Alan Wake 2 PC Path Tracing: The Next Level In Visual Fidelity?

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  • Опубліковано 30 жов 2024

КОМЕНТАРІ • 1,9 тис.

  • @Krackerjax
    @Krackerjax Рік тому +161

    I walk around Bright Falls and I feel like im in 2030 with how good some things look. Then I see two NPCs talking to each other with super low quality faces, both wearing identical outfits. And then Im instantly snapped back to 2010.

    • @jungleboy1
      @jungleboy1 8 місяців тому +19

      yes i think they scrimped a bit on the npcs. Most of them are static and repeat their actions. I wish it was more spontaneous like GTA.

  • @stefansamoyloff3866
    @stefansamoyloff3866 Рік тому +406

    Using the "Control" location card font and sounds for your text introducing the name of the effect was such a wonderful and intelligent way to shout out your appreciation of Remedy's ongoing commitment to graphical excellence. Great work.

    • @MrmorpheuZ
      @MrmorpheuZ Рік тому +16

      ...and the Max Payne BGM

    • @athena9029
      @athena9029 11 місяців тому +15

      Control introduced those texts, but Alan Wake II uses them as well for every single chapter introduction. So it's more to stay in theme with the game that referencing other games.

  • @azazelleblack
    @azazelleblack Рік тому +781

    It's really funny that the noise from the software RT gives the illusion of additional surface details. It reminds me of when Id Software, after demands for a "high-res texture patch" from fans, added a noise grain filter to the virtual texturing system in RAGE and called it "detail texturing".

    • @marrow94
      @marrow94 Рік тому +110

      Well to be honest noise (grain) adds “detail” that might be fake, but still looks great.

    • @azazelleblack
      @azazelleblack Рік тому +46

      @@marrow94 Sometimes! I think it looks AWFUL in RAGE though. You can actually tweak the size and intensity of the noise pattern with console variables. Reducing the intensity helps, but personally I think the game still looks great even today without it. Plus, it runs in 8K at 120 FPS locked even on RTX 2080!

    • @Wobbothe3rd
      @Wobbothe3rd Рік тому +15

      ​@@azazelleblackRage was designed for 720p, just like how Doom 3 was designed for 480p

    • @TheTechDweller
      @TheTechDweller Рік тому +5

      @@marrow94 You think so? I found it super distracting. Enough on some materials that I wanted to play with RT on just to eliminate that issue.

    • @colbyboucher6391
      @colbyboucher6391 Рік тому

      Hmm, that's got to be resolution-dependent, right? Because at 1080p it really is just noise.

  • @antivanti
    @antivanti Рік тому +487

    One thing I noticed is that the CRT monitors in the game do not emit light. They don't illuminate the room they're in and they aren't even visible in darkness

    • @munkeymajic
      @munkeymajic Рік тому +56

      I think we are looking at what technology is being used rather than how fun a game is to play...a guarantee for failure for gamers at least.

    • @PositronCannon
      @PositronCannon Рік тому +388

      @@munkeymajic Sir, this is a Wendy's.
      (aka, this channel's whole point is to examine the visual tech behind games, so not sure what you expect)

    • @ecognitio9605
      @ecognitio9605 Рік тому +30

      ​@@munkeymajicHuh???

    • @gracecalis5421
      @gracecalis5421 Рік тому +231

      ​@@munkeymajicMan's bitching that we focus too much on the technology on a channel that's dedicated on the technology.

    • @kingx1180
      @kingx1180 Рік тому +12

      They do emit light

  • @maxmusterman6030
    @maxmusterman6030 Рік тому +301

    I expected a great looking game with Path Tracing after all I heard and how good control was back in the day, but the thing which impressed me the most is how good it looks when RT is off, I mean wow Remedy really hit the nail in both classes, fantastic.

    • @Emucratic
      @Emucratic Рік тому +22

      It's a shame about the screen space reflections. Unreal engine has solved those issues by applying additional trickery through Lumen. You can have those mirror effects and have reflections of occluded objects. You can even have a fake umbra to make shadows softer the further they are from the object. It's all doable without raytracing, it's just a matter of devs implementing it properly by accounting for all the errors instead of just using one blanket solution.

    • @MPaulPhoenix
      @MPaulPhoenix Рік тому +33

      @@Emucratic Lumen uses ray tracing so no, it's not doable without ray tarcing.

    • @George-um2vc
      @George-um2vc Рік тому +24

      UE is still completely unfit for games, can’t even use CPUs properly, maybe next decade.

    • @ThunderingRoar
      @ThunderingRoar Рік тому +6

      ​@@George-um2vcYour statement is paradoxical considering how many games were made in UE and how many more have been announced

    • @George-um2vc
      @George-um2vc Рік тому +30

      @@ThunderingRoar I don’t think you know what the word paradoxical means, yes many games have been made, and many more are on the way, all with poor CPU utilisation bottlenecking performance.

  • @Schizm1
    @Schizm1 Рік тому +217

    Tbh AW2 is IMO one of the best examples of how amazing games can look.... without hardware RT.
    Unlike some titles where RT is complete game changer I feel in AW2 RT and PT is more of a "cherry on top" effect and game looks outstanding even without those effects.

    • @gabber_
      @gabber_ Рік тому +16

      Completely agree. And if we could have separate settings to toggle RT reflections only, like in Control, i think it would be an improvement. Path tracing is too expensive, while SSR mixed with the software RT is both expensive and gives an even worse result. for now, my 3070 is perfectly adequate for everything 1440p, but playing with RT in 2 games this entire year, so i can't justify upgrading to 40s cards. Remedy has to improve on animating faces and expressions however. I feel like they are stil lacking in that department. Need to consult with Naughty Dog :)

    • @vandammage1747
      @vandammage1747 Рік тому +10

      Doesn't look better than Tlou2, Forbidden west, Forza Horizon 5, Hivebusters, Mortal Kombat 1 etc. without the raytracing and image quality is horrible let's be honest.

    • @TheMybabloo
      @TheMybabloo Рік тому +5

      Actually, ray traced shadows are on unattainable level compared with rasterization. But indirect lighting indeed can be simulated quite good without hardware RT

    • @AmazikGezk
      @AmazikGezk Рік тому +2

      @@gabber_I think disabling RT and enabling the transparency setting gets you RT reflections only, that’s what I did with my 7900 XT where path tracing is just too expensive

    • @Schizm1
      @Schizm1 Рік тому +22

      ​@@vandammage1747 Disagree. Lightning and models alone look better than TLOU2. Models in ND games only look amazing in cutscenes but look at them in photo mode and you'll see how much detail is lost.

  • @alephnole7009
    @alephnole7009 Рік тому +27

    I love how the pattern on the curtains in the diner actually have clear shadows with RT because the thicker fabric of the embroidery would block the light.

    • @alephnole7009
      @alephnole7009 Рік тому +3

      FYI, I wrote this before he went back and pointed out this detail more directly

  • @akshaydabhadkarofficial5104
    @akshaydabhadkarofficial5104 11 місяців тому +39

    Remedy’s art direction is just stunning. Agree that the technical aspect of the visuals is incredible as well, but the artistic aspect is even more striking. This game will look great even after 10 years.

    • @HappyDude1
      @HappyDude1 11 місяців тому +4

      It will look better because then we can afford a gpu that will max everything out but 10 years is a lot!
      And tech is growing exponential so we will have games that look so much better. Just compare this game with something that looked great from 10 years ago

    • @akshaydabhadkarofficial5104
      @akshaydabhadkarofficial5104 11 місяців тому +1

      @@HappyDude1 I agree but my point is tech could be outdated but art design can’t. This game’s graphical design has a lot of artistic flavours, it’s highly stylistic. Same thing with Control. Same thing with Red Dead 2. Another game with outstanding art direction is Dirt 3 which is 10 years old but looks beautiful, even today. Creating realistic graphics is easy today as there is always references available in real life. But those realistic graphics will look like shit 5 years down if they lack any artistic flavour. Games devs need to go the extra mile to give a unique look to the game to make it stand the test of time. Graphics will always feel outdated after some time but graphics with strong art direction will remain timeless. GTAV was praised on how realistic it looked in 2015. Then, only 4 years later, I saw comparisons to other technically superior games mentioning how unrealistic the lighting is. But there’s a huge factor which contributed in the way GTA V looked and will look. That’s ART DIRECTION. GTAV still looks beautiful and extremely unique in terms of its colour palate which gives an impression that it looks better than the new saints row technically, the reason being shitty art direction on Saints Row. Skyrim is technically the worst game ever made. But that dint stop it from being as iconic as it is, a massive contributor is amazing Art Direction. Uncharted 4, TLoU2, Dragon Age Inquisition, etc are more examples. In simpler words, art makes technology timeless. (My own words btw lol)

    • @HappyDude1
      @HappyDude1 11 місяців тому +1

      @@akshaydabhadkarofficial5104
      Ow yes its like like A BMW M3 E46, which is technically a disaster, but it looks timeless. 😁 i think the art of bioshock still looks amazing and thats very old now

    • @akshaydabhadkarofficial5104
      @akshaydabhadkarofficial5104 11 місяців тому +1

      @@HappyDude1 yup. Exactly.

    • @lukaskubinec9608
      @lukaskubinec9608 11 місяців тому

      I am okay with what you say under circumstance that this game will be a very rare exception for at least next 5 years, it is good to push boundaries and improve on visuals, but not if most devs will try to take advantage of it and we will have to play upscaled games with 30FPS on average. I'd rather play on low settings, but native 4k. I have no problem with others seeing it differently as long as I'm given the option to play at native resolution even at the exepnse of details.

  • @axtonjcranston1064
    @axtonjcranston1064 Рік тому +143

    Back in the mid 90s I was in college learning about ray tracing and how it will change things, it's so nice to see it finally available. But still a shame that 99% of players will miss these details. DF you are doing such a service to all the devs out there who make this work.

    • @V3ntilator
      @V3ntilator Рік тому +7

      In 1980's it took up to hours to render a Ray Tracing image on AMIGA 500, but a lot faster with 68030.

    • @davemeredith6964
      @davemeredith6964 Рік тому +8

      They are but games should be gameplay first...visuals are one thing but gameplay is key.

    • @BiffGheek
      @BiffGheek 11 місяців тому +11

      ​@@davemeredith6964You're right, but you also need to remember that the art team and design teams are separate. Upping visual quality doesn't take away from gameplay unless we're talking about shifting funds around. Ultimately, visuals in games all come down to the proficiency of the artists and programmers working on the art team.

    • @xerxeslv
      @xerxeslv 11 місяців тому +3

      Yep, that's the problem. You loose so much performance, but what you get nearly unnoticeable without close inspection. Like when I am switching full RT\PT on in this game I am just getting same good quality picture but can't say if there is any difference. Remember that empty house in AW2 first location, I got inside with full PT on and was like "wow outside light gets inside very realistically and flashlight also looks pretty nice. I walked around paying attention to all the small detail, then I switched RT off and... it's all look the same! Like I know there got to be some changes but it looks so good without RT that I have to look at direct comparison picture by picture to notice all this stuff. So I am just keeping it off cause of the framerates. So yeah, from my perspective it would be much better if all this computational power would be used somehow to actually improve gameplay, not just small details that are left unnoticed mostly.

    • @yasminesteinbauer8565
      @yasminesteinbauer8565 11 місяців тому +1

      @@xerxeslv Boring gameplay has nothing to do with too little computing power because of RT. AAA developers are simply usually not willing to experiment. You have to look into the indie scene for that. And if graphics aren't that important to you anyway, you'll probably be happier there.

  • @defromdark
    @defromdark Рік тому +87

    Edit: update 12 fixed the issue described below:
    Enabling frame generation introduces hitching whenever the game transitions from pre-rendered cinematics to real-time rendered graphics, similar to what The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk used to have before Nvidia released Streamline 1.5.6.

    • @maximefraisier1010
      @maximefraisier1010 Рік тому +4

      Yeah and so what its a little inconvenience (that should be fixed I concede) compare to getting double FPS

    • @defromdark
      @defromdark Рік тому +24

      @@maximefraisier1010 these transitions are used for jumpscares and they often occur a dozen times in the span of 5 seconds, so it's pretty jarring. Not to mention it ruins the dev's artistic vision for the game as well as the player's immersion. Love frame gen, needs fixed tho'.

    • @ervinfakas3973
      @ervinfakas3973 Рік тому

      This is an interesting point. How do you know it is due to FG? Also worth noting to run it maxed even with dlss quality, you need FG on to run it at a good framerate. 80-100

    • @AshishAdlakha
      @AshishAdlakha Рік тому +8

      @@ervinfakas3973 I have same issue and it disappears as soon as you turn off frame gen. Checkout Hollows’a gameplay part 1 video in the starting couple of minutes during jump scares, he also has these stutters.

    • @TheDarksideFNothing
      @TheDarksideFNothing Рік тому +2

      I have a theory.
      I bet on transition you're just losing the FG frame because for obvious reasons it can't interpolate. This may not be fixable, or at least not without getting REALLY creative.
      Turn on a frametime meter. I bet the hitch is about double the normal frametime.
      I don't have RTX 4000 so I'd love to hear results if someone tests this.

  • @montlejohnbojangles8937
    @montlejohnbojangles8937 Рік тому +140

    It really is an absolutely staggering technical achievement in so many ways. I loved just about every second with this weird, wonderful, game.

    • @nhagan001
      @nhagan001 Рік тому +4

      Now if only the writing could have matched the graphics.

    • @JC-kl3uc
      @JC-kl3uc Рік тому

      @@nhagan001 🤡

    • @zeroskaterz92
      @zeroskaterz92 Рік тому +31

      @@nhagan001 The writing was amazing. What are you even on about? Clearly you didn't even play the first game nor Control.

    • @gericon2855
      @gericon2855 11 місяців тому

      @@nhagan001 Much meta, very wow! :D

    • @nhagan001
      @nhagan001 11 місяців тому +2

      @@zeroskaterz92 yeah, that Mary Sue character was SOOOO well written! Loved how she was able to solve so many mysteries by making shit up in her “mind palace”. I especially like the part where she knew that a person has a necklace on her with no evidence to support it!
      And when the person with the necklace is about to ask Saga how she knew, the game cuts her off because they know it is bullshit.
      I like how you claim I haven’t played other games to make it sound like I’m wrong.
      If I have to play a game outside of Alan Wake 1 to understand your story, you have failed as a writer!

  • @RichardServello
    @RichardServello 11 місяців тому +31

    This game is SO ahead of it's time. I can't wait to see it in 10 years. I just played Quantum Break and now that it actually runs right it looks SO GOOD.

    • @brianfunt2619
      @brianfunt2619 9 місяців тому +8

      Who else wants a path traced remaster of Quantum Break?

    • @GrainGrown
      @GrainGrown Місяць тому +1

      *its

    • @GrainGrown
      @GrainGrown Місяць тому

      @@brianfunt2619 If I gave even two shits about Remedy anymore, I too would like to know how their game engines differ from game to game, and how easy/difficult it would be to implement later improvements to older games.

  • @loutrepolemique5951
    @loutrepolemique5951 Рік тому +140

    I wanna mention something about transparency in the "Ray Tracing Optimised Settings" section of the video. Yes the low setting for transparency overall looks fine, but there are major graphical issues in some scenarios with crazy blocking effects and flickering which ruins the entire presentation of the scene. I get this issue looking at the lake from the main street of Bright Falls, with a very off angle. Switching to high seems for now to be the only solution...

    • @sven957
      @sven957 Рік тому +30

      Yes, same here.
      Also there are a lot of mirrors in the game that straight up dont have a reflection at all, even with all path tracing maxxed.. He didnt mention that for some reason

    • @jackhanma376
      @jackhanma376 Рік тому +1

      I get this also with the high setting, I think it's a bug

    • @loutrepolemique5951
      @loutrepolemique5951 Рік тому +1

      @@jackhanma376 It has to be a bug, but I haven't noticed any major issue since I switched to high

    • @jackhanma376
      @jackhanma376 Рік тому

      @@loutrepolemique5951 I've only noticed it when playing as Saga (very minor spoiler>>>>>> at the Valhalla nursing home rehabilitation center

    • @treebeard7298
      @treebeard7298 Рік тому

      @@jackhanma376 Same here, specifically the Police Station on first visit. The glass dividers between the cubical offices was causing like a sparkling flicker.

  • @syntaxed2
    @syntaxed2 11 місяців тому +8

    Pathtraced shadows and those soft contact shadows are sooo delicious.

  • @Psychos1s
    @Psychos1s Рік тому +171

    It looks like Remedy is using a technique I was hoping devs would use when ray tracing was first introduced back in 2018. Use it as a visual guide for the non-ray traced counterpart. In art, thinking of it as tracing the source image. So many scenes are pretty close.

    • @livingcorpse5664
      @livingcorpse5664 Рік тому +4

      Nice!

    • @RonniSchmidt-mi7pd
      @RonniSchmidt-mi7pd Рік тому

      PS5 games are better, Spider man 2 only has Ray tracing

    • @rockapartie
      @rockapartie Рік тому +15

      You make it sound like RT is a new thing. 😉 GPU-accelerated RT was introduced to consumer graphics cards in 2018, but RT's been a thing since the 70s, has been used in movies /artworks for decades and the first real-time RT demo I've seen was Quake 3 RT (part of Daniel Pohl's bachelor's thesis AFAIR; later, he used to work for Intel for a couple of years and did a couple projects on Larrabee - but we all know how that GPU turned out. 😔).

    • @kevindesousa6277
      @kevindesousa6277 Рік тому

      Maybe i am wrong but i feel like this is how valorant textures are made, you can see color bounce on some maps but the game is rasterized

    • @L1ama
      @L1ama Рік тому +8

      @@rockapartie Yeah, to emphasise: the new thing that's now available is real-time raytracing. Having to render 30+ times per second is a vastly different problem to waiting even a minute to get a static render which you could use to recreate with less resource intensive lighting tech.

  • @Kotka1986
    @Kotka1986 Рік тому +11

    Alan Wake 2 indeed looks gorgeous. All Remedy games have their own & tailored look ( that for me personally works 100 % ) that differentiates them from other AAA titles and that's why even Max Payne 1 looks good to me all those years later. I showed screenshots from my playthrough to my colleagues to illustrate how Remedy applies the right amount of restraint when placing assets in the environments so that the assets, materials & overall composition can shine without unnecessary visual clutter. The only small nitpick i have with the PT & RT reflections is that they really did the mirrors in this game dirty by having this awesome tech and still making the surfaces look rather bumpy and producing really weird reflections. Other than that, looking at the extremely noisy reflections on the ground in Robocop :Rogue City i realized how much better Northlight engine ( and RED engine, for that matter , after playing through Phantom Liberty with PT on ) look when implementing those techniques than UE5 right now. P.S using music from the first Max Payne game here brought a smile on my face :)

  • @Chasm9
    @Chasm9 Рік тому +198

    And the winner of DF's best graphics of the year is...

    • @majstorringo
      @majstorringo Рік тому +11

      Spiderman 2

    • @adknife2046
      @adknife2046 Рік тому +25

      Gollum? I mean cyberpunk 2077 😂

    • @Hexentric8
      @Hexentric8 Рік тому +41

      ​@@majstorringono

    • @Bestwick1983
      @Bestwick1983 Рік тому +36

      @@majstorringo I think you mean Spiderman 1.5

    • @majstorringo
      @majstorringo Рік тому +1

      @@Hexentric8 Ok, what is the best graphic game in your opinion? Open world game in first place.

  • @EricRidesDirt
    @EricRidesDirt Рік тому +66

    We should praise Remedy for making small and relatively insigificant cuts to ray tracing in order for the game to run well. That is how you optimize a game. They made cuts that no one would notice in game to give most systems a chance to hit 60fps. Well Done!

    • @Kabodanki
      @Kabodanki Рік тому +2

      my 3090 can't run 4k/60fps constant with RT lowest setting enable lol

    • @ecruz010
      @ecruz010 Рік тому +7

      @@Kabodanki Alex literally provides optimized settings at the end of the video, you obviously need to use DLSS if you want to do 4K.

    • @b4ttlemast0r
      @b4ttlemast0r Рік тому +6

      @@Kabodanki bro even a 4090 cant run pathtracing 4K60, not realistic to expect

    • @b4ttlemast0r
      @b4ttlemast0r Рік тому +1

      PC games have settings that you can change for lower end systems. Of course they can do this for lower settings but the highest available settings should be uncompromised.

    • @criticalt3
      @criticalt3 Рік тому

      It's disappointing to see people praise this game for optimization when it brings the 4090 to 1080p with RT off. The game has some issues.

  • @AndreInfanteInc
    @AndreInfanteInc Рік тому +81

    I wonder if the compromise rendering indoors was due to issues with insufficient ray counts / bounces for illuminating indoor scenes that are lit primarily by indirect sun lighting.

    • @sandrocarletto9386
      @sandrocarletto9386 Рік тому +24

      probably done to keep the art style of scenes consistent unlike in a game like cyberpunk, where many story scenes were completely different which wasn’t what the developers intended. i do like how cyberpunk does things better though, as the whole point of path tracing to me is lost in this game due to it sacrificing accurate and perfect lighting for the art style

    • @mikkokoponen8464
      @mikkokoponen8464 Рік тому +18

      Art style is much more preferable. Accurate lighting is nice but creators intent is better. I don't want games to look bland like most of the real world.
      Still this game has great art style as is in cyberpunk even though they are going for realistic lighting.

    • @sandrocarletto9386
      @sandrocarletto9386 Рік тому

      @@mikkokoponen8464 if they would be able to keep the art style similar but also let full path tracing do it's thing it would be wonderful. in cyberpunk's case its true the scenes change a lot but the vibe is mostly intact.

    • @mikkokoponen8464
      @mikkokoponen8464 Рік тому

      I think the scenes in AW2 change very much and vibe is definitely there. Comparing Alan and Saga scenes are already quite different.

    • @pixels_per_inch
      @pixels_per_inch 11 місяців тому +1

      That definitely seems like it. Nvidia's Path Tracer only does 2 bounces which makes many indoor areas and corners pitch black in Cyberpunk, it makes sense they're relying on signed distance fields as a fallback.

  • @SpartanCarver
    @SpartanCarver Рік тому +5

    RTX 4070 Super? Labeled at 26:58
    THANK YOU for calling out the mouse stutter. Drives me crazy.

    • @sven957
      @sven957 Рік тому +1

      Why is barely anyone talking about the mouse stutter, its such a major issue. This game also has traversal stutter here and there.
      But I guess its not unreal engine so its not cool to complain about stutter

  • @existentialselkath1264
    @existentialselkath1264 Рік тому +69

    I've been looking forward to this.
    For the first time in a long time, asset quality is now the limiting factor in realism. Lighting is effectively a solved problem.

    • @squirrelsinjacket1804
      @squirrelsinjacket1804 Рік тому +11

      I'm hoping full ray tracing (aka path tracing) becomes the norm for AAA releases.

    • @SentinelxPrime
      @SentinelxPrime Рік тому +6

      I'm not sure about that, there still seemed to be issues with the GI system. It's good but not mind blowing.

    • @ImplyDoods
      @ImplyDoods Рік тому +10

      nah pathtracing as the way its used in these games still as problems mainly beacuse its using previous frame information to construct a good looking image and low sample and bounce counts not to mention its not simulating light asif it was a wave/partical but just a partical what is not entirely acurate and breaks some effects that work in real life nvidia released a paper on a wave/partical tracer that would be more acurate but its 10x slower so not viable for games

    • @existentialselkath1264
      @existentialselkath1264 Рік тому +3

      @@ImplyDoods sample counts are an easy fix. As time goes on you can run these games at higher internal resolutions which will increase the amount of samples. Ideally, you'd have better anti aliasing options including the ability to disable TAA for this future hardware, but any time that subject is brought up, DF gets strangely defensive. But regardless, higher resolutions are all you really need.
      My point isn't that this game looks perfect, it's that all the tech is now available to reach a level of perfect photorealism that we've seen in movie CGI for just over a decade now.
      As for wave/particle stuff. Stuff like spectral rendering is neat for edge cases, but if you avoid using complex materials you can render photorealistic images without it and even a lot of photoreal CGI rendered offline doesn't use it.

    • @alexatkin
      @alexatkin Рік тому +7

      Clearly not solved as pointed out in the video, but were much much closer. I will never understand people who dismiss lighting as not matters and its the biggest thing that gets us close to photo realism.

  • @a54
    @a54 Рік тому +59

    Outstanding video as always Alex. Your attention to detail is second to none and in this case really rewards the Remedy devs' attention to detail too! 👏

  • @Denden-kj3rn
    @Denden-kj3rn Рік тому +8

    i always get excited when alex talks about anything rt. Love his perspective

  • @haunter4764
    @haunter4764 Рік тому +18

    On my 3080, with PT at medium settings 1440p DLSS balanced, I only had 30FPS experience in the forest segments in Saga's story, the rest of the game, and all of Alan's story, it was smooth

    • @tezkhaos
      @tezkhaos Рік тому +5

      Those Saga forest sections seem to be the most demanding parts of the game. Return 2 tanks performance on PS5 in both quality and performance mode.

    • @api3de
      @api3de Рік тому +1

      rtx 4070 1440p,ultra,raytracing max with path tracing/dlss quality - minimum 50fps in the forest :)

    • @BigBoss-kk4sr
      @BigBoss-kk4sr Рік тому

      @@api3dewith frame gen?

    • @api3de
      @api3de Рік тому +1

      @@BigBoss-kk4sr yes,looks & runs great

    • @LargelyNonsense_818
      @LargelyNonsense_818 Рік тому

      Same for me. Seemingly all the scenes in Bright Falls have way more stuttering.
      I have to turn off RT entirely to get it to run well.
      Then I turn it back on when I get to Alan/Dark Place/'indoor' portions

  • @s26me
    @s26me Рік тому +8

    Between the hardware requirements and my backlog, cannot wait to play game in 5 years from now.

  • @pacomeleconte2962
    @pacomeleconte2962 Рік тому +7

    @26:49 it seems the RTX 4070 SUPER came out early :D
    Great video still !!

  • @191desperado
    @191desperado Рік тому +34

    I love that you took the “When it’s done” approach with your analysis of this one. Cheers for staying true to yourselves. 🍻

  • @simoncodrington
    @simoncodrington Рік тому +13

    Now this is some top quality coverage guys. Really keen on this one, especially showcasing the different RT effects and how they work both in still images and in motion. Keep it up!

  • @missfortune9269
    @missfortune9269 Рік тому +3

    The rounded surveillance mirror in the subway was really a wow moment for me

  • @primarchlogarius
    @primarchlogarius Рік тому +20

    Having RT on with max settings does increase the fright factor a lot more. Many a times I find some gleaming light or shadow and realize after getting scared that it was only my character’s reflection.

    • @deafblindnoob2748
      @deafblindnoob2748 11 місяців тому +2

      that happened to me in control dozens of times, way more often than in alan wake 2. rt changes atmosphere to varying degrees but that was one of the most game changing side effects.

  • @Unprotected1232
    @Unprotected1232 Рік тому +7

    19:00
    Alex and his path traced toilets. Name a more iconic duo.

  • @rightjoycon8452
    @rightjoycon8452 Рік тому +8

    Great editing on this one, love the Remedy/AWII style title cards.

  • @xblur17
    @xblur17 Рік тому +10

    Fantastic video. I wish they would give us a "pure pathtracing" mode with GI taking over all lighting

  • @bobbye4369
    @bobbye4369 Рік тому +5

    Once I go out of the forest sections, I was really able to take advantage of RT/Path Tracing on low, with all other settings on High/Ultra on a 3090 with a pretty solid framerate in the 80-90s. That forest section is just an absolute beating with RT/PT on.

    • @simongravel7407
      @simongravel7407 Рік тому +1

      True. Like a ~60% drop in performance. I guess there's too much geometric detail.

    • @PedroNWO
      @PedroNWO Рік тому

      New PC user here with a 3090 too. Do you recommend DLSS performance or balanced? I still don’t understand what this technology actually does. I feel if I use performance I’m doing it wrong so I put it on balanced.

    • @termitreter6545
      @termitreter6545 Рік тому

      @@PedroNWO DLSS you should either use quality or not at all. Because otherwise youre massively losing imagine clarity, while getting a lot more artifacts.
      Especially on a GPU like a 4090 you should never use balanced/performance. Otherwise why even have a high end GPU, if you just look at a blury image like that?

  • @CobraF1
    @CobraF1 Рік тому +10

    Ah! The video I've been waiting for hehe :) Time to find out how to optimize my RX 7900 XTX in AW2 but with keeping Raytracing (ideally path tracing).

    • @GOTEEGAMING
      @GOTEEGAMING Рік тому +1

      The game works great on my 4070 just put FSR 2 on quality u be good .

  • @TheAxb2010
    @TheAxb2010 Рік тому +4

    This took a lot of time to make. There are at least 3 changes in Alex's intonation so it feels like the video was done in 3 segments. The final result may be half an hour long but this a lot more time and a lot of work to accomplish.

  • @CakeMelons
    @CakeMelons Рік тому +3

    Hmm and i was thinking looking at faces in AW2 that rather weirdly there seems to be no SS which looked kinda bad. It does stand out in a bad way. But it turns out it's a byproduct of RR doing it's work. Also the fact that game seems to be using mix of GI solutions explains why Oliver in his video thought that there's much less difference in game's visuals on consoles compared to PC presentation than he was expecting. Excellent video Alex, thank you.

  • @DeathJam89
    @DeathJam89 Рік тому +10

    4070 Super? Did the rumours already become reality or am i missing something? :D

  • @bb5307
    @bb5307 Рік тому +73

    I kinda wonder how it would look like if something similar to AI ray reconstruction would be used on rasterization. like training a AI model to detect the parts that are wrong in a cascaded shadow and improving it to make it more realistic or improving the screenspace reflections. Sure it would never look like pathtracing but it would basically be a free upgrade i think?

    • @Crazy09starkillor
      @Crazy09starkillor Рік тому +10

      Reminds me of the "real life ai filter" video I saw for Gta 5

    • @gavinderulo12
      @gavinderulo12 Рік тому +14

      You would need a model for each part of the render pipeline. With Ray reconstruction you only need one.

    • @DMPLAYER1000
      @DMPLAYER1000 Рік тому +22

      I like this idea, but it seems like something that would take a lot of computational power just to do what ray tracing already does, but with a worse outcome. I think Nvidia’s making the correct choice by offloading ray tracing denoising to AI, and that will lead to better visual outcomes for the performance cost rather than training AI to fix up screen-space errors

    • @bb5307
      @bb5307 Рік тому +4

      @@DMPLAYER1000 I don't know, if you already have made 2 versions of the game (raster and pathtracing) the AI could be trained on the pathtraced version of the game to get a better idea how something is supposed to look like and more or less use that data to more accurately recognize the parts where rasterization is failing and improve on it.

    • @aladdin8623
      @aladdin8623 Рік тому +6

      It does not make sense to enhance rasterization per a.i. because you always want to train a.i. on the most accurate light and shadow calculations possible as a solid basis. A.I. RT and even PT does already exist by the way and can even run on a GTX 1050 or even intel iGPUs, no joke.

  • @biggreek4022
    @biggreek4022 Рік тому +34

    Im definitely a bit jealous of how clean the PC version looks..The only issue i have with console versions is the horrible implementation of FSR2..It's seriously horrible looking I haven't seen so much aliasing since the 360 Ps3 era...Other games that use FSR2 definitely still have aliasing but not even close to the same level as AW2...It really really takes away from the otherwise sublime visuals..

    • @RonniSchmidt-mi7pd
      @RonniSchmidt-mi7pd Рік тому +17

      You are jealous of DLSS optimization, PC with FSR has shimmer too
      This is a Nvidia optimized game

    • @vandammage1747
      @vandammage1747 Рік тому +8

      It's because native resolution is way too low. 850p on XSX/PS5 is basically ps3 output

    • @biggreek4022
      @biggreek4022 Рік тому +10

      @RonniSchmidt-mi7pd Thats not what I'm saying...DLSS is a much better upscaling solution but FSR2 is used in Starfield and Immortals of aveum and cyberpunk 2077 and like I originally stated they all have aliasing and shimmering issues but not even close to how badly it looks in AW2...Capcom updated RE4 remake on series x to use FSR2 and looked like a shimmering mess and a week later updated it again to go back to its original upscaling solution because it looked so much better....They can use other anti aliasing techniques on top of FSR2 to help lesson the horrible aliasing..

    • @biggreek4022
      @biggreek4022 Рік тому +6

      @vandammage1747 in quality mode it's about 1280p native...Immortals of Aveum is 1080p native upscale and still looks cleaner with less aliasing and shimmering.

    • @nuruddinpeters9491
      @nuruddinpeters9491 Рік тому +3

      Would be nice if customers had an option to buy nvidia sku hardware for home consoles, but thats not cost effective for either nvidia or sony/xbox.
      However...
      Nintendo will likely be your best bet, though their power budget on switch 2 will be pathetic, i am going to be stoked to see how DLSS creates relatively sharp as hell imagines for the tiny tablet screen...
      Wish my steamdeck could use an nvidia SOC like Nintendo's upcoming Switch 2. Im very jealous. Fack FSR.

  • @b4ttlemast0r
    @b4ttlemast0r Рік тому +22

    These errors that persist even with PT are exactly the kind of things you want to get rid of when turning PT on. I hope they can fix it and provide an option with uncompromised PT

    • @computron5824
      @computron5824 Рік тому +4

      It seems that the visual errors might be due to the fact that this is more of a hybrid path tracing mode than anything else. An accurate path tracer shoots a lot of rays per pixel at the same location which then bounce off into different paths to get an average of the pixel color each time it hits something else. Advertising these games as using path tracing can be a bit strange because there are areas which dont look path traced at all.

  • @CrispyGFX
    @CrispyGFX Рік тому +26

    What you guys do for the industry and for the consumers is invaluable.

    • @plazzy9911
      @plazzy9911 Рік тому +1

      Yup. Absolute champs. Only "commercially viable" Channel that actually calls out bullshit.

    • @samsabruskongen
      @samsabruskongen Рік тому

      hahah sure pal

  • @ScorpioNick
    @ScorpioNick Рік тому +9

    Watching this, I couldn't get out of my mind that the Max Payne 1&2 remake will be in this Northlight engine. That's going to be special indeed.

  • @TheNightstalker80
    @TheNightstalker80 7 місяців тому +2

    Yeah, can we talk about the PRICE for all that vidual glory? Getting a GPU that can handle all that is not cheap and by not cheap I mean extremely expensive. I'm not talking about a GPU where you can set RT to ON and play at about 50-60 frames, I'm talking about playing the game in 4k with REALLY good quality settings... A GPU that can handle that would cost at least about 900-1000 bucks!

  • @chungus1149
    @chungus1149 Рік тому +12

    "ray tracing is NOT diminishing returns"
    "Now if you zoom in at this bowl with coffee creamer"

    • @xentiment6581
      @xentiment6581 10 місяців тому +1

      Its all down to your perception.

  • @zackfair_og
    @zackfair_og Рік тому +24

    I'm honestly more impressed by CP77 path tracing especially because of it being open world

    • @mgkpraesi
      @mgkpraesi Рік тому +6

      cp 2.0 looks insane. thats true.

    • @Lucatekken
      @Lucatekken Рік тому +2

      This is because Cyberpunk lighting in Raster is much worse than RT and path tracing. AW2 is wonderful in Raster and gorgeous on PT.

    • @kukuricapica
      @kukuricapica Рік тому +2

      This is more about artistic choices imho. CP2077 has it’s world which is a world of year 2077. This game is taking place in woods and dark nighmarish NYC with a an aim to have that True Detective, s7ven, Ozark feeling to it. It’s not that northlight engine couldn’t do what CP2077 but like I have said…two completely different scenarios. I like AW2 more personaly but I do play it on 4080. I’m curious what would be Alexes opinion how the visuals scale between AW2 and CP2077 Overdrive.

    • @RCmies
      @RCmies Рік тому

      I don't think the fact that it's open world matters when it comes to path tracing because you're still rendering the same number of pixels and firing the same number of paths. Alan Wake 2 seems to have more realistic surfaces in some cases but overall cyberpunk seems to use the results of full path tracing better.
      Edit: Of course it's more difficult to control the look of global illumination in an open world so in that sense it's definitely more impressive what they were able to do with cyberpunk especially since it wasn't originally designed around path tracing.

    • @kukuricapica
      @kukuricapica Рік тому +1

      @@RCmies could be interesting to see if Nvidia use Northlight engine as it’s showcase for RT graphics and will patch AW2 to use full path tracing in the future. It seems to me that it’s matter of a few tweaks.

  • @Compusemble
    @Compusemble Рік тому +17

    This is probably the most technically advanced and impressive games ever. Excellent work by Remedy.

    • @raresmacovei8382
      @raresmacovei8382 Рік тому +6

      Nah, Cyberpunk still is the top dog

    • @dam8976
      @dam8976 Рік тому +2

      in graphics perhaps the gameplay is the same a any other game out there. i prefer better ai, physics and intereaction with enviroment than a game that you can t do almost anything.

    • @BryceCzirr-jz7ju
      @BryceCzirr-jz7ju Рік тому +1

      2077 with path tracing is still king. It's also a massive open world, making it more impressive.
      People may think AW2 looks better due to being more realistic looking while 2077 is a fantasy setting which can come off almost cartoony.

  • @xXRenaxChanXx
    @xXRenaxChanXx 11 місяців тому +2

    Funny how developers were able to produce nearly identical results in the past with techniques like baked lighting and cube mapping. And now suddenly everyone says it's impossible without RT? Bullshit. Also, if RT off actually means "RT software mode" they should label it as such.

  • @RavinduNanayakkara
    @RavinduNanayakkara Рік тому +7

    I hope Northlight won't have the same 'killed eventually by Unreal" fate like REDEngine.

  • @gebgeb1
    @gebgeb1 11 місяців тому +1

    Love how you emphasized the increased fidelity while the game is in motion, still image comparisons don't do rt effects justice a lot of the time atm. It's while the camera is moving that they just look and feel completely surreal

  • @myDorako
    @myDorako Рік тому +5

    I was waiting for you to point out that the two red ketchup squeeze bottles in in the diner scene were entirely omitted from the RT shadow and RT reflection.

  • @cosmic_gate476
    @cosmic_gate476 Рік тому +3

    I am so grateful that I lived to see what full pathtracing looks like on an OLED ultrawide monitor. Thank you God, for gracing me with such privilege and thank you DF for your coverage. Yours truly, a fellow graphics engineer.

    • @giannis_tar
      @giannis_tar Рік тому +2

      it really was all God's work, no one else's

  • @Superdazzu2
    @Superdazzu2 Рік тому +12

    actually playing 1440p dlss performance with low indirect path tracing at around 30 fps in saga sections and 40-60 in alan ones, plays really good and is a bit blurry but still better than most dlss games, this on a rtx 2080

    • @BrecklynFast
      @BrecklynFast Рік тому +2

      how I feel having to use DLSS performance on my 2080 super just to get 25 FPS @ 3440x1440

    • @flexplodin
      @flexplodin Рік тому +2

      I think that it is worth it. The 30% realism gain from full RT is just too good for me to pass up.

    • @timmyp6297
      @timmyp6297 Рік тому

      @@flexplodin DLSSp has always been the best for 1440p Ill die on that hill. If 1080p DLSSq looks acceptable, then 1440p DLSSp, which has the same base resolution, will not ever look worse than 1080p DLSSq. It is also the integer resolution (720x2=1440) when 1080p DLSSq is NOT. There are always inherent benefits to scaling from an integer resolution, and its no different here.
      *I sit 10 inches away from a 32inch monitor. It is in line with my face perfectly with an arm. You will never convince me that, in something like Witcher 3, there is a major difference between DLSS modes at 1440p and that its not worth using P just for the gains.

  • @TexelGuy
    @TexelGuy Рік тому +17

    I found out using DLSS tweaks that Alan Wake 2 for some reason uses the 'C' DLSS model preset by default instead of the Nvidia recommended default 'D' preset, causing far more temporal instability and aliasing in the image than you'd usually see compared to other recent big titles. For example in this video at 26:18, both the middle and especially the left video have tons of temporal instability in and around foliage, and this is *massively* improved by switching to the 'D' preset using DLSS tweaks. It's not as good as ray reconstruction because you'll still see subtle "splotching" effects, but the C preset is giving the hand tuned denoisers a huge disadvantage in that comparison. This improvement is visible with RT direct lighting turned off as well, and a lot more visible at lower internal resolutions.
    The C preset, as far as I remember, is only supposed to be used in older games or in games bad or broken motion vectors where the D preset will cause massive amounts of ghosting everywhere. This is not the case with Alan Wake 2 (the D preset works wonderfully, as expected from a modern game with good motion vectors), so it's puzzling that they'd pick that preset as the default, against what Nvidia recommends.
    The game also seems to be using a bad custom exposure value for DLSS, since turning on DLSS's 'AutoExposure' feature reduces ghosting massively in some specific situations I found. I _was_ playing the game in HDR when I tested this, so maybe the custom exposure value set by Remedy works fine only when in playing in SDR, but it's worth a shot.

    • @Serandi1987
      @Serandi1987 Рік тому

      I will sell my 4090 and get a 7900 XTX because I dont use RT at all and dont need it!

  • @360Fov
    @360Fov Рік тому +40

    Imagine the days when path traced lighting is an afterthought and even mobile games feature full RT ... I wonder how far that is... 15 years?

    • @flexplodin
      @flexplodin Рік тому +9

      Probably a 3 year overestimate, but better to give it that slack😋. I can't believe the progression. Video games are going to be the optimal way of telling a story across the board.

    • @blasianking4827
      @blasianking4827 Рік тому +38

      Up to 10 years, probably less. Ray tracing/path tracing will absolutely become the norm in some time.

    • @xephyrxero
      @xephyrxero Рік тому +6

      I think almost all 3D games on console and PC, and even some high end mobile ones will be raytraced by about 2030. For *all* mobile games to also be RT, then it probably will be 15 years...

    • @RonniSchmidt-mi7pd
      @RonniSchmidt-mi7pd Рік тому

      ​@@blasianking4827Spider man 2 is Ray tracing only playstation 5

    • @blasianking4827
      @blasianking4827 Рік тому

      And it's one of the first of its kind, and I imagine it relies on heavy upscaling.
      What I was more so talking about is a point where ray tracing is the default, and regular consumer hardware is able to comfortably run ray traced games instead of the heavy performance cost there is right now. @@RonniSchmidt-mi7pd

  • @JeremyHansenblue2kid3
    @JeremyHansenblue2kid3 Рік тому +1

    Optimized settings: PS5 performance settings// indirect path trac = low // transparency setting = low // denoise = low or RTX ray reconstruction // (some other but no idea what he is talking about will edit later when I have the game menu in front of me.)

  • @samgao
    @samgao Рік тому +8

    One thing they need to address is the details of collision and environmental effects. For example, when it started to rain, it was just a layer rather than the environment started to get wet. They had to make a whole new scene, apply the newly “wet puddles” and then insert you in. Also, you’d think the FBI jacket would be insanely reflective after getting hit by rain for just 5 minutes. Uncharted did this… so did MGS. Why not here?

  • @piewars12345
    @piewars12345 Рік тому +8

    Thanks for calling out the ray reconstruction/sub surface scattering point. I was trying to figure out why the game still had areas where you could see sss working, and others where it looked completely gone. Very weird and had me thinking the game looked like a downgrade from Control visually in many areas

  • @khs511
    @khs511 Рік тому +2

    Word of advice play this game on a big screen. It looks nuts.

  • @robhewitt5640
    @robhewitt5640 8 місяців тому +1

    I have this on my PC (4090) & Played the trial on my PS5. PC is obviously a lot better, but when your engaged in the game you dont notice all the differences. Its great how well optimised it is.

  • @amberlight303
    @amberlight303 Рік тому +15

    Such a joy to watch your videos, guys! So proficiently crafted. Beautiful speeches, such insanely deep dives into all these amazing technologies. Highly appreciated!

  • @gelvlc
    @gelvlc 11 місяців тому +2

    One annotation. If you focus the flashlight to a mirror you don't see the reflection of the flashlight on the near walls or objects. With RTX on or off.

  • @Skulka
    @Skulka Рік тому +4

    26:53
    RTX 4070 Super ? Does Alex knows something we don't ?

  • @chickenpasta7359
    @chickenpasta7359 Рік тому +2

    The shadows with path tracing really sells the photorealistic look

  • @dampflokfreund
    @dampflokfreund Рік тому +7

    It really sucks for Turing and Ampere users that the standard reflections, which can make a big difference, are locked behind path tracing.

    • @BrecklynFast
      @BrecklynFast Рік тому +1

      How does that suck? That hardware doesn't have capable technology to do ray tracing, it's not built for RT.

    • @dampflokfreund
      @dampflokfreund Рік тому +3

      @@BrecklynFast Bullshit. They could have used standard RT reflections like in many other games such as Control.

  • @Pale_Crow
    @Pale_Crow 10 місяців тому +2

    The whole RT thing is the same as physix when it was to hard to play a game with the phyisx...then most of the developers neglected the agony of it

  • @Xanias00
    @Xanias00 Рік тому +2

    I would have assumed that they are 'blending' path-tracing with the software GI system at least in part in order to preserve the artistic intent in certain scenes where full path-tracing may otherwise lead to a different/undesirable aesthetic outcome. Still a gorgeous game, but the overall technical impression is somehow a little less impressive than Cyberpunk's path tracing implementation (art aside, of course). Either way, really exciting to see developers embracing new technology in this way, especially in a game which seemingly does require such precise artistic lighting of scenes. Perhaps an unblended and improved path tracing mode would be a good addition for a potential rerelease some years down the line, as with Control's Ultimate edition/patched in ray tracing enhancements on PC. Thank you for the ever enlightening content!

  • @georgeindestructible
    @georgeindestructible Рік тому +1

    To be fair, this is why most gamers don't care about RT, because in 2:37 there is a great demonstration where in that picture, the difference shown could just be as if light was emitted towards that plant object from another type of perspective, which diminishes the added effects of realism from the RT respective since it becomes a matter of perspective at that point and not a matter of accuracy of how light actually interacts with objects irl.
    Most people don't even think about that fact.
    TLDR when something it's so good, and the difference seem to be just a matter of perspective + the performance of one perspective which provides so little costs so much, becomes a major issue.
    Thus, most people won't buy a 4090 to play AW2 but great analysis as always.

  • @AutoAbsolute
    @AutoAbsolute Рік тому +3

    I keep investing more in my gaming PC to have enough power to do games like this justice. Cyberpunk was a game changer - AW2 is taking it to the next level. DF 2 bringing quality content too - great job

  • @CarloVloet
    @CarloVloet 11 місяців тому +4

    Just a note on terminology (and pardon me if this appears a bit neckbeard scratchy, but given DF's leading role in educating the public on what graphics engineers work on, it would definitely be valuable to get terminology right):
    Tracing specular rays is not 'Path Tracing', it's called 'Whitted style Ray Tracing'. The 'Path' in Path Tracing denotes the simulation/approximation of all possible paths (in exact terms: a full solution to Kajiya's Rendering Equation, be that with a certain amount of variance and/or bias), so _only_ a solution with global illumination (using so called 'Final Gather' techniques) support can be considered Path Tracing (more specifically: 'Path Tracing' refers to the technique that does this in the 'straightforward' way with 'just' variance; other techniques like Photon Mapping or Radiosity or Metropolis Light Transport or whatnot are equal to Path Tracing in approximating Kajiya's Rendering Equation while tending to trade variance for bias).
    The important distinction of specular support of 'multiple bounces' (i.e: the standard direct visibility ray + shadow ray, and then an added bounce in between) is that it only attempts to simulate a _singular_ (so called 'Dirac delta') ray connection from the eye to the light (hence also the high frequency noise, which the denoiser goes to town on), which is fully true for direct shadow visibility as well ... and we don't call that Path Tracing either, do we?
    In 'Light Path Notation', the terminology can all be summed up as follows:
    'Basic' Ray Tracing (only direct lighting): EDL light path; Eye ray -> only one diffuse surface interaction -> shadow ray to light to terminate
    Whitted style Ray Tracing (direct lighting + reflection/refraction): ES*DL light path; Eye ray -> zero or more specular surfaces interactions -> only one diffuse surface interaction -> shadow ray to light to terminate
    Path Tracing (full Kajiya Rendering Equation solution): E(S|D)*L light path; Eye ray -> zero or more specular or diffuse surface interactions -> shadow ray to light to terminate
    The whole reason why Path Tracing is so hard is because of that defining difference of simulating diffuse bounce interactions, which implies that any singular incoming ray can spawn multiple outgoing rays, which can cause something called 'ray explosion'. As we don't have infinite processing power (and will likely not get there for quite some time :p), this needs to be approximated, which is done using 'Final Gather' techniques (fascinating subject in and on itself, but probably too much for a UA-cam comment).
    To get this point across rather elegantly: if you'd have a full path traced simulation and infinite processing power, in the end you wouldn't even need to cast those super artifical shadow rays, as shadows would just be the implicit result of the absence of light. That's what makes any correct approximation to Kajiya's Rendering Equation (like Path Tracing) so much of a holy grail: it simulates actual physical light (within the limits of the model used), and reality just falls out of that equation implicitly.
    And yeah, in reality of course specularity and diffuseness are kind of two sides of the same coin from a material perspective; they just describe how much light is absorbed by the surface (i.e internally reflected until energy is lost) vs reflected. But from the limitations of a computer model vs actual reality, these kind of distinctions are important (defining, even). So, hopefully this explains in a bit more detail why 'Specular Indirect Lighting' (which is an absolutely valid and useful term in and on itself) does not actually imply path tracing.
    Anyway, excellent video and great to see how passionate and thorough you are in educating your audience, Alex. So this is mostly meant as a refinement to the broader understanding (although runaway incorrect terminology is nothing new in the industry, so I have no delusions my wall of text will do anything more than be of potential interest to those of us who geek out about this kind of stuff).

    • @ARBB1
      @ARBB1 11 місяців тому +1

      Very informative

  • @TheMybabloo
    @TheMybabloo Рік тому +2

    3:42 just mind blowing shadow. Totally worth to enable RT at least to see this

  • @notthere83
    @notthere83 10 місяців тому +1

    Man, reminds me of how 20 years ago, I experimented with path tracing renderers at university and had conversations around whether that could ever be done in real time... especially because to get the noise to acceptable levels, you had to render for a really long time.

  • @kjellvb1979
    @kjellvb1979 Рік тому +4

    I noticed that turning on ray tracing claims it will disabled a couple of settings, but they are still listed as on ( such as SSAO) and I had to manually turn the settings off... Not sure if that actually made a difference, but I figured I would mention such.

  • @rwells3325
    @rwells3325 Рік тому +2

    chain link fences rarely fall off as much as they do in the ray tracing example and does make sense in the real world depending on the lighting.

  • @iconoclastvii
    @iconoclastvii 10 місяців тому +3

    Need to send this to the Clown I saw recently arguing that rasterization was too good to make RT worthwhile.

    • @trauma50disaster1
      @trauma50disaster1 9 місяців тому +1

      I'll be your Bozo-berry...rt is the future but not yet

  • @bryanroy3239
    @bryanroy3239 Рік тому +1

    Wow those shadows from the crochet curtains blew my mind. 🤯

  • @Martel4
    @Martel4 Рік тому +3

    I've been playing with RT on and suffering the decrease in frames. Worth it tho. Game is pretty stable. When you first enter the overlap and the red light is shining thru the leaves I just had to keep it on.

  • @AndyGilleand
    @AndyGilleand 11 місяців тому +1

    Alex, I think your PC monitor may have its brightness set too high. A lot of your videos include really dark shots that can't be seen well unless I watch with the lights out. I have my C2 calibrated to 175 nits in SDR mode, optimized around my lighting conditions.

  • @missfortune9269
    @missfortune9269 Рік тому +2

    Remedy, bring us pure path tracing in an update, I have the power to withstand it

  • @MrBeetsGaming
    @MrBeetsGaming Рік тому +1

    I've seen so many people complaining about how demanding this game is say "it doesn't even look that good" or "it looks like a game from 2016" and I definitely disagree...

  • @bluedragon219123
    @bluedragon219123 Рік тому +8

    Even without Ray Tracing on the lighting alone in modern games make a comparable look which is still impressive. Still Great Job! :)

  • @missfortune9269
    @missfortune9269 Рік тому +1

    Thank you Alex for this, frankly, listening to you go in such detailed description of the graphical features of this game, it is really turning me on

  • @JazerMedia
    @JazerMedia Рік тому +3

    It's definitely a beautiful game, but I think I prefer Cyberpunk's more pure form of PT, it makes for some truly jaw dropping scenes.

  • @Mikx100
    @Mikx100 Рік тому +2

    Thank you for doing this. I just cranked the settings to eleven and played the game, now i can appreciate every detail.

  • @VanillaWahlberg
    @VanillaWahlberg Рік тому +6

    The shadow maps alone have always, always irritated me. I didn't know what that was before. Thank you!

    • @alexatkin
      @alexatkin Рік тому +4

      Shadow quality was literally the first thing I would turn down for performance, as they looked so bad on any setting. Ambient Occlusion seemed far more important as those are the shadows that give objects depth. (was huge in Assassins Creed games for roof tiles)
      So pathtracing is really exciting to me as it solves all the lighting/shadow issues, or at least will eventually once we can fully rely on it instead of still needing fallbacks for performance reasons.

    • @VanillaWahlberg
      @VanillaWahlberg Рік тому

      @@alexatkin The tree shimmering shadows has been an irritation for me since GTA IV, way back in 2008. I didn't know it was fixable until now lol. Path tracing is definitely something to invest in versus standard ray tracing. There's actually a noticeable difference.

  • @missfortune9269
    @missfortune9269 Рік тому +1

    Oh, I tought the stutters when moving camera with mouse was a problem on my end, but it turns out it's a bug from the game, thanks for mentioning that

  • @Maggpieify
    @Maggpieify Рік тому +3

    I know RT is the future, mostly due to how much work time is saved from letting RT do the heavy lifting instead of spending so much time faking it. However I find that in AW2 just like Metro Exodus, a good looking game just looks good. And RT is just a horizontal visual alternative to me not a next level game changer. And honestly not worth the performance hit, until you can RT at a small enough cost to performance I dont see the benefit for consumers at all. That said good looking games are good looking. The only true upgrade of RT is in reflections, SSR artifacts and limitations being replaced by RT reflections is a game changer. Light and shadows tho you can fake it well enough to basicly be no difference at the cost of more dev work.

    • @Mondoxf
      @Mondoxf Місяць тому

      You are right, its not game changer, but it does look better in RT. You can activate frame gen for those lost fps, and obviously they develop those technologies knowing that its impossible to hit 60+fps with fully raytraced scenarios without a huge performance hit
      I think is wrong keep blaming the RT tech because of his inherent computational needs.
      Cheers from Argentina

  • @0rdyin
    @0rdyin Рік тому +2

    There are certain SSR algorithms that caches the current frame and reprojects to fill in the missing data caused due to dis-occlusion , but these algorithms are very niche and very performance intensive.. These algorithms doesn't completely removes the dis-occlusion artifacts, it just reduces them...
    But still I wonder how the game would look, if they used real time cubemaps and planer reflections for the reflections along with baked GI for primary light bounces and screen space global illumination for secondary bounces for the diffuse lighting... and instead of cascade shadow maps, how about, resolution independent contact hardening virtual shadow maps...

  • @duncanfraser2390
    @duncanfraser2390 Рік тому +6

    Doesnt matter how 'good' a game looks, it needs to run good as well.

    • @MrBurtbackerack
      @MrBurtbackerack Рік тому +1

      It does run well. Path tracing is optional and is still kinda experimental and it does destroy performance but the fact we can do it in realtime now is pretty crazy. Without it AW2 still looks great, and it runs pretty great too.

    • @BryceCzirr-jz7ju
      @BryceCzirr-jz7ju Рік тому

      Stop being poor and buy a 4090.

    • @ZalvaTionZ
      @ZalvaTionZ Рік тому

      Turn down the settings. The options menu is there for a reason.

  • @parttimehuman
    @parttimehuman 10 місяців тому +1

    I just realized that the implantation of raytracing is probably even more of a nightmare than I thought because now you can't simply cull everything outside of the frustum. Nuts.

  • @johnnovelravancho8944
    @johnnovelravancho8944 Рік тому +5

    Remedy totally justified those PC specs requirement to run AW2. They really pushed the boundaries on what current hardwares are capable to do when done right. It is insanely jaw dropping how beautiful AW2 is.

  • @Falconite
    @Falconite Рік тому +5

    Its the best looking game I've ever seen. I just beat it a couple days ago. It is a feast for the eyes and imagination. The way they handle shadow rendering is just the best I've ever seen. Even more fitting that shadows are a main theme in this game. Truly just floored me multiple times because of how well things look and are rendered. I got butterflies in my stomach creeping around eerily quiet, dark rooms in that game. I dont think any game has made me feel that in ages. Such a special game and triumphant technical showcase. I am in awe.

  • @anony88
    @anony88 Рік тому +20

    Great lighting makes such a stupidly massive difference. Hoping Rockstar improves on this.

    • @ttghhgg1918
      @ttghhgg1918 Рік тому +11

      I think rockstar has the best lighting engine I think red dead 2 is still the pinnacle of lighting without raytracing

    • @squirrelsinjacket1804
      @squirrelsinjacket1804 Рік тому +4

      Agreed, I'm really hoping GTA 6 includes path tracing and the latest DLSS version on release for PC (and at least some use of ray tracing for the less powerful consoles). I'm expecting the game to be cutting edge with a lot of it's gameplay features as well.

    • @anony88
      @anony88 Рік тому

      ​​@@ttghhgg1918after seeing digital foundry's review on the latest cyberpunk 2.0 update, I disagree. You gotta watch it. Rdr 2 doesnt have that level of lighting. Rdr 2 does look great even without raytracing, but it would no doubt look better if it had full raytracing. Gta 6 will look next level with proper raytracing.

    • @anony88
      @anony88 Рік тому +1

      ​@@squirrelsinjacket1804yeah same.

    • @Chasm9
      @Chasm9 Рік тому +2

      @@squirrelsinjacket1804 I really hope GTA6 will ship with at least some RT features. Reflections, GI maybe? The most wishful thinking territory would be full on path tracing, but hey.. that's probably not going to happen 🤔 but man... that'd be awesome.

  • @carl3941
    @carl3941 Рік тому +1

    Got to love how the title of the video is called Alan Wake , but the thumb nail is Saga.... Sagas story 2

  • @desmondbrown5508
    @desmondbrown5508 Рік тому +5

    No offense though, the mirrors look VERY weird in this game, even with all ray tracing on. The game does a fantastic job in some places with reflections, but then in others (like mirrors) does a pretty crummy job. I get materials having imperfections (hey that's reality too), but what mirror doesn't give you mostly crisp sharp reflections? That's the ENTIRE POINT of a mirror. And what's more bizarre with those mirrors is that they are ALMOST always (might even be always, unless I'm remembering incorrectly) in small, tightly condensed spaces. So the fact they couldn't render the image properly with path tracing seems wrong/odd to me.

    • @musicxxa6678
      @musicxxa6678 Рік тому

      Mirrors are kryptonite of video games. Extremely expensive

    • @sven957
      @sven957 Рік тому

      @@musicxxa6678 I mean last of us remake did it pretty much perfectly.

  • @SquirrelHybrid
    @SquirrelHybrid 11 місяців тому +1

    The next level in visual fidelity for non-VR gaming is already here with real stereoscopic 3D à la Acer SpatialLabs 3D Ultra, but most of the big tech channels have been overlooking it for the past year. 🤔 Maybe they'll take notice next year when all the 27" glasses-free 3D monitors hit the market. 😄

  • @existentialselkath1264
    @existentialselkath1264 Рік тому +5

    26:50 hold up. 4070 super? What?!

  • @DustinKono
    @DustinKono Рік тому +1

    Thank you, Alex. Was waiting for this video. Top notch work you do. Cheers!

  • @deoduceassassin
    @deoduceassassin Рік тому +3

    Somtimes on my 3080 I’ll just go to a really well lit area and max all my settings just to look at it. I’ll be getting like 24fps but by god does it look like the greatest thing ever.

  • @killerfugu2659
    @killerfugu2659 Рік тому +1

    Amazing video and attention to detail.
    I wish every game had RT to remove SSR, gotta be the single most distracting effect in gaming history.