Is Ray Tracing broken?

[Bullett00th]

Took a pause from the game before the DLC was released, returned yesterday and there was terrible shadow shimmering in lighted areas. A bit of research showed that the only way to remove the shimmering was disabling Ray Tracing.

This issue wasn't present last time I played. Anyone else has this? Any way to fix it while leaving RT on?

[Shiroi Akuma]

its so broken and causing lag and stutter that fromsoft themself have adviced you turn it off if you on steam check patch notes for 1.12.3 it says
"Possible unstable performance fixes
In some PC versions, Ray Tracing may be unintentionally enabled and cause unstable performance. Please check the Ray Tracing setting in the "System" > "Graphics Settings" > "Raytracing Quality" from the title screen or in-game menu."

and in 1.12.2 it says
"About graphics settings (PC version only)

We have confirmed a bug where the raytracing settings are automatically enabled if you have previously loaded saved data from previous game versions.
　
If your framerate is unstable, please check in the 'SYSTEM' > 'Graphics Settings' > 'Raytracing Quality' settings from the title menu or in-game menu to check if it has been unintentionally set to 'ON'. Once set to 'OFF', Ray Tracing will no longer be automatically enabled."

so doubt they will ever fix it.

[Wylphen]

Game has gone from butter to gravel in one 'patch'. Unplayable.

[Ītzpāpālōtl]

I don't know what that is but I like your pfp

[DarkNye]

why are you using Ray tracing in this game? It's not worth it, it's not implemented correctly.

[The Icecream Snowman]

I've tried ray tracing in a few games and, well, remember when bloom lighting and HDR were new and a bit crap? If not, ask your parents about them.

Well ray tracing is in the same phase. It's new, it' shiny, it can be used to show off how much money you wasted on this season's top end GPU.

[IchigoMait]

Yes it's broken, the devs don't know how to implement it properly.
I have rtx 4070 with i7 14700k and in some weird spots it can drop the fps to 50, and low to max rt doesn't change the fps, while without it it's 60fps (can't sadly go about 60fps without mods). While in some other spots the fps can drop to 30fps, toggling rt to off and to max will give you 60fps instead of 30fps, but moving around for a while will drop it back to 30fps, also it's only for specific spots, mostly because of when you look at sky light, like volumetric lighting shining through the air.

[Bullett00th]

Originally posted by DarkNye:

why are you using Ray tracing in this game? It's not worth it, it's not implemented correctly.

I recently got an RT capable card and there's no reason to at least not take a look.

While some areas barely look any different, depending on lighting and time of day ray tracing can have quite a noticeable impact:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3290673978
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3290674143
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3290674311

Given that I play on 1080p TV it can run quite well with RT on so I left it on - at least until the recent patch when it got all botched.

Originally posted by The Icecream Snowman:

I've tried ray tracing in a few games and, well, remember when bloom lighting and HDR were new and a bit crap? If not, ask your parents about them.

Well ray tracing is in the same phase. It's new, it' shiny, it can be used to show off how much money you wasted on this season's top end GPU.

I traded in my good old GTX1080 and got a used 3060ti so definitely not a waste. I wasn't planning on upgrading at all because money is tight but that was a good deal, and the main technology I was aiming for is DLSS, which is bloody magic

Originally posted by Frida the autistic Gelfling:

I don't know what that is but I like your pfp:Pitter5:

that's the Disturbed band's mascot)

[HAL 9000]

Very disappointing I hope they fix

[SotiCoto]

I tried Ray Tracing. The only visible difference it made is that it lowered my FPS from 60 to around 20. I deactivated it after that.

[[JRE] Joe Rogan]

It does make a visual impact from what I've seen but you have to restart your game to truly notice it. Its a lot in the shadows though, but the performance is dog. I have a 7900XT and cannot get it to hold 60 FPS with any form of RT on.