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Quake II RTX: Re-Engineering a Classic with Ray Tracing Effects on Vulkan

nvidia.com

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Re: Quake II RTX: Re-Engineering a Classic with Ray Tracing Effects on Vulkan

#21

Post by dexen »

narrator wrote: post #15

This is great to see. Quake and Doom were all about elaborate fake 3d and elaborate fake raytracing to run fast and look amazing on slow hardware. As technology improved, first we got a real 3d engine and now we finally have a real raytracing engine.

>Quake and Doom were all about elaborate fake 3d

A nitpick: DooM (1 and 2), just as well as Duke Nukem 3D were indeed "2.5D" elaborate fakery of 3D. One of examples of the ruse: a level was basically a (floor, ceiling) height map, and there could be no two overlapping rooms one above the other.

On the other hand, Quake (1) was an early pioneer [1] of real, actual 3D, including an OpenGL backend and all that. That's one of the reasons it required significantly beefier hardware: needing a Pentium for smooth gameplay, while DooM would run perfectly fine on a mid-end 486, which is a generation older.

[1] cf. Marathon

Re: Quake II RTX: Re-Engineering a Classic with Ray Tracing Effects on Vulkan

#22

Post by deadbunny »

pizza234 wrote: post #16
tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote: post #2

The new lighting makes such a dramatic difference. Despite the same low polygon count, the levels seem much more lifelike. If all the game classics are re-released with raytracing engines, I will be all over it. The next years are going to be good.

I'm very skeptical. This is not just RTT; there's a big amount of rework. Likely, any old game would look significantly better with such development effort (in other words, with any good remastering). This could be considered a great market stunt - the graphical improvement is touted to be due to RTX (ray tracing), while it's actually due to many factors. On top of that, it misleads people into thinking that this typ…

Yeah checking out some of the comparison photos and the textures have definitely received a bump in resolution/quality.

Most obvious to me in the quake logo/skull on the left of this[1] image.

1. https://images.nvidia.com/geforce-com/international/comparis...

Re: Quake II RTX: Re-Engineering a Classic with Ray Tracing Effects on Vulkan

#23

Post by kkapelon »

mbel wrote: post #19
narrator wrote: post #15

This is great to see. Quake and Doom were all about elaborate fake 3d and elaborate fake raytracing to run fast and look amazing on slow hardware. As technology improved, first we got a real 3d engine and now we finally have a real raytracing engine.

What do you mean "fake 3d"? They are as 3D as any other computer generated images with linear perspective. Quake is even using a rasterizer like nearly all games today.

Doom used 2D sprites, so "fake 3d" if you ask me.

Re: Quake II RTX: Re-Engineering a Classic with Ray Tracing Effects on Vulkan

#24

Post by anc84 »

narrator wrote: post #15

This is great to see. Quake and Doom were all about elaborate fake 3d and elaborate fake raytracing to run fast and look amazing on slow hardware. As technology improved, first we got a real 3d engine and now we finally have a real raytracing engine.

We had Q3RT 15 years ago: http://www.q3rt.de/

Re: Quake II RTX: Re-Engineering a Classic with Ray Tracing Effects on Vulkan

#25

Post by anc84 »

mbel wrote: post #19
narrator wrote: post #15

This is great to see. Quake and Doom were all about elaborate fake 3d and elaborate fake raytracing to run fast and look amazing on slow hardware. As technology improved, first we got a real 3d engine and now we finally have a real raytracing engine.

What do you mean "fake 3d"? They are as 3D as any other computer generated images with linear perspective. Quake is even using a rasterizer like nearly all games today.

I'd take the benefit of the doubt and consider the poster oblivious to the vast difference between Doom and Quake, they probably just threw them both into the "early 90s 2.5D FPS" bucket.

Re: Quake II RTX: Re-Engineering a Classic with Ray Tracing Effects on Vulkan

#26

Post by noir_lord »

apk-d wrote: post #5

Rtx really shines when applied to a low-fidelity game like Q2. The difference isn't as profound in modern titles where a plethora of lighting techniques and tricks approximates physical lighting closely, though. I wonder if in the end (should we eventually see universal adoption) raytracing will prove more of a boon towards developers rather than end users, as it has been with many other hardware advancements.

> The difference isn't as profound in modern titles where a plethora of lighting techniques and tricks.

That's the key thing though, RTX removes the need for all those tricks (which are tricky to get right, humans are good at spotting lighting flaws in a scene) which is a net win for the game developers who can focus that time/effort elsewhere.

Re: Quake II RTX: Re-Engineering a Classic with Ray Tracing Effects on Vulkan

#28

Post by mbel »

kkapelon wrote: post #23
mbel wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean "fake 3d"? They are as 3D as any other computer generated images with linear perspective. Quake is even using a rasterizer like nearly all games today.

Doom used 2D sprites, so "fake 3d" if you ask me.

So does plethora of today's AAA titles for subtle details like particle effects, grass and others.

Re: Quake II RTX: Re-Engineering a Classic with Ray Tracing Effects on Vulkan

#29

Post by robin_reala »

karrotwaltz wrote: post #17
pizza234 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very skeptical. This is not just RTT; there's a big amount of rework. Likely, any old game would look significantly better with such development effort (in other words, with any good remastering). This could be considered a great market stunt - the graphical improvement is touted to be due to RTX (ray tracing), while it's actually due to many factors. On top of that, it misleads people into thinking that this typ…

> it's actually due to many factors To add to this point, at 1:35 in the video they compare with / without volumetric ligthing except, well, volumetric lighting has been used in games for a while now. The "before" should show a non-RTX lighting instead of just nothing at all.

I remember one of the big selling points of the Dreamcast in 1998 was volumetric lighting.

Re: Quake II RTX: Re-Engineering a Classic with Ray Tracing Effects on Vulkan

#30

Post by steinuil »

andybak wrote: post #4

No mention of how to download it - either in the negative "You can't..." or positive. Seems a strange omission.

I hope they're going to release it later, after cleaning it up. Quake 2 is GPL'd, so I think they're compelled to, and it would also be a good example of how to use the VKRay API and what it looks like in an actual game.
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