Ray tracing: This is how technology works in video games

Ray tracing technology has been the non plus ultra in the video game scene for some time. You can find out how it works and what exactly is behind the term here.

Ray tracing - that's the reason

Since the introduction of the RTX graphics card series from Nvidia, the company has been using ray tracing technology. We explain what exactly is behind it below:

• In ray tracing, an algorithm calculates the incidence of light in real time and how it interacts with computer-generated objects. This simulates lifelike lighting conditions. For example, individual light particles can be shown that scatter through a holey wall.
• This rendering method primarily benefits shadows and reflections, which are much more natural and graphically impressive due to the complex calculation.
• The color of the objects in the game also changes depending on how the light falls on them and therefore comes very close to the behavior of our eyes.
• Compared to the previous rendering method, rasterization, ray tracing requires significantly more power and can therefore not be handled by every graphics card. Nvidia has meanwhile published a driver update that also enables graphics cards from the GTX series Ray Tracing, but they are not optimally designed for this.
• There are currently only a handful of games that fully support the technology. With Cyberpunk 2077, however, a new AAA game will be added in 2020 and other developers will also take over the technology step by step.

Ray tracing - this is what AMD's plans look like

While Nvidia already sells ray tracing graphics cards, AMD is still a long way off. We will educate you about the company's plans.

• AMD recently released its new Navi graphics card range, but they do not have the power to use ray tracing with ease.
• AMD expects additional ray tracing power by using the cloud. How well this works is not yet known.
• Rumor has it that ray tracing will come with the next generation of the AMD graphics core, which is expected for 2020. Until then, unfortunately, there are only rumors.