Minecraft Ray Tracing Launches April 16, and It Is Breathtaking (venturebeat.com) 92
Microsoft and Nvidia are releasing Minecraft with RTX in beta for everyone April 16. This update adds ray-tracing effects like lighting, reflections, shadows, and more. And this is potentially the next generation for Minecraft visuals. VentureBeat reports: Nvidia and Microsoft developed the game together, and they are finally ready to let everyone see it for themselves. You can get the game by opting into the beta for the Minecraft for Windows 10 version. Of course, you might ask if it "just works," then what took so long? And that's a fair question. But for Minecraft, Nvidia and Microsoft couldn't flip a switch. They needed to update the game with physically based materials. This enables the RTX light rays to correctly bounce off objects. A green block will add a green tint to any reflected light, for example. And water will bend light and reflect the world behind you in its surface. These sort of visuals are often too complicated for traditional lighting techniques.
Nvidia and Microsoft had to update Minecraft with physically based materials. The two companies also spent some time improving performance. Nvidia turned to its DLSS technology to achieve "playable framerates." DLSS is deep-learning super-sampling. It uses machine learning to determine what a game should look like at an ultra-high resolution. DLSS can then take that data and rebuild an image from significantly less visual information. This enables a game to run at 1080p while generating an image that looks nearly indistinguishable from native 4K. To ensure that Minecraft with RTX is actually playable, Nvidia is bundling the update with DLSS. This gets you 40-to-60 frames per second in most circumstances. That's up from about 25-to-35 frames per second without DLSS.
Nvidia and Microsoft had to update Minecraft with physically based materials. The two companies also spent some time improving performance. Nvidia turned to its DLSS technology to achieve "playable framerates." DLSS is deep-learning super-sampling. It uses machine learning to determine what a game should look like at an ultra-high resolution. DLSS can then take that data and rebuild an image from significantly less visual information. This enables a game to run at 1080p while generating an image that looks nearly indistinguishable from native 4K. To ensure that Minecraft with RTX is actually playable, Nvidia is bundling the update with DLSS. This gets you 40-to-60 frames per second in most circumstances. That's up from about 25-to-35 frames per second without DLSS.
Re: They've used it for lighting, but not core ren (Score:5, Informative)
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nVidia paid them to borrow some code and content packs from the modding community, which has had platform agnostic raytracing for years, and carefully update it to only work on a specific platform.
Actually that's partially false. The platform agnostic raytracing variant had a small portion of the functionality and was crippling in performance on any system including NVIDIA's high end cards.
You're right about the modding community though. The modding community did a ground-up new write of ray-tracing using NVIDIA's APIs and the modding community released an RTX variant back in September last year, but not because of your silly paid for conspiracy, but rather because when RTX was published a lot of bor
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the whole china-dunnit thing is taken a bit too far, i can understand why you dont wanna look bad as a poly-ethician, i mean overhere we're ranked number six in deaths (not fro
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This is nVidia's second attempt at adding Ray Tracing to Minecraft.
Do you have proof that nVidia used SEUS PTGI (Sonic Ether's Unbelievable Shaders Path Tracing Global Illumination) code?
The fact that ONE person added Path Tracing to Minecraft years ago while it took a nVidia over a year and a team of people shows how this is a blantant RTX marketing propoganda.
Sonic also added 3D audio [youtube.com] to Minecraft!
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You gotta love how the article claims it's "breathtaking"? That's some massive marketing drivel right there.
It still looks and plays like shit, just like Minecraft always did. If you want to build stuff, learn how to use GtkRadiant or Blender. I promise that you will be much more fulfilled and probably end up making money off of it.
Or at the very least play No Man's Sky instead.
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They could have duplicated this graphical effect with traditional methods using a fraction of the processing power and card requirements and nobody would notice the difference.
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> It still looks and plays like shit, just like Minecraft always did.
If you are talking about Itemization then yes, Minecraft is shit.
If you are talking about automation [youtube.com] then what other games have redstone, hoppers, and item sorters? Factorio?
> If you want to build stuff, learn how to use GtkRadiant or Blender
People play Creative Mode because it is way easier to create voxelized structures in-game then to learn yet-another complicated program. It doesn't get any easier then:
* Left click to break a b
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Re:Think of the things you could do (Score:4, Insightful)
That is always true. Every single decision you make is a passing-up of a million different options you might have had. And whatever it is YOU chose will seem like a ridiculous waste to someone else.
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So all forms of Art and Music are a complete waste of resources?
Progress often comes from the idea of playing with something. An Idea, a Tune, a drawing... Raytraced Mindcraft may be a silly idea, however, it is a good platform to play with the idea.
I see it a lot like how some old Back and White films were colorized, or digitally remastered to be shown on 4k TVs, Records had the crackles and pops removed to be stored digitally. Some of these experiments didn't work well others actually worked really well
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There are so many other things people can do with their lives, but no.
Like what exactly? What could a normal person do that is objectively better than playing Minecraft?
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Re: Think of the things you could do (Score:2)
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Re: Think of the things you could do (Score:1)
So not only do you not have a life . . .
you also never had the experience of having a life, or have ever seen it, whatsoever. . .
A true role model for your generation! :D
Call us when you ever made something *real* or achieved something *real* whatsoever. Preferably useful, advancing humanity, and feeling nice. Even if it is just your obviously "first time", nudge nudge, wink wink.
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Even if it is just your obviously "first time", nudge nudge, wink wink.
Nah, sex feels good but it's not objectively better than playing Minecraft.
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I mean I get that you're trolling... it's par for the course with you, I believe but Minecraft certainly isn't useless.
I like home improvement but that hobby, while beneficial in the long term, has a steep learning curve and takes a lot of resources. Both time and money. The more money you invest, the less time you'll need to put in OR the more you get done.
You get that sense of accomplishment I get from home improvement in Minecraft inside of a few hours.
And if you do not see the value in a person finding
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There is sense of accomplishment, but then there's actual accomplishment. Yes, you can actually accomplish things in Minecraft, and you can actually turn those accomplishments into something tangible if you are clever and put in some effort. However, the vast majority of time spent playing Minecraft is just time spent playing Minecraft.
But Minecraft is special in the sense that it is creative and does try to simulate the real world (sort of). It can be a gateway to creating things in the real world. Until
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Re: Think of the things you could do (Score:2)
Actually, it is not. A comment is quickly done. A dozen take a few minutes.
Minecraft wastes *hours* and *days*, for some, *years*. Which approaches levels of what could be called walking (well, sitting/oozing) de-facto suicide.
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That is annoyingly well put.
Re: Think of the things you could do (Score:2)
For you? Fuck off.
I've built a large "hotel" for wild bees, invented two new things I cannot talk about yet, created a new type of cheese cake inspired by a South American drink and.fucked my girlfiriend twice this week.
What did you Minecrafter do this ... year? ;)
I mean in real life. Not in soon to be deleted blocky fantasy land with no relevance on reality whatsoever.
Sit^WOoze in your chair, and stuff "Cheezits" into your top hatch so you'll die earlier? (Well, "It's something(TM)".
Re: Think of the things you could do (Score:1)
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Sure. .fucked my girlfiriend twice this week.
Dude, (a) Eliza isn't your girlfriend and (b) please clean your keyboard.
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Who cares it is still ugly legos! (Score:2)
Put lipstick on a pig and it is still a pig! Who cares still very ugly.
Re:Who cares it is still ugly legos! (Score:5, Interesting)
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I was honestly wondering where the raytracing is at all. Most of the scenes I was like "ok, they turned specular way up on the shader".
It's more shiny. Apparently to some 3 year old in charge of the project that equals beautiful.
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Most of the scenes I was like "ok, they turned specular way up on the shader".
You're assuming there was a shader. That's the thing. Raytracing doesn't look that much different to a well designed meticulously designed 3D environment where developers are in full control of the effects.
Unfortunately that kind of environment is often completely at odds with a player changeable environment which is why for example in typical games shadow casting looks amazing for some objects and not for others, or look good until you interact with them. Developers design maps and environments, design the
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Honestly after seeing the video I think the ray tracing and lighting effects look worse in a lot of the instances because it's trying to mix more realistic lighting with the low-detail Minecraft blocks. The contrast is rather jarring honestly and in a lot of the examples it detracts from the charm of Minecraft's look.
The video published in the link is garbage. You should have a look at some of the stuff on youtube from the crew which originally made this mod last year. MS's marketing team just seems to have shown off the worst and most Fisher Price looking examples.
The raytraced Minecraft looks amazing ... except underground. It's too dark to play in that scenario.
But that's a personal opinion. I like the juxtaposition of the blocks with high res textures and amazing lighting effects. There's actually a mod that makes b
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Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense to add fancy graphical effects to a game filled with 8-bit retro artwork that looks like it came from a 1980's Nintendo game. I'd probably turn that shit off as soon as I got the update.
not EEE but... (Score:2)
Some sort of 'come to the dark side...we have cookies'?
That is to say that MindCraft DirectX cookie used as a way to attract to Windows (detract from other platforms)?
Re:not EEE but... (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft has been trying to coerce people off the Java platform to their proprietary version ever since they bought Mojang.
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> A .Net or C++ version would likely yield some substantial improvements in performance,
Minecraft Bedrock edition IS written in C++.
The fact that redstone functions differently in the Bedrock edition from the Java edition means that all the hard-core redstone users, SciCraft, etc., will NEVER switch to bedrock.
i.e. SciCraft is still on Minecraft 1.12 due to all the performance problems of 1.13 and above. They might actually switch to 1.16 in a year.
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I can hardly blame them for that. I always considered it totally bonkers that Minecraft was written in Java in the first place.
still don't get the point (Score:1)
of minecraft. what is it for? what do people do with it that is so entertaining?
it's just a giant map builder--a 3-d ms paint...
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The base game itself isn't all that interesting, but when you get involved in the mods, especially tech or magic mods, it gives a truly great experience.
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You could say the same thing about Lego
What visuals? (Score:3)
Clearly, whoever wrote this never played Minecraft. It is ugly by design.
Re: What visuals? (Score:2)
Yeah, no. It is still ugly as butt.
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it really calls attention to the blockiness.
So it's more Minecraft than the original Minecraft was? XD
Wasn't the charm of Minecraft its retro look? (Score:2)
I thought the whole charm minecraft was it's retro look? It was the focus on gameplay not graphics that made minecraft a success.
It 's a common trope with many games.... sometimes from the outset games totally forget about gameplay and focus on aesthetics of the game. Then there are other games with superb play-ability, that get diluted over the years with successive versions that exclusively focus on aesthetics that add nothing to the game play and in many instances detract from it, sacrificing play-abil
Re:Wasn't the charm of Minecraft its retro look? (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought the whole charm minecraft was it's retro look? It was the focus on gameplay not graphics that made minecraft a success.
And then Mickeysoft bougt it.
I mean, what did you expect? They wouldn't ruin something for the first time?
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Not sure how you got an insightful post considering "Mickeysoft" (what are you 12?) did little more than implement a *community* mod for RTX which in itself is nothing more than a performance enhancement over a previous ray tracing *community* mod that was platform agnostic and has been around for years.
What do you have against the Minecraft community? And why can't you spell Microsoft?
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The charm of Minecraft is its depth. It's a deceptively simple-looking game, but redstone and all the stuff you can build with it makes it highly complex. There are plenty of mods which make it prettier with lighting effects and such, and they are very popular among players with higher-end PCs.
Breathtaking (Score:2)
Breathtaking? Seriously? They just added somewhat realistic lighting to a bunch of pixelated blocks. It's an improvement, but it's not breathtaking.
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From the short video, it kind of looks like something built from Legos. So it kind of loses some of the "cartoon reality" effect. I'm not saying that's bad, necessarily, or that it's good, but it's different. Some might like it, some might dislike it. What doesn't seem to fit in my opinion, are some of the very pixelated effects, like the bubbles, and some repetitive textures, like the water. They break the Lego illusion, and the combination looks kind of off. On the other hand, it looks like Legos in real
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They're just the only available accelerated tracer for it so far.
Once AMD has production stuff out with accelerated tracing, I'm entirely sure it'll be added to DXR.
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So what's next? (Score:2)
Minecraft with photorealistic people, animals, and terrain?
Re: Most retarded game ever created (Score:2)
Well, I guess you never played with Lego, did you?
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Call me when it adds *rounding*. (Score:2)
It should be easy, to use a geometry shader or something, that works the same way as the graphic filters In SCUMMVM, but in 3D, to round the scenery nicely, while not changing the behavior at all.
Because, sorry, but the blockiness looks shit. There, I said it. Stone me.
And giving it "raytracing", is like putting a spoiler and slicks on a horse carriage.
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Speaking as someone who's done both, playing them. Playing gives pleasure to one person: making gives pleasure to many.
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First problem is your implication that entertaining people is a waste, tied in with an equally moronic idea that time not spent doing essential thins always needs to be spent doing something "productive."
People are not machines, and thus need breaks. People like entertainment to unwind, thus programming games meets that need for many people. Playing games meets the recreational requirement for others.
So... (Score:2)
...is this better or worse than Optifine, which has existed for the Java version for years?
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This. ^
Just judging by the frames per second mentioned (topping out at 60) it is likely not as good as Optifine which has numerous configuration options that allow you to get the best performance with your system.
Optifine (https://optifine.net/home) with a shader and texture pack can already make the game look amazing. However, it takes time, effort, and money to do it for each version. Presently, I believe they are working it for 1.15.2 java edition. So, they are usually a version or two behind the lat
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On the jungle map, if I crank up ray tracing distance to max (48 chunks i think) my mobile 2080 drops down to like 4fps.
It is a bit more impressive visually though.
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It's similar, at first glance.
Notable cooler things are reflections on surfaces, and colored lighting through colored transparent blocks.
This is actual path tracing, vs the rasterized emulation of ray traced effects used by optifine.
Optifine is awesome. This is better.
Performance was rough though.
On my mobile 2060, I had to shorten render distance on the more complicated maps.
Breathtaking like a 90s Amiga demo (Score:3)
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What's in a framerate? Personally I prefer visuals over insane framerates unless I'm playing something like Doom or testing reflexes against people online.
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Indeed Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a poor example. I actually think that there are only a couple of scenes which look different at all due to ray-tracing as most of the game doesn't actually make any impressive use of shadows outside of the first scene (which I think was just NVIDIA paying the developer to masturbate over RTX).
On the other hand Metro Exodus... I can't play with RTX off anymore. There's a night and day difference especially with globally illuminated outdoor but within buildings scenes. Indo
It Just Works, except where it doesn't. (Score:2)
NVIDIA's promise of everything just working is true, in a world where everyone has a high end RTX card and no other cards exist. Developers were quick to point out that for the next 10+ years RTX and raytracing will not reduce developer time but rather increase it as developers still need to create lighting and effects the old fashioned way to support hardware not capable of raytracing, and now additionally implement ray tracing and the material information required to do it as well.
Also the video in the su
This makes RTX look awful actually (Score:2)
This doesn't show ray tracing at its best. I want someone to compare the Minecraft RTX to the existing community shader packs for Minecraft, which seem to look just as good as maybe even better. Using Optifine + Sildur's Volumetric shaders my old GTX 760 gets 35-55fps at 1920x1080. If anything, this demo shows how disappointing the RTX is. It's 4 generations newer than my video card yet produces images that are almost as good. They even had to use fancy upscaling to get the 1080p resolution!
I've been d
Foggy (Score:2)
Oh, look, it's foggy.
The blockheads in this household just gave it a hard pass. "That looks stupid." Maybe the adults at the two tech corporations know better - these kids are so judgy.
likely not performant enough (Score:1)
to demo raytracing on minecraft of all things speaks to this. (even the aggressive cooling of next-gen may hint at this -- as an aside, imagine if the n64 shipped with a >120mm fan, heh.)
we gonna see ubiquitous ray-traced global illumination with a ton of rays in next gen games? probably not.
but due to the likely strict RT performance constraints, devs may come up with novel methods, which'll be helpful moving forward. plus, console support means ports to PC will have some sort of native RT, which is gre