Is RTX Global Illumination actually Ray tracing ?

[OpTic_2000]

If so, it's only supposed to work with nVidia RTX GPUs (or am I wrong ?). But I can turn it on using a gtx 1660ti and,the game is still quite playable, though I definitely lose some framerate. And it really helps seeing through destroyed buildings.

[HΞNRiK]

The short answer is no. Global illumination is how light is perceived on an object due to a block in the path from an infinite lightsource like the sun, that shines across an entire plane.

Compare the inside of a rendered box with only the front open which would appear quite dark inside and have gradually brighter inner sides and bottom towards the opening with global illumination turned on since this is being calculated. With this turned off all inner sides including the bottom would appear the same intensity all over which give a flat impression.

Note that this is close to shadow quality but generally renderns more subtle low contrast changes. Shadow quality in this case would in many games refer to the shadow that said box cast on the ground.

Ray tracing is another story. Photons are calculated for path, distribution, reflection etc. and can render high visual fidelity (photo-realistic images) at high computational cost. First Pixar movie to use ray tracing extensively was Cars from 2006 .. go read and prepare to be baffled by numbers and rendering times from not too long ago. Cheers!