MachineGames has just released the first patch for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle that adds support for Path Tracing. So, time to see what Path Tracing can actually do in this triple-A game. Does it greatly enhance the game’s visuals? Let’s find out.
In this article, we won’t be talking much about the performance hit of Path Tracing. We’ll have a separate article that will go live tomorrow. For now, let’s see the visual improvements of Full Ray Tracing/Path Tracing.
The in-game settings for Path Tracing allow you to enable RT Sun Shadows, RT Reflections and RT Indirect Illumination. And yes, in case you’re wondering, you can enable each of them individually.
To capture these screenshots, we used an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D with 32GB of DDR5 at 6000Mhz, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090. We also used Windows 10 64-bit, and the GeForce 566.14 driver. I know there is a new driver for the game. Moreover, we’ve disabled the second CCD on our 7950X3D. Path Tracing was set to its max settings, and I used DLSS 3 Quality with Frame Generation.
So, the Path Tracing screenshots are on the left, whereas the non-PT screenshots are on the right.
The good news here is that RT Sun Shadows fix all the shadow issues I had with non-PT version. With Path Tracing, shadows will no longer appear right in front of you. The same applies to RT Indirect Illumination. With it enabled, you won’t see any lighting changes happening in two or three meters. Not only that, but we now have better AO thanks to Path Tracing. Take a good look at the jungle shots. Without Path Tracing, the environment feels fake. With Path Tracing, it looks exactly the way it was supposed to.
I can’t stress enough how much better the game looks with Path Tracing. Its lighting and shadows are now consistent while moving around. This was one of my biggest issues with the game. And now, we can finally enjoy it without all those annoying pop-ins.
Now as you will see, performance takes a big hit. And, to be honest, this does not really surprise me. This is Path Tracing we’re talking about. Of course and it’s so demanding. So, you’ll need an RTX 4090 for gaming at 4K with DLSS 3. I also don’t expect the RTX 5090 to be able to handle it at Native 4K. It’s a miracle we can even play a modern-game with Path Tracing.
As said, tomorrow we’ll have some benchmarks at both Native 4K and with DLSS 3. Until then, enjoy the screenshots!
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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This is not worth losing half of fps. Ray tracing is a mistake.
Makes no sense for a game with a static time of day where they could've just baked in the lights instead. Consumer-level GPUs just aren't strong enough to pull it off at good resolutions and frame rates, and likely won't be for a few generations either.
It’s pushes sales. Generates excitement around the game. Remember that survey that said most gamers spend more time watching videos of games than playing games? It also makes me notice a game that I otherwise wouldn’t have cared about. Some people don’t care for it. Some people also think 1080P is great and 60Hz is the most the eye can see. I can’t fix stupid.
Makes no sense for a game with a static time of day where they could've just baked in the lights instead. Consumer-level GPUs just aren't strong enough to pull it off at good resolutions and frame rates, and likely won't be for a few generations either.
I'm running full pt at high settings in 1440p with my 4070.
Great!
At what frame rate? The game is a VRAM hog and with 12GB VRAM, it's very hard to run at 1440p and high settings with PT and DLSS Frame Generation (unless you are running without it enabled). The requirements were actually spot on – you can do 60FPS at 1080p low, Full RT with DLSS Quality and Frame Generation enabled on an RTX 4070.
at what 45 fps? fake fps fg and dlss to boot mkay.
Let me do a quick math here 12GB -RT 2GB -PT 2GB -FG 2GB =
=6GB FOR geometry and textures
there are already mods for LOD changes, because graphic textures look blurry
we are here on 1660-6GB level of geometry and textures from 2016. PT made all 5060, 5070, 5080 look asthmatic.
I LIKE THE 18GB VRAM REQUiREMENTS for path tracing 4k
18-20gb Vram usage!
It's insane!
Who needs raytracing when games already look this good?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz8bljU9rWY
People who are claiming that path-tracing produces fake lighting should learn that in reality it's an algorithm that computes how light behaves in the real world, which is why the whole CGI industry has started using it many years ago.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/51374d5984ff85cc7c0d36a11885034f5e3d328a43141420366554008c1e9f76.png
That is what I say to those individuals. Those who say PT or, RT are not transformative from Raster, needs an appointment to eye specialist. If you don’t know how lighting works naturally, then you are living in the wrong planet!
Raytracing/path-tracing is not how light "behaves in the real world". Do you shoot rays of light out of your eyeballs mfer? I thought not.
Raytracing is very good at 1 very specific thing. Specular reflections. That's it! It's not good at it in realtime, but it can do it properly if you don't mind horrible FPS. That's all it's good at. That's why every Nvidia raytracing demo looks either like a damp rain forest full of puddles or a world made out of reflective chrome.
Note that I said raytracing is only good at specular reflections, i.e. mirror-like surfaces. Raytracing can not do diffuse reflections, doing that with raytracing would require rays going in millions of directions and your game would run at 1 fps.
Raytracing can not show interreflections and light bleeding between objects. That's why we invented radiosity.
Raytracing can not do caustics or volume scattering ($2000 RTX 4090 owners are too stupid to notice they still can't render accurate fog, dust, volumetric shadows, etc). That's why we invented photon mapping.
Raytracing is also unable to show light obfuscation, the darkness of corners in a room, the dark shadow volumes where objects touch, etc, it's quite bad at giving a scene depth. Screen space ambient occlusion is what will continue to be used. Again, to solve this we invented radiosity, because raytracing can't do it.
Raytracing can't even properly render a gummy bear, it can't render a glowing object properly, it can't render a pleasing cosy scene even, since it requires interreflections, something every other lighting model has no issues with. That's why every raytraced scene looks cold and unwelcoming, the lack of interreflections.
As it turns out, raytracing/path-tracing is actually quite bad at mimicking how light behaves, and Nvidia is very good at marketing.
My man, with that much knowledge, how come you are not working in the CGI/VFX industry?
I mean, there's this little studio based in New Zealand called Weta[FX] (Digital) run by a bunch of amateurs who apparently have been doing it wrong all this time.
That's because they have written their own in-house renderer based on path-tracing, which I now learned is the wrong technique, thanks to you!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6d8b0eaedc903546e4ff48dd23f295708489b095b27a1c07387552d2ba1a20e1.png
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/821e629c9419fc7172b4c00c21859114b8af25578912276139e96dc2a875a60f.png
And BTW, those same New Zealandian sheeps are using Linux instead of Windows, probably because they are too cheap to pay for the Enterprise Edition of it.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6ff3e3cfc501cf6b5c6c1f7b4a2125cd295dd6e3d499bdbf86d44e0ffa262428.png
What a bunch of sheep-fµckers, please go down-under there and tell 'em how to run a successful CGI/VFX business without using such pathetic technologies like path-tracing or freeware like Linux!!!
It depends on how many rays/bounces the RT implemetation is allowed to produce (due to performance restrains).
If it is heavily restricted it can look less realistic that raster.
A common issue for example with RT that I witness it in a lot of games is that interiors are unrealistically dim, due to the low amount of bounces.
When are people going to learn that Ray Tracing and Path Tracing are also rasterized? All video is rasterized by default because monitors only accept rasterized graphics. Instead of being called Rasterization it should be called Traditional Processing or Traditional Lighting
It's not just the performance hit that bothers me with raytracing. It's not just the fact that it barely looks different from rasterisation, and often looks worse.
I hate raytracing because it's yet more completely unnecessary graphical bloat that does not increase my enjoyment of gaming in any way. No one asked for raytracing, Nvidia pushed it down people's throat.
Games now require HOURS to download, MINUTES to boot, MINUTES to compile shaders.
I do not want your giant 120GB obese raytracing game with 4k textures and 200 graphical settings, that runs at 30fps.
And those 3 pixel peepers from Digital Foundry should stick their magnifying glass where the sun doesn't shine. Enough with these autistic graphics wh0res.
Ah, then go buy a console and have fun.
You sound like me 30 years ago complaining about 3D graphics in games
So, this path traced 'image' runs at half the FPS, has blown out highlights and lacks proper shadows.
4090 owners need to stop convincing themselves raytracing or path tracing is worth it, lmao, this is pure trash.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/278b2940c7b61a594cf56e7a702b865f38029f1ad64c3639742a462a5d144c08.gif
4090 owners are waiting for the 5090 to drop, TAKE MY MONEY!
its not about worth it or not, its about wherever it looks better and it does, the requirements are still insane.
The screenshots with RT look like you turned up Bloom and Vibrance, so they look much worse for me.
Now this is how it should be done. From DOOM Eternal’s RT update, MachineGames has come a long way to take things further. This has really changed the whole game.
Since I don't care about graphics much and think gameplay is much more important, I wouldn't be willing to take the fps hit just yet.
Most of the screenshots without path tracing look better… Especially the outdoor scenes.
In screenshots yes but in actual video there is a huge difference. The shadows without Path Tracing are really harsh and flicker as you move through the jungle while with Path Tracing the shadows are softer, don't flicker and look more realistic although IMO they are a little too soft. What they really need to do is add traditional Ray Traced shadows to the normal settings which would make them look better but without the huge performance hit. Also there is no Ray Reconstruction in the Path Tracing version because Ray Reconstruction uses another DLL that just isn't present in the game (I looked)
Sounds like the game devs didn't configure things correctly.
Just played the first level of the game with path tracing. There are a few quirks but overall I am absolutely blown away. The model quality, the textures, the lighting, the animations (when they're not jittery 30hz). Absolutely superb. I'm playing it with DLDSR + DLSS Quality + FG at 4K and FPS is a bit sus due to how demanding it is. Anywhere from 45-85fps so far. 5090 will likely/hopefully solve it and allow 80-120fps. But it's a truly gorgeous game if it continues on like the first level.
DLDSR at 4K? Chill man
Along with DLSS Quality. Basically it’s like Native + DLAA but looks way better.
DLDSR + DLSS is not like native + DLAA. There's a lot of extra steps. DLAA is just DLSS without doing upscaling.
DLDSR 2.25x + DLSS Quality renders at 4K resolution. Same as Native + DLAA. At roughly the same cost. But with better image quality.
It doesn't result into an exact 3840×2160, but close.It's not the same as native + DLAA because there's a lot more image processing going on with all the downsampling and upscaling involved… it's simply not the same as DLAA alone in any way, of course people started parroting this the moment DLAA was announced (predictably) but it's just not correct. DLAA is also considerably less demanding than the DLDSR + DLSS trick nowadays, I think it was more demanding when it was introduced and it could also tank performance in CP2077 specifically for some reason, but now it seems to cost only 1-3 FPS in general whereas the performance cost of 2.25x DLDSR + DLSS Quality mode is roughly in between native and 2.25x DLDSR alone.Yes it’s an exact 3840×2160.
DLSS Quality mode takes an internal resolution of 66,6% the final output resolution, so you'd end up slightly off with the pixel count due to recurring decimals. But actually, it's rounded up (or down) when it comes to pixels so you're right, it ends up being an exact 3840×2160. I had forgotten about this detail when I wrote the comment.
The rest of what I said still stands though.
Had to go back to find this from Reddit a few months ago. Demonstrates the performance similarity and visual improvements.
https://imgsli.com/MjM1MjE3
It’s likely due to high performance overhead already being present in that situation, maybe because the game is running at 4K or has ray tracing enabled which could be a limiting factor alone. If you’re trying to run less demanding games, perhaps at lower resolutions or without ray tracing, the performance difference becomes more apparent (timestamp):
https://youtu.be/c3voyiojWl4?t=889
DLAA picture way sharper with more details.
as AI was used on right DLAA picture.
https://imgsli.com/MjM1MjE1
lol my bad that’s the wrong link. The labels are flipped. The right side is DLDSR. The left is DLAA. You can tell by the size of the msi afterburner OSD. Edited the link in the post (have to change the 1 at the end of the link to a 3) and is awaiting moderation approval.
The DLDSR + DLSS Quality image runs it up to 5760×3240 I believe, which DLSS Quality then brings down to 3840×2160. But elements on screen will now render smaller due to it being brought down from a larger original resolution. The extra upscale processing by DLDSR results in a superior image with far more detail and clarity. That's why I can't play games without DLDSR anymore.
I'm surprised by your performance, my 4090 with very ultra 4k, all rt option enabled rocks a solid 60fps with only dlss quality mode…
Ps: it is a truly gorgeous game 🙂
DLDSR my friend.
I doubt a 5090 is going to give you a 50+% gain in performance. You'll be lucky to see even 25%. The reason there was a big gain between the 3090 and the 4090 was the node went from a 8nm Samsung to a vastly superior 4nm TSMC node. This time it is a 4nm (4N) to a slightly denser 4nm (4NP) node both on TSMC.
Large gains come from node shrinks because you have more transistors per sq mm to work with while minor architecture changes only give you small gains.
I’m expecting combined improvements to raster, rt, and fg, along with the substantial memory bandwidth increase to result in more than a 50% boost in path traced games. Possibly over 100% depending on how/if they push fg to be more like lossless scaling. Basically more frames for the same input latency increase.
5090 has about 1/3rd more cores than 4090. Remember that. Along with any architectural improvements. Clock speed improvements. Bandwidth. RT acceleration. Optical flow acceleration. And also VRAM increase as I was capping out VRAM pool using DLDSR + FG in this game.
Path tracing looks better. But it's so inconsistent. So much for "it just works!".
When trying to make a realistic looking game it's all about hiring the right people. Who actually knows how inside a factory looks. A forest, inside of a building, etc. Like Crysis for example! DirectX 9 and the game still looks so real! hand tweaked for that perfect life-like lighting without raytracing help.
Dlss 3? Do you mean frame gen?
Because native I'm above 40fps with my 4090…, I just use dlss quality love to stay all the time above 60…
For me, 5090 will handle this, otherwise an update would not be worth it ( unless huge power gains are achieved as well)
MG have done it, gameplay and gfx masterpiece
B-b-b-but I thought it was impossibru! nothing good comes out of zi voken folks!
ahahahahaha
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/65bb8a4829eaaac5ac38aabc4ba57208d2226b56e2a1cfb8ee8f366dce2a4568.jpg
Innovative graphics technology Indeed. Good for videogames? NO!
To the casual player all it does is "there's is light; bloom it up 2x BAM!, there's shadow; darken it up 2x, voila" and it will cost your thousands dollar PC trundling to reach 100 fps. I think game developers should utilize all this modern horsepower to bring out more graphical density maximum artstyle they can instead of relying on all these *tracing this and that gimmicks.
The biggest issue I have with this game is the VRAM usage. Contrary to the reviews on the game's graphics, the textures aren't great (even on Supreme settings) – they lack sharpness and are blurry, especially when you look at regular (non-story) NPC's. Yes the main characters look decent, but everyone else looks mediocre. It's beyond me how this game uses so much of VRAM (even without PT and Frame Generation). I have tested the game out on an RTX 4070 Super and found the best experience (minimum 60FPS frame rate at all times) at 1600p, Max settings (only textures set to High), Medium PT (just RT sun shadows), DLSS Quality. This configuration takes up 11.5 GB of VRAM.
There is a memory pool setting so if you are using too much VRAM lower it a notch. It doesn't really affect the texture quality it just reserves less VRAM. Basically instead of doing it dynamically they allow you to set it yourself which is actually better. Dynamically setting the memory pool size is why games like The Last of Us ran so poorly because a One Size Fits All setting usually mean nothing actually fits very well.
How is the input lag on 1440p with frame generation and ~70ish fps on a 4090 ?
Hi man, where are you? Long time since i saw you here in comments section. Nice to see you.
Nice to see you too bro. not playing games these days, thats why i'm not visiting often.
i understand. This is life man. I miss the days when I had a lot more time for way better games. Now days even if you have time, you don't have many quality games.
Quears
I like more the pictures of the right, the look.
Me too, and looking at the FPS those may be the non-PT versions!
What I don't understand is 20 years ago games like doom 3 and fear 1 had fully dynamic lights and shadows and there was zero pop-in or whatever, they looked great. Didn't need rt or pt.
DLSS frame gen is currently bugged in this game, at least on the gamepass version if you also try to enable HDR at the same time. Turning in on makes no difference in FPS and actually lowers it depending on the scene with HDR enabled. Apparently the steam version has a exclusive fullscreen mode? Because the gamepass version doesn't and I'm pretty sure you need that for FG to work..
I don't doubt it looks better in the right conditions, but we're getting a marginal and subjective "better" for the last few percent, VERY diminishing returns here. This is a sales article like most of them here and tbh everywhere. The cards and systems to get these effects are a LOT more then what a sensible system cost to get casual settings AAA gaming, it's a very niche of diehard hobbyists and subsidized journo's 408090's w top tier CPU's etc etc to push it out. PT this RT etc that is easily just puff pieces not worth much. Filler stuff. This is similar to only testing at "max" epic settings which is a HUGE WASTE instead of doing at least a step down "high" and maybe a "medium" preset, selling cards and game engines all it is.
They look different. I preferred the look of one version over the other, and that turned out to be the ones that were running at 150 fps+. That would also look better in motion. I presume that I blindly preferred the non PT-versions!
Guess I'll play this shït now.
Let's see if it's worth the bandwidth spent on pirating it.
–edit–
No, it doesn't!
It takes only couple of hours into it for the game force upon you a "partner".
As for the s3x and haircut of such partner, I leave it to your imagination.
Started very well and I thought they were doing a great job, until DEI comes to action.
Fvck western gaming industry!
At least I'm in peace knowing I won't give one shilling to these retärds!
I LIKE THE 18GB VRAM REQUiREMENTS for path tracing
Great, so you get more fps and a better looking game without PT? Hmm.