Earlier this week, we informed you about a new Reshade that aims to bring real-time ray tracing Global Illumination to pretty much all DX9, DX10 and DX11 games. And today, some users shared videos and screenshots from Batman: Arkham Knight, Yakuza Kiwami 2 and Quake, showcasing the alpha version of this Reshade mod.
The first video comes from YouTube’s member Rare and showcases Yakuza Kiwami 2. Now while the real-time ray tracing Global Illumination effects make the environment pop, it also comes with an annoying side effect. As you will notice, there is a shadow silhouette surrounding Kiryu that is more noticeable during lit scenes. I don’t know whether this can be fixed in a future version so here is hoping that Pascal Gilcher, creator of this Reshade mod, will be able to resolve it (or at least minimize the side effect).
The second video is perhaps the best showcase of the real-time ray tracing Reshade mod. YouTube’s ‘EiermannTelevision’ has used it in order to improve the visuals in the first Quake game and the results are actually pretty great. Quake does not feature any indirect lighting (or baked lighting) which is why the results are that good. However, I was not blown away the same way I was when I first show Tenebrae. Tenebrae is a mod for Quake that added stencil shadows and per pixel lights. Stencil shadows allowed for realistic shadow effects on every object in the game world and per pixel lighting allows you to have fine surface details correctly lit. These techniques were first used in Doom 3 and it was truly incredible playing Quake with these graphics effects.
Last but not least, Resetera’s member Rare shared comparison screenshots between the original/vanilla (left) and the Reshaded ray tracing (right) versions of Batman Arkham Knight. We strongly suggest opening the images in new tabs so that you can more easily see the visual differences.
All in all, this new Reshade can indeed improve the visuals of older titles. However, the visuals improvements in games that use baked lighting will not be that great. Not only that, but there are currently some graphical issues/artifacts with the way that the real-time ray tracing Global Illumination is being calculated. Furthermore, this Reshade comes with a significant performance hit (for example, an NVIDIA RTX2080Ti is unable to run Yakuza Kiwami 2 at 1080p with 60fps).
Here is hoping that the graphical issues will be at least fixed in the upcoming beta (or in the retail/public) version of this Reshade mod.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Literally no discernible difference in the Batman pics.
Pretty much the only obvious difference I’m noticing is that of the store signage to the immediate left of Batman’s head plus the more defined shadows on the ground.
Looks like HDR compared to SDR. The difference is subtle.
Actual HDR is anything but subtle compared to SDR.
I’m not sure what your point is.
The other picture got higher contrast and brightness. Just like HDR does.
they should checkout RE4 and 5. a few of last gen games.
The only thing that i see differen is the window’s glass on the left. Nothing else. The comparision is poor.
You can see it in a puddle on right, but yeah…
I don’t even see the point. I mean i like progress but man i hardly see any difference in batman and it’s a “still” image. Imagine playing the game you wouldn’t see sht and still get the potential performance hit.
Hmmm
This is just an extremely poor comparison.
It makes no sense to use this in a game like Batman, which is always night time.
This is more useful for old games with outdated looking lighting. Games that already have very good prebaked lighting won’t see much improvement.
Damn you DSOG, now I want to play through the Quake series again. Maybe in VR this time 🙂
Quake 1 & 2 are playable in VR…
The only difference I can see is the window on the left.
Is the 10 frame drop worth it for that window?
Yes, the window is worth it
Winodow >> Blow Jab
There are better reshade mods out there. This doesn’t make much of a difference. A semnificant difference at least.
i sacrificed more for less.
Does that sacrifice involve any goats?
Patrons already have access to the alpha, and the shown off stuff doesn’t do it justice, here are some of my screens from GTAV. This article is a bit poor. https://imgur.com/gallery/lPTOfV6
These look great but the problem with judging this technique from screenshots is that it’s a temporal effect. It samples multiple frames so the longer you keep the camera still the better the image gets (at least for 20 frames or however many you set it to sample). In motion it’s a completely different story.
Is it much to hope for proper implementation of RTX cores alongside this injector
Please don’t link to hate sites like ResetEra.
lol
Its reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeRa
https://vgtimes.ru/news/57399-yakuza-kiwami-2-batman-arkham-knight-i-quake-zapustili-s-reytreysingom-s-pomoschyu-moda.html
Russian site using the structure of this article but with less text.
https://www.hd-tecnologia.com/aqui-estan-quake-yakuza-kiwami-2-y-batman-arkham-knight-con-ray-tracing/
Another site translating your article word for word and reposting it? Did you allow these?
Also, you’re lacking a reference to this Resetera person. Google doesn’t find a Resetera post with these images and you didn’t provide a link.
It’s screen space GI. Stop calling it ray tracing