is being used.
GZDoom is also based on tech not available in 1993 and yet it never tried to turn the original levels into somethinf more modern looking.

[Enjay]

Unfortunately, Q2RTX is not really a good example of the tech IMO. The effects look very grafted on and while the lighting may be nice, even borderline realistic, in some places, it is very hit or miss and there are far too many places where they obviously said "let's make it really obvious and shiny so that people can really see the effects". Less is more IMO. Plus, it's all plastered on top of an old low poly game in a really piecemeal fashion. Some bits are very high res and shadered to hell and back, other areas are not, and everything is over bright IMO. The door to the final room in the first map is a good example of it looking bad IMO. The door has been given an ugly hi-res texture, horrible texture effects that don't make sense and the lighting on it doesn't make sense for the light source that is above it either.

I have seen far more impressive, far better hi-res packs, ports and community mods (for many games) than the Q2RTX package.

It was mildly interesting to compare RTX emulation mode on my old 1080 card versus proper RTX mode on my RTX2060. Not too surprisingly, performance on the 2060 was far, far better. But, yeah, Q2RTX is not a good showcase IMO.

[dpJudas]

A big problem for RTX in general is that it is still too slow for true global illumination. It can barely do direct lights fast enough - even one extra bounce seems to be out of the question. The older techniques already do direct light so good at this point that almost nobody can tell the difference. That means all RTX really does much better right now are reflective surfaces, but that comes at a very high cost in performance numbers. Simply put, it just isn't worth enabling it except maybe for something like Minecraft where the FPS is already very high.

Here's a good youtube "review" of RTX in 2021: NVIDIA RTX in 2021 - A GAMER'S Perspective. Keep in mind this is years after RTX became available to game engine devs.

[Nash]

I love raytracing in Cyberpunk 2077 (I've got 100+ hours on this so it's a game I actually play, not basing my opinion by running a tech demo for 10 minutes) - after seeing RTX reflections, I simply cannot stand screen space reflections anymore. And the RT lighting (volumetric lights, global illumination etc) really do look so much better than non-RT - both indoors and outdoors.

Unfortunately I'll have to agree though, the FPS cost that comes with it simply sucks and if are already happy with how your gaming looks on your current non-RT setup, it's most likely not worth it to dump money on an RTX card. It's one of those things where you have to experience it to believe it but if you don't feel like you're missing out then yeah, don't bother.

[dpJudas]

Linus Tech Tips did a test recently where they asked a bunch of random people at their office to A/B test between RTX on and off in various titles. Most of them could not really tell which was which. That's not to say RTX doesn't look better - I agree that it does - but for most scenes the effects are very limited. Of course it helps in certain scenes with volumetric lights, shadows and reflections, but let's not pretend they have anything remotely like GI here.

[Enjay]

Cyberpunk 2077 (I've got 100+ hours...

Only a hundred? I'm waaay over that (~500 hours). Not bad for a game whose storyline only takes around 60 hours and yet exploring the map still occasionally turns up a little scene, Easter egg or a data shard that I hadn't found before. All the big plot stuff, and even the smaller side jobs, were tapped out a long time ago. Looking forward to finally getting some meaty DLC.

I agree with your points re RTX and Cyberpunk. It does make a noticeable difference to the appearance of the game, but there is a performance price to pay (probably especially as an RTX2060 is towards the lower end of the RTX cards). So I run with settings that are a compromise between looks and performance. I crank it up if I'm doing something with photo mode though.

[Scripten]

Is Cyberpunk playable now? I'd gotten some reviews from people I trust that said it was nigh unplayable on release, so I held off on getting it. I figured some patching would smooth over some of the bugs, but then I heard that there are still major issues this far after release.

[Enjay]

It's always been playable for me. It is, however, still glitchy (lots of NPCs spawning inside each other, cars sinking into the road, items (and even people) magically hanging in the air etc) and that does detract from the game and make it feel much less polished than it should for the money. However, I have (as I said) literally hundreds of hours in the game and not one single crash. It plays perfectly quickly enough on my middle-ish spec machine (was high spec about 3-4 years ago, and I upgraded the RAM and graphics card to extend its life earlier this year). I also just love exploring the city in all of its sleazy glory. So, yeah, its playable and I thoroughly enjoy just hanging out in the game looking for stuff that I haven't found before but if non-critical bugs and glitches bother you, then it will irritate you.

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If, of course, you are trying to run it on a PS4 or something, then I believe that performance has improved but to my mind it should never have been aimed at consoles of that gen. It was never going to work well and the game was compromised to force it to be at least mostly playable. Got to follow the money though I guess.

Judging by the early trailers and promises, a lot was also cut to get the game out sooner rather than later (even after several delays). So it isn't the game that was promised all those years ago, but I've still had a lot of fun with it and several friends and I have a chat group where we explore the city, find cool things and then share them with each other so that we can all see them for ourselves. It's been a good way to focus some of our staying-in-touch activities during lockdown.

I actually feel sorry for the devs. Yes, the game has problems but there has also been a ton of love poured into making the city and there are neat little things to be found everywhere. Like I said, 500 hours and I still occasionally find something. Yet it's become "understood" that the game is crap via cheap journalism. I've lost count of how many PC Gamer, Game Rant and so on articles have appeared in my feeds that start something like "we all know that Cyberpunk is a disaster".

But, yeah, it does have glitches:

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and it's usually only a matter of seconds, maybe a couple of minutes at most, before you spot something odd.

[Captain J]

Be sure to meet Shrimp Lady on the way, btw

[Enjay]

These shrimp fresh?

[Scripten]

It's always been playable for me. It is, however, still glitchy (lots of NPCs spawning inside each other, cars sinking into the road, items (and even people) magically hanging in the air etc) and that does detract from the game and make it feel much less polished than it should for the money. However, I have (as I said) literally hundreds of hours in the game and not one single crash. It plays perfectly quickly enough on my middle-ish spec machine (was high spec about 3-4 years ago, and I upgraded the RAM and graphics card to extend its life earlier this year). I also just love exploring the city in all of its sleazy glory. So, yeah, its playable and I thoroughly enjoy just hanging out in the game looking for stuff that I haven't found before but if non-critical bugs and glitches bother you, then it will irritate you.

Thanks, this clears up a lot of stuff for me! I appreciate the in-depth look.

[Captain Ventris]

Been away from the forums for a while now! I'm up to finally getting my second novel finished. I'll probably make a thread for it when the time comes here in Off Topic.

[Captain J]

Welcome back, Fellow Captain! The novel sounds really promising too.

[Captain Ventris]

Welcome back, Fellow Captain! The novel sounds really promising too.

The first one is available on Amazon or Itch!

Currently looking to publish a short story in the same universe. At the stage where I've got beta readers.