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World of Tanks will be using Ray Tracing via Intel’s oneAPI, will support DirectX 11 GPUs

Wargaming has announced that World of Tanks will support Ray Tracing via Intel’s oneAPI. Wargaming will be using ray tracing for for shadows and lighting in direct sunlight, and will support both DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 graphics cards.

As Wargaming stated:

“With the introduction of our Ray Tracing (RT) technology—developed at Wargaming with close collaboration with Intel—we can recreate the ‘main actors’ of our game in higher quality; their smallest details will give super-realistic shadows when the sun hits them. Ray Tracing further immerses you in an atmosphere of furious tank combat and provides an even more enjoyable gameplay experience.”

This is a really interesting implementation as it will not require DX12 or DXR. Not only that, but all DX11-capable GPUs will be able to support these upcoming Ray Tracing features. However, the Ray Tracing effects will be present only for intact vehicles. Damaged vehicles will not have any RT effects, so I don’t really see what’s the point here. Still, DX11 PC owners will be able to get a taste of Ray Tracing effects.

According to Intel, oneAPI Rendering Toolkit is meant to be used to develop high-performance, high-fidelity, extensible, and cost-effective visualization applications through rendering libraries.

All in all, this doesn’t sound as advanced as the Ray Tracing effects that most DXR games are currently using. Still, we believe that this implementation will allow more and more gamers to experience RT on their machines. And that is good news… at least in our opinion.

Wargaming has not announced when it will be adding Ray Tracing to World of Tanks, however, we’ll be sure to keep you posted!

6 thoughts on “World of Tanks will be using Ray Tracing via Intel’s oneAPI, will support DirectX 11 GPUs”

  1. why it only work on intact vehicle? once there is change to the parameter then it is no longer applicable? this sounds a lot like what baked effect has done before where game developer end up have to baked the effect depending on the scene.

    btw this oneAPI i take is intel proprietary API. in a way it is similar to game library like Gameworks or GPU Open since it is not part of Direct X API.

    1. They might be using a precomputed distance field for each of the tanks. If destruction can dynamically alter the meshes then the distance field would no longer “fit” so the shadows would look wrong.
      I assume the main point of the feature is to cast realistic shadows on the tank you’re driving. I haven’t played the game but I imagine you don’t spend much time driving tanks that have been deformed already.

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