r/pcmasterrace • u/Antique_Designer69 • 15h ago

Game Image/Video RDR 2 still looks incredible on pc even without rtx

Doesn't feel 8 years old at all

10.3k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

816 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/Seanspeed 8h ago edited 8h ago

What's really held praise for ray tracing back is the dramatic slowing of improvements in performance per dollar over time. A 4070Ti will let you comfortably use RT or even PT in games while still getting good performance, but it cost $800(on release). So people see that and say, "Well geez, ray tracing requires these very expensive GPU's, that sucks". Except a 4070Ti should not be called a 4070Ti and cost $800. It is a MIDRANGE GPU. Not even upper midrange, just an actual midrange GPU, ala RTX3060. Sub 300mm², 192-bit bus, 12GB VRAM.

Imagine how much more accessible ray tracing would feel if that same 4070Ti was called a 4060Ti and cost $450 instead. And this still lets Nvidia sell it a tier higher than this sort of GPU used to be, I'm not asking for Nvidia to act as a charity here. Nvidia really fucked us hard, and put accessible ray tracing(that didn't require heavy compromises elsewhere) out of the hands of most. 50 series didn't meaningfully move the needle much at all in terms of improvements in performance per dollar, either. So RT/PT still feels inaccessible to most without big compromises today. Until Nvidia actually gives us a lot more power at a given price tier, then people are going to continue to not be super positive about ray tracing.

1

u/MTechnik 7h ago

And now a 5080 is $100 more expensive than it was a year ago.