Intel Manages to Ray-Trace Quake Wars...

[Spaceman-Spiff]

Intel demonstrated ET: Quake Wars running in basic HD (720p) resolution, which is, according to our knowledge, the first time the company was able to render the game using a standard video resolution, instead of 1024 x 1024 or 512 x 512 pixels. Seeing ETQW running in 14-29 frames per second in 1280x720 has brought up our hopes for Intel's CPU architecture, since we do not believe that CPUs would deliver a similar performance when rasterizing graphics. For the record, the demonstration ran on a 16-core (4 socket, 4 core) Tigerton system running at 2.93 GHz.

TG Daily - Intel converts ET: Quake Wars to ray-tracing


Very gorgeous graphics. Stuff that we currently only could only see pre-rendered. It's still a long way to go to increase the FPS to a more playable rate, and launched those 16 cores CPUs. By then, shouldn't GPU makers be able to reach the same level?

[Jmac]

Maybe I'm missing something, but this doesn't seem that impressive.

4 sockets, 4 cores w/ hyperthreads meaning 32 threads at once ... All at the low-low cost of 2 arms and a leg ... able to run ET:QW w/ ray-tracing @ 1280x720 w/ barely-playable framerates ...

[Moneyless]

What the hell? It doesn't even look that good...

There must be something I'm not getting here...

[sswilson]

Isn't the "big deal" the fact that it's doing all of that "real time" from scratch rather than using an engine?

[Cheator]

Originally Posted by Moneyless

What the hell? It doesn't even look that good...

There must be something I'm not getting here...

Intel knows whats best for us. Shhhhh

They won't give up on this ray tracing will they. "Hey guys look! I can make the same grphics t a lower res and framerate with only a super computer! Feasible, no?"

[vdf22]

I guess the thing is that in a few years this kind of computer will be really cheap and you'll be able to get better than that. But at the present, forget it.

[Spaceman-Spiff]

It's a big deal because so far Ray Tracing only exist for pre-rendered cutscenes, movies, or images. It's almost impossible to render in real time, because it takes a lot of computational power (takes so long to render). Games usually use the Rasterization technique instead.

One really distinct difference when using Ray Tracing is, reflections look a lot nicer (on water or other reflective surfaces). It's another step towards realism. Take the reflections on this image for example, or this Quake Wars screenshot. You can see the whole world reflections on each of those mirror/water droplets.

So far many people have voiced that Ray Tracing is currently (and in the near future) impossible to do for gaming, but Intel claimed that they're able to.

Sorry, it's kinda too technical :P

EDIT: To add another point, if Intel is able to pull this off (in the near future). They can start claiming that with their 16-core CPU, you no longer need an additional video card to play games (provided that future games are going to use the ray-tracing technique).

[Cheator]

Originally Posted by Spaceman-Spiff

It's a big deal because so far Ray Tracing only exist for pre-rendered cutscenes, movies, or images. It's almost impossible to render in real time, because it takes a lot of computational power (takes so long to render). Games usually use the Rasterization technique instead.

One really distinct difference when using Ray Tracing is, reflections look a lot nicer (on water or other reflective surfaces). It's another step towards realism. Take the reflections on this image for example, or this Quake Wars screenshot. You can see the whole world reflections on each of those mirror/water droplets.

So far many people have voiced that Ray Tracing is currently (and in the near future) impossible to do for gaming, but Intel claimed that they're able to.

Sorry, it's kinda too technical :P

EDIT: To add another point, if Intel is able to pull this off (in the near future). They can start claiming that with their 16-core CPU, you no longer need an additional video card to play games (provided that future games are going to use the ray-tracing technique).

Yeah i get that, however look at that computer they're running it on. Thats proof alone that we are a few years way from making it close to feasible.

[vinister]

This is the exact same thing as AMD's Cinema 2.0 technology demo. Rendering in real-time, eventually shooting for photo-realistic rendering on the fly.

It's a step forward, don't be fooled by the low performance. Rendering speed has finally approached an actual smooth framerate, its an impressive feat.

[thenewguy001]

I don't think this is far away at all, given that intel's upcoming nehalem CPU is capable of 8 cores with hyperthreading. I'm guessing one or 2 CPU generations after that (2-5 years) will mean that CPUs can do decent onboard video. A few generations after that will mean they can compete with GPUs. I'm sure we'll see it within the next 10 years.