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Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing

blogs.msdn.microsoft.com

181–190 of 235 posts

Re: Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing

#181
post #148

That's great.. if you are on Windows. I get that Microsoft works on Microsoft-technology, but it really doesn't help adoption or global development as a whole. DirectX doesn't work anywhere except Windows PC's and the Xbox. That's no biggie for Microsoft, but it's bad for everyone else.

AMD just announced their owm real-time ray-tracer based on Vulkan: https://www.anandtech.com/show/12552/amd-announces-real-time...

[deleted]

Re: Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I just wish Valve* would pop up and announce: 'oh so HL3 is coming out soon, and it will be a Steam Linux exclusive for the first 6 months.' While not likely, something like that would be a really interesting gauge of how likely genuine Linux adoption could be... * I use Valve due to their apparent Linux push with SteamOS (what's the go with that btw!?)

Most people are not Linux fanatics like you. 99.9% of people do not care to use Windows as long as it works.

According to the Stack Overflow developer survey, the percent of developers using Windows dropped below 50%. Nobody actually likes using Windows (except for a few Stockholm syndrome sufferers and zealots who drink the MSDN kool-aid), it's just that people are forced to use it due to third-party application support like video games. It seems like every week there's a new article on how Windows 10 is shit for users, whether it's spying on them with telemetry, serving unwanted ads, or reseting user settings after forced updates.

Windows is such an anti-brand that they couldn't even get customers to buy a Windows phone after a $500 million advertising campaign.

https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018#technology-de...

Re: Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing

#185
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people are not Linux fanatics like you. 99.9% of people do not care to use Windows as long as it works.

According to the Stack Overflow developer survey, the percent of developers using Windows dropped below 50%. Nobody actually likes using Windows (except for a few Stockholm syndrome sufferers and zealots who drink the MSDN kool-aid), it's just that people are forced to use it due to third-party application support like video games. It seems like every week there's a new article on how Windows 10 is shit for users, wh…

> the percent of developers using Windows dropped below 50%.

Yeah, not sure how is this relevant. Developers are not your average CoD, LoL, WoW etc.. players.

I'm not trying to defend anything as I don't even use Windows myself, it's just that from a business point of view making sure DX and "gaming" in general is locked to Windows makes absolutely 100% sense as again - most gamers do not care if they have to use Windows or not, they just want to play games.

Re: Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing

#187
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't have to fire out more rays if you could use the same ones that are used for calculating light bounces.

You'd have to be lucky enough to have a ray of light bouncing in the right position and direction, and you'd have to be clever enough to notice it at the right moment (without slowing down regular light tracing algorithm by adding a billion comparison everywhere to figure out if it matches a motion vector). I don't want to be a naysayer after only considering it for two minutes but it doesn't sound very practical to…

Sounds like it would lead to interesting "not a bug, it's a feature!"-worthy result of clipping through objects in the dark

Re: Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing

#188
post #31

Friendly reminder DirectX is a proprietary windows-specific API, with its associated lock-in. Don't fall for such simple trap.

Considering Windows still has ~90% of the market, this is not a trap. It's a matter of practicality.

That attitude just adds to the problem.

Re: Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing

#189
post #160
post #7

The only issue is that a lot of this is already possible in the current renderers at a reduced cost. - Soft shadows work in WebGL fairly well using PCSS: https://clara.io/player/v2/8f49e7c3-7c5e-43f0-a09c-33a55bb1b... - Translucency can be faked effectively using a few different methods. https://clara.io/view/5c7d28c0-91d7-4432-a131-3e6fd657a042 - Screen space ambient occlusion, if using SAO, is amazing. SAO test: ht…

I was at the GDC talks today. The gist is that this is for filling in the gaps that screen space tricks simply cannot do because the reflected surface is off screen.

I can imagine that raytracing for a few effects will be possible when you switch on "Ultra" settings on desktop games, for the guys who have V100s in their machines.

Re: Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing

#190

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXo0WdlELJk I'm pleased to see that the tech video includes spherical mirrors. As I understand it, all raytracing demos are obliged by universal law to include at least three reflective balls in any promotion of the technology. One day, someone will figure out a game where these super-shiny ball bearings are a critical part of the gameplay, and at that point, raytracing will finally ta…

one tricky thing to code is where you as the player look into a mirror, the trick usually is to create another exact replica of the room you're in and your player and use that like a skybox. but with this you could have all the particle effects work properly in the reflection.

> one tricky thing to code is where you as the player look into a mirror, the trick usually is to create another exact replica of the room you're in and your player and use that like a skybox.

Actually mirrors can be easily implemented as a pre-render step, you just re-render the system from the right perspective, a virtual camera, and then paste that on the polygons that are acting as the mirror.

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