Devs, RTX support?

[dr_fish]

Ark was on the list at today's Nvida event. I was pretty excited about Ark getting some ray tracing support (maybe offloading some lighting to dedicated hardware would speed up the rest of the rendering). However, according to this press release: https://www.bluesnews.com/s/192782/nvidia-rtx-20-series-next-month Ark will only be getting DLSS support. Can you guys clarify what the plan is an when it's likely to happen? Thanks!

[Vesuvius]

Interesting read ty.

[Kiwibom]

What is dlss ? I wasn’t paying attention we he talked about it

[T-man]

Ark and ray tracing... Wildcards biggest joke so far...

Yay, for reflections of reflections on things that can't even cast a simple dynamic shadow...

[Boomer Voncannon]

Originally posted by dr_fish:

Ark was on the list at today's Nvida event. I was pretty excited about Ark getting some ray tracing support (maybe offloading some lighting to dedicated hardware would speed up the rest of the rendering). However, according to this press release: https://www.bluesnews.com/s/192782/nvidia-rtx-20-series-next-month Ark will only be getting DLSS support. Can you guys clarify what the plan is an when it's likely to happen? Thanks!

If you are actually seeking a response from the devs, the official forums would be a better bet than Ark's steam forums. WC devs generally do not monitor these forums much. Every once in a blue moon one will post here, but official game forums are the better spot if you want them to see your question.

[Lordbufu]

Originally posted by Kiwibom:

What is dlss ? I wasn’t paying attention we he talked about it

Deep Learning Super-Sampling (DLSS)
I dont think there is acurate data on how it actually works, but they do have a page about deep learning in games general here (slightly dated though) - https://developer.nvidia.com/deep-learning-games

And the link in the OP also has a short explanation on it.

[retsam1]

1. Like comp games, I'd not buy the 1st gens of this new card type until one sees how they fair with the current generation of games.

2. While there is a future for Ark, I would say that the studio probably has other plans envisioned that are not going to be building/implementing more for Ark that would center around these new cards for any near future/meaningful considerations.

[Maverick81PL]

Yea Right! RTX ON = -50FPS o.o

[Boomer Voncannon]

Originally posted by retsam1:

1. Like comp games, I'd not buy the 1st gens of this new card type until one sees how they fair with the current generation of games.

2. While there is a future for Ark, I would say that the studio probably has other plans envisioned that are not going to be building/implementing more for Ark that would center around these new cards for any near future/meaningful considerations.

Retsam could you elaborate on your thinking behind point number 2? My knowledge of RTX is limited to what is stated here, but I’m interested in your take on the larger point for the development direction of Ark going forward.

[Vesuvius]

the entry level RTX 2070 is more powerfull then a Titan XP (by the numbers) id realy like to see how Ark performs on a 2080 XD

[DemitriX]

Originally posted by Vesuvius:

the entry level RTX 2070 is more powerfull then a Titan XP (by the numbers) id realy like to see how Ark performs on a 2080 XD

>by the numbers
Measured in "Rtx-flops"
dont believe the hype, these benchmarks are with ray tracing

[Lordbufu]

Originally posted by Vesuvius:

the entry level RTX 2070 is more powerfull then a Titan XP (by the numbers) id realy like to see how Ark performs on a 2080 XD

Despite it being marketed as a great card, i fear DemitriX is right, the upgrade in memory speed and boost clock are rather small or not even there depending on the model your going for (FE is slightly better on the boost, but the regular one isnt, although the 1070 to 2070 is a 6Gbps memory speed upgrade). I fear that the most benefit has to come from games being specifly tailored to this "new" tech, i dont expect DLSS to have a major impact on ARK either because it basiclly better AA.

All speculation offcourse, untill we see some real benchmarks from it.

[retsam1]

Originally posted by Boomer Voncannon:

Originally posted by retsam1:

1. Like comp games, I'd not buy the 1st gens of this new card type until one sees how they fair with the current generation of games.

2. While there is a future for Ark, I would say that the studio probably has other plans envisioned that are not going to be building/implementing more for Ark that would center around these new cards for any near future/meaningful considerations.

Retsam could you elaborate on your thinking behind point number 2? My knowledge of RTX is limited to what is stated here, but I’m interested in your take on the larger point for the development direction of Ark going forward.

I'm inclined to think that the architecture(UE4) that ark is based on and what the newer cards have more focus on and where the development priorities have always been for the team(and per the digest released yesterday/today) that there is less consideration by the team to put priorities into moving the game forward around the newer cards and to instead continue to maintain what their doing now.

If I speculated, its more profitable for them to keep what they're currently doing going along, add a little support(as expressed in the OP's post) but not devote much more to that direction.

At such point as they team feels that the it becomes less sustainable/profitable, they'll probably move on to gen2 of the game with a different architecture and thus push the demand on cards at that point.

Dont get me wrong the 2080ti is going to run the game pretty well most likely(sans issues that crop up with ue4 not rising to meet change to support better cards on that architecture). But we're talking just improving the graphic fidelity/performance only to a certain point that isnt necessarily going to make for a better game experience overall.

Afterall most who invest in new cards/rigs-to-support-such-cards, typically are going to be doing so from a really worse off rig before that(ie the 3-5year upgraders/new buyers) so they're really. Someone with a 1080ti, 64gb ram etc of a current higher end rig would not see a marked different for Ark that would be an improvement versus someone on a gtx 800 or 900 series card on a comp from that era.

I guess to give another parallel, it would be like back in the heyday of City of Heroes Online and how the game was a pretty serious cruncher for some rigs and even after time and much better performing rigs, the game didnt age well with the changes(they couldnt even implement real reflections... only faux ones by rogue for example... building reflections were on only some buildings and only a floor or two from the ground and nothing higher). Much of that was due just to the limitations of the architecture the game was on and I would say Ark thus is going to be similar moving forward.

[Vesuvius]

Originally posted by DemitriX:

Originally posted by Vesuvius:

the entry level RTX 2070 is more powerfull then a Titan XP (by the numbers) id realy like to see how Ark performs on a 2080 XD

>by the numbers
Measured in "Rtx-flops"
dont believe the hype, these benchmarks are with ray tracing

Yeah sure... but also dont forget that its a new baseline.... we need to see 2nd gen just to have something to compare it to.

[Vesuvius]

Originally posted by Silky Rough:

Originally posted by retsam1:

I'm inclined to think that the architecture(UE4) that ark is based on and what the newer cards have more focus on and where the development priorities have always been for the team(and per the digest released yesterday/today) that there is less consideration by the team to put priorities into moving the game forward around the newer cards and to instead continue to maintain what their doing now.

rets, Ark is a listed partner to DLSS. They've committed to 20' series features.

Having said that, without knowing what DLSS is specifically (nVidia has been coy here) it's hard to say 1: how hard it will be to implement and 2: whether it will have much effect.

Off the top of my head, DLSS could improve RT rendering immensely after at least a first and second pass over objects. Taken literally, it suggests "I've seen this before so I don't need to calculate again". If true, even at "new tech" levels, could be a game changer.

I kinda read that nVidia is including DLSS for Ark rather then in partnership *with* WC ... kinda like their sli profile for Ark.

[gamer72]

WC bench (with what settings who knows) but it shows ARK with a 217% FPS increase with DLSS enabled. ARK seems to be an ideal test case for that tech because so many objects to render.