Since the disastrous launch of the RTX 50 series, NVIDIA has been unable to escape negative headlines: scalper bots are snatching GPUs away from consumers before official sales even begin, power connectors continue to melt, with no fix in sight, marketing is becoming increasingly deceptive, GPUs are missing processing units when they leave the factory, and the drivers, for which NVIDIA has always been praised, are currently falling apart. And to top it all off, NVIDIA is becoming increasingly insistent that media push a certain narrative when reporting on their hardware.
It absolutely is, because Ray tracing isn’t just about how precise or good the reflections/shadows look, it’s also about reflecting/getting shadows from things that are outside of your field of view. That’s the biggest difference.
One of the first “holy shit!” moments for me was playing doom I think it was, and walking down a corridor and being able to see that there were enemies around the corner by seeing their reflection on the opposite wall. That’s never been possible before, and it’s only possible thanks to raytracing. Same with being able to see shadows from enemies that are behind you out of screen to the side.