XWA, Raytraced

[blue_max]

Raytracing is coming to XWA in the form of raytraced shadows:

rt-100.png

rt-101.jpg

Currently, only the Tech Room supports raytracing, but I'm working on enabling it during regular flight too.

It's already available! Just download the latest beta (2.1.0) and take a look at the Tech Room!

[blue_max]

Raytraced shadows are enabled by default, but you can toggle them by pressing Ctrl+S or you can add the following in SSAO.cfg to set the state:

raytracing_enabled_in_tech_room = 0

rt-102.jpg

rt-103.jpg

[blue_max]

rt-104.jpg

rt-105.jpg

[rogue518]

blue_max wrote:
It's already available! Just download the latest beta (2.1.0) and take a look at the Tech Room!

Where is this located? Could you post a link please?

Sincerely, Rogue518

[Rookie_One1]

Nvidia only or does it also support AMD Raytracing ?

[Vince T]

blue_max wrote:
It's already available! Just download the latest beta (2.1.0) and take a look at the Tech Room!

Where is this located? Could you post a link please?

Sincerely, Rogue518

The link can be found on our download page under BETA Versions
https://www.xwaupgrade.com/download/bet ... -10-19.zip

Awesome work, @blue_max!

[rogue518]

Thanks Vince T, I got it..... I figured it out will post pics later going to work (damn it!!... )

Sincerely, Rogue518

[Knarfe]

Raytracing in XWA - a dream comes true!

[Vince T]

In the past I would sometimes bake those shadows into the textures, especially for more recessed areas. Knowing that someday in the hopefully not too far future I won't be needing to do that anymore is a most exciting prospect!

ISD1RT1.jpg

ISD1RT2.jpg

[DarHan]

Nvidia only or does it also support AMD Raytracing ?

It works on my AMD card, which doesn’t even have hardware raytracing support.

[blue_max]

This should work on any DirectX 11 capable card. It doesn't use any of the new fancy raytracing hardware that some vendors are now selling, so it will be slower and more limited. I'm still not sure this solution will work for regular flight, but I'm definitely going to try!

[Rookie_One1]

In the worst case you could make it an option to use for those who have raytracing hardware

[blue_max]

DirectX 11 doesn't support raytracing hardware, but yes, this feature will be completely optional.

[Rookie_One1]

ah yeah, forgot that raytracing hardware is only supported in DX12

[rogue518]

Rookie_One1 wrote:
ah yeah, forgot that raytracing hardware is only supported in DX12

I think I got that covered:

NVIDIA System Information report created on: 10/23/2022 09:38:15
System name: XXXXX518

[Display]
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro, Windows 11 64-bit
DirectX version: 12.0
GPU processor: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
Driver version: 522.25
Driver Type: DCH
Direct3D feature level: 12_1
CUDA Cores: 5888
Resizable BAR No
Core clock: 1725 MHz
Memory data rate: 14.00 Gbps
Memory interface: 256-bit
Memory bandwidth: 448.06 GB/s
Total available graphics memory: 20447 MB
Dedicated video memory: 8192 MB GDDR6
System video memory: 0 MB
Shared system memory: 12255 MB
Video BIOS version: 94.04.46.40.61
IRQ: Not used
Bus: PCI Express x8 Gen3
Device ID: 10DE 2488 47513842
Part Number: G142 0012


Sincerely, Rogue518

[blue_max]

Even if you have DX12-capable hardware, ddraw is still DX11. We would have to migrate ddraw to DX12 in order to use hardware-level raytracing. While this is not impossible, it's a difficult task and it's not currently part of our plans.

[Ace Antilles]

Well done @blue_max !! Keep on making your amazing improvements.

[rogue518]

From what I am reading... DirectX 12 is backwards compatible with DirectX 11.

Yes they will work more than fine with DX12 also some graphics improvements can also be noticed. DirectX only works as a interface between graphics card and graphics rendering.

DirectX 11 games cannot be made to use DirectX 12 instead. They are wildly different technologies, despite the common name.

The good news is that any machine that supports DirectX 12, is actually required by Microsoft to also support DirectX 11. So the games will run just fine. They won’t have the advantages of DirectX 12, but those games weren’t designed to have those advantages anyway.








Sincerely, Rogue518

[blue_max]

You're correct, rogue518, if you have a DX12 card, it will also support DX11 -- and support for DX11 is likely to continue for many years. But we won't be able to do hardware-level raytracing until we migrate ddraw to use DX12

[rogue518]

Thanks blue_max for responding.... I also have a EVGA GeForce RTX 2070XC Gaming and EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB SSC GAMING Video Cards as backups...... but that's good to know on the hardware-level raytracing for DX12... won't be available anytine soon, or at all.....


Sincerely, Rogue518

[blue_max]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lSQRAtcBpw

https://youtu.be/WeTKHDbVX6o

https://youtu.be/-htXBOwuXXI

RTInFlight1.jpg

RTInFlight2.png

RTInFlight3.png

[batuta]

THIS IS AMAAAAZING

[Erd]

Gorgeous! I assume there’s a fair performance hit?

[Muahaha]

So awesome. Can't wait to fly with it.

[blue_max]

The performance hit is significant, and it depends on how busy is the screen. I've seen a drop between 50-15% in frame rates right now. There's several areas that can be improved, though, so framerates are only going to get better. Right now, I find this playable on small missions even on my old nVidia 1070, and I expect most people will be able to experience this in one way or another.