Does this game have ray tracing?

[Elegant Caveman]

I keep seeing people claim that it does and that it can't be turned off, accounting for the game being as demanding on hardware as it is.

I've seen no evidence to back this up, though, just the occasional random claim.

If anything, the dev has said quite the opposite, but that was three years ago:

Originally posted by ColePowered:

I haven't experimented with ray tracing yet

Perhaps something's changed since?

Still, I've looked at multiple videos of it on youtube and it doesn't seem to look different than how it does for me in any of them, and my GPU certainly couldn't do ray tracing.

Would love to hear/see something to back this up one way or another, especially some official word from the dev.

[Tekko]

No way it has ray tracing. Any game that has ray tracing, when turned on, my GPU runs at 99/100%.

This game has optimisation issues, so I doubt they'd be able to get ray tracing running without setting your PC on fire.

My GPU runs around 60% usage in this game (RTX 3080).

[Isabelle]

sure performs like it.

My poor, crying 1650.

[Sylverone]

Probably people who don't know what they're talking about see the kaleidoscope effect in the vents or the rayCASTING the game does for lights and think "OMG raytracing that explains everything!" ...and don't apply any further thought to it.

Actually wait, that's probably it, the reasonable ones are probably thinking the game's raycasting for lighting is eating up GPU. Could be some of it, though a lot of it probably just has to do with the simulator aspects of it.

[Isabelle]

Originally posted by cliftut:

Probably people who don't know what they're talking about see the kaleidoscope effect in the vents or the rayCASTING the game does for lights and think "OMG raytracing that explains everything!" ...and don't apply any further thought to it.

Actually wait, that's probably it, the reasonable ones are probably thinking the game's raycasting for lighting is eating up GPU. Could be some of it, though a lot of it probably just has to do with the simulator aspects of it.

raycasting vs raytracing tldr?

[Psyringe]

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

I keep seeing people claim that it does and that it can't be turned off, accounting for the game being as demanding on hardware as it is.

That doesn't make much sense to me. The minimum requirements for this game include a GTX 1060, which has zero hardware support for raytracing. If the game had mandatory raytracing, then it would run as a slideshow on that card, if at all.

This sounds like an unsubstantiated rumor to me. Perhaps some people didn't understand why a game with so many moving parts requires mid-range hardware, and assumed that it might be raytracing. Raytracing can indeed increase hardware requirements substantially, but it's far from the only feature that does that.

[Isabelle]

Originally posted by Psyringe:

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

I keep seeing people claim that it does and that it can't be turned off, accounting for the game being as demanding on hardware as it is.

That doesn't make much sense to me. The minimum requirements for this game include a GTX 1060, which has zero hardware support for raytracing. If the game had mandatory raytracing, then it would run as a slideshow on that card, if at all.

This sounds like an unsubstantiated rumor to me. Perhaps some people didn't understand why a game with so many moving parts requires mid-range hardware, and assumed that it might be raytracing. Raytracing can indeed increase hardware requirements substantially, but it's far from the only feature that does that.

while i dont know what causes most of the performance loss id guess it's the active tracking of nearly half a thousand active NPCs with their locations and, assumedly, current actions. Such a thing sounds extremely taxing regardless of if the NPCs are rendered or not

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by Tekko:

No way it has ray tracing. Any game that has ray tracing, when turned on, my GPU runs at 99/100%.

This game has optimisation issues, so I doubt they'd be able to get ray tracing running without setting your PC on fire.

My GPU runs around 60% usage in this game (RTX 3080).

That's what I figured.

I understand the game doesn't use traditional lighting techniques (not sure on the detail, but I think something about how the world's generated?), but that doesn't mean it's ray tracing.

Considering how demanding any form of ray tracing is, I highly doubt I could run the game at all.

Originally posted by Isabelle:

My poor, crying 1650.

Same! But the fact that it performs at all makes it hard for me to believe it's ray tracing...

I'm getting ~25-35fps with 1920x1080, which is about as expected for the minimum system requirements.

That doesn't sound like ray tracing to me.

Originally posted by cliftut:

Probably people who don't know what they're talking about see the kaleidoscope effect in the vents or the rayCASTING the game does for lights and think "OMG raytracing that explains everything!" ...and don't apply any further thought to it.

Actually wait, that's probably it, the reasonable ones are probably thinking the game's raycasting for lighting is eating up GPU. Could be some of it, though a lot of it probably just has to do with the simulator aspects of it.

Thanks for the insight.

I could easily see people getting mixed up if rays are involved in different ways, especially since "ray tracing" is such a buzzword these days.

As for lighting vs. simulation, though the simulation is certainly demanding, I can't help but feel that my GPU is getting more taxed than my CPU. I haven't kept a close eye on that, though, so I could be wrong.

Guess it would kind of make sense, though, as my GPU's the bottle-neck.

Originally posted by Isabelle:

raycasting vs raytracing tldr?

Good question. Quick search gave me a couple of hits.

If I'm reading this[stackoverflow.com] correctly, it sounds like a major difference is how far the rays go?

With ray casting stopping once it hits something, and ray tracing continuing on for multiple hits.

Both are dynamic (using rays to do their thing), but ray tracing is more demanding.

Going by this[www.quora.com] explanation, it sounds like ray casting is more about calculation, and ray tracing is more about rendering.

N.B. I'm no tech expert, so I could be wrong about my interpretation about any of this, and I have no idea if the basic info I found itself is correct... I'm just guessing, basically.

Originally posted by Psyringe:

That doesn't make much sense to me. The minimum requirements for this game include a GTX 1060, which has zero hardware support for raytracing. If the game had mandatory raytracing, then it would run as a slideshow on that card, if at all.

This sounds like an unsubstantiated rumor to me. Perhaps some people didn't understand why a game with so many moving parts requires mid-range hardware, and assumed that it might be raytracing. Raytracing can indeed increase hardware requirements substantially, but it's far from the only feature that does that.

Right, hence my confusion.

I keep seeing it pop up, though, so I figured I'd ask.

Originally posted by Isabelle:

while i dont know what causes most of the performance loss id guess it's the active tracking of nearly half a thousand active NPCs with their locations and, assumedly, current actions. Such a thing sounds extremely taxing regardless of if the NPCs are rendered or not

The simulation is certainly demanding, though I think the game is more taxing on GPU than CPU. Could be wrong about that, and perhaps simulation has a greater effect on GPU than I'd expect.

[Isabelle]

i assume the ray casting is why the lighting and shadows in this game are so dramatic and sharp. It's either lit or full shadow

[Hardwater]

Originally posted by Isabelle:

Originally posted by Psyringe:

That doesn't make much sense to me. The minimum requirements for this game include a GTX 1060, which has zero hardware support for raytracing. If the game had mandatory raytracing, then it would run as a slideshow on that card, if at all.

This sounds like an unsubstantiated rumor to me. Perhaps some people didn't understand why a game with so many moving parts requires mid-range hardware, and assumed that it might be raytracing. Raytracing can indeed increase hardware requirements substantially, but it's far from the only feature that does that.

while i dont know what causes most of the performance loss id guess it's the active tracking of nearly half a thousand active NPCs with their locations and, assumedly, current actions. Such a thing sounds extremely taxing regardless of if the NPCs are rendered or not

I'm not sure about the cause of the problems, I was watching a couple of streams the other day and the FPS dropped significantly as soon as the streamers transitioned from inside to outside, if the tracking of the various parts of the simulation were the problem then I would have thought the performance issues would occur inside aswell as outside, because why would the simulation only be tracked when the player was outdoors? It seems to me it must be graphics related in some way.
Hopefully they can use some of the income generated from sales to hire somebody with optimisation experience.

[Sylverone]

Originally posted by Isabelle:

raycasting vs raytracing tldr?

Raytracing is very hardware instensive because it simulates many light rays bouncing repeatedly through an entire scene. Each ray has potentially multiple bounces, so multiple angle calculations and whatnot, plus light filtering interactions when the rays hit surfaces, refraction if that's part of the implementation, etc. And you must simulate many rays to get any substantial quality, usually.

Raycasting is basically... "Draw straight lines out from light sources to make shadows". Like raytracing with all of the most interesting and complicated parts cut out. It definitely has some math/performance challenges as well (thus the reason many games with dynamic shadows have a "shadow detail" option), but my impression has been that due to the relative simplicity of raycasting compared to ray tracing, it lends itself to optimization better. I could be wrong on that point.

[Sylverone]

Ah, I hadn't read the above reply with links yet. But yeah, those links are probably more technically accurate, it's possible my terms aren't 100% correct, but it's also possible that, language being what it is, the term ray casting may have been used slightly differently where i read it.

I have a 2080 Ti and I get a lag spike the moment I walk outside a building, like a minor hang, then the game is mostly okay, with a bit of stuttering. Keep in mind I'm not super picky as long as i can play, so "a little" for me might be "a lot" to someone else.

[Sylverone]

Ba-dum.
https://i.imgur.com/DWaDoE8.png

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by Isabelle:

i assume the ray casting is why the lighting and shadows in this game are so dramatic and sharp. It's either lit or full shadow

Seems logical.

Originally posted by Hardwater:

Originally posted by Isabelle:

while i dont know what causes most of the performance loss id guess it's the active tracking of nearly half a thousand active NPCs with their locations and, assumedly, current actions. Such a thing sounds extremely taxing regardless of if the NPCs are rendered or not

I'm not sure about the cause of the problems, I was watching a couple of streams the other day and the FPS dropped significantly as soon as the streamers transitioned from inside to outside, if the tracking of the various parts of the simulation were the problem then I would have thought the performance issues would occur inside aswell as outside, because why would the simulation only be tracked when the player was outdoors? It seems to me it must be graphics related in some way.
Hopefully they can use some of the income generated from sales to hire somebody with optimisation experience.

I've also noticed going outside makes a considerable difference.

Though the simulation no doubt takes its toll to a degree, I'd be surprised if that was the main issue.

I wonder how much overlap of workload there is between CPU & GPU, and simulation & graphics.

Did some testing earlier, and though my GPU was getting maxed out at ~98-99% usage, my CPU was mostly around 50%, sometimes going up to about 70% for a bit.

No surprise there, as my GPU is my bottleneck[pc-builds.com], but if the simulation was really the main stress factor, I'd expect my CPU to still be more in use than it is.

Originally posted by cliftut:

Ah, I hadn't read the above reply with links yet. But yeah, those links are probably more technically accurate, it's possible my terms aren't 100% correct, but it's also possible that, language being what it is, the term ray casting may have been used slightly differently where i read it.

I found your explanation helpful, and seems to fit with what the first link says, at least.

Originally posted by cliftut:

I have a 2080 Ti and I get a lag spike the moment I walk outside a building, like a minor hang, then the game is mostly okay, with a bit of stuttering. Keep in mind I'm not super picky as long as i can play, so "a little" for me might be "a lot" to someone else.

Yeah, there definitely seems to be something that happens at the inside/outside threshold.

I'm guessing maybe it's something to do with... "active vs. passive simulation", for lack of a better term.

I doubt the game is constantly simulating every single little thing in real time, and each building and "outside" must each count as an "active area", and the game probably only actively simulates the "area" the player is in.

Originally posted by cliftut:

Ba-dum.
https://i.imgur.com/DWaDoE8.png

Good news, though it doesn't really answer any of our questions.

[Bluehawk]

The medicine cabinets in bathrooms definitely have screen-space reflections

[Isabelle]

Originally posted by Bluehawk:

The medicine cabinets in bathrooms definitely have screen-space reflections

what's odd about that is they seem to be pretty much 1:1 with what theyre reflecting. i cant imagine how bad that is for performance