YouTube’s ‘Cycu1’ has shared a brand new video that compares the graphical differences of Ray Tracing in F1 24. This video is based on the game’s latest Preview build, though we can assume that all these RT effects will be almost identical in the final/release version.
F1 24 will have support for Ray Traced Dynamic Diffuse Global Illumination. As the Codies noted, RTDDGI is a technique that better represents the light response in shaded areas. This will offer an extra dose of realism in terms of softer shadows, light response, and light bounce across the F1 locations. Alongside RTDDGI, the game also supports RT reflections, RT shadows and RT ambient occlusion.
As with F1 23, players will first notice the far better reflections and ambient occlusion with Ray Tracing. In the video, these are the features that look immediately better. RTDDGI also improves the lighting, however, most players won’t be able to tell the difference when racing at blazing-fast speeds.
Not only that but some stages already look amazing without any RT effects. Take for instance the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. In that track, it’s almost impossible to spot the Ray Tracing improvements. The lighting already looks amazing, and there are a lot of dynamic shadows. Yes, you may be able to spot some differences if you pause, compare and zoom in. Still, even without RT, that track looks great (and it will run way better without RT on older PC systems).
Now the reason F1 23 and F1 24 can look great without RT is due to their incredible baked-in rasterized lighting. Not only that but both of these games do not use a fully dynamic day/night cycle in races. This is why a lot of older games that do not have fully dynamic day/night cycles can still look great. It’s also the main reason Assassin’s Creed Unity can still look spectacular on PC, even to this day.
In short, while Ray Tracing can enhance the graphics of F1 24, it won’t transform them. This is a good and a bad thing. The good news is that those with weaker GPUs can still enjoy great visuals and high framerates even without RT. The bad news is that people will use this as an example to trash Ray Tracing.
Electronic Arts will release F1 24 on May 31st.
Enjoy!
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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To be honest i love rtx but on a race game it is not going to make the game look that much better to fast moving it is not like an adventue game or a first person shooter were the light enters a room through the door or a window or more dark areas like under chairs or corners of a room but at least it is included.
All the F1 Games fifa and so on make no sence buying each year these should be a Dlc.
Intelligent game design. HBAO+/AMD equivilent, RT reflections only on certain things that really help immersion. AKA make some windows reflect in streets, put some mirrors or smaller reflective pools in older timeline games.
Bad game design. RT AO which barely looks better. Reflecting all the things when screenspace reflections would serve just as well.
RTGI? Yeah that’s the holy grail. Until next console gen it’s still a pipe dream. You need it as the baseline design for it to really work and for lighting to look great everywhere. The only games it currently works in are medieval games with day night cycles like Witcher 3. Why? Cus a torch adds immersion and the world was simply dark back then with much less ambient light from things like cities.
I will just keep saying it, then — Ray Tracing may very well be one of the biggest examples of over-hype / under-value industry buzz-terms ever.
when it’s done really well, like in Control, it’s amazing. glorious. Cyberpunk. Alan Wake 2.
but mostly it’s “PRETTY much better lighting effects + GIANT frame rate hit.” because it’s not employed well, or even to noticeable effect. (Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Elden Ring are both hilariously vague in terms of visual impact … except only Dragon’s Dogma 2’s RTX is embarrassing due to the HIDEOUS performance impact it invokes when turned on … or rather even MORE hideous, I guess.)
hell, the only game I might argue implements RTX to such a good degree that it’s almost a different visual experience entirely is Cyberpunk 2.0, but you’ll need that beast of a PC to run it properly. if you do … whoooo, it’s pretty.
Terrible implementation.