I’ve used RT in various games, and for some, it makes a positive difference in the experience (gameplay only, not fps) and for others, the difference is unnoticeable or even negative.
Nvidia is still the RT king, but it’s not like classic lighting techniques are bad, either. I’d give up my RTX 3060ti for a 6700XT in a heartbeat to have better Linux compatibility.
I get where you are coming from, but as someone who has been interested in ray tracing since the early 2000s, ever since I saw the amazing ray tracing demo heaven seven rendered in real-time (although not at a particularly high frame rate) by my trusty 1.3 GHz Athlon T-Bird, there has been no denying that this is the future of 3D graphics, just as much as the more recent invention of upscaling technology. It enables not just the biggest generational leap in visuals seen in decades, but also makes it far easier for developers to light their games, removing many of the clunky and labor-intensive workflows that are required to make conventional rasterized graphics look good.
If the above paragraph didn’t bore you to death, try Quake II RTX. It’s fully path-traced, but because it’s essentially a shiny coat of paint on a game from the 1990s, hardware requirements are surprisingly modest (it even ran on my old GTX 1080, albeit it at a very low upscaled resolution). Despite the simple geometric detail and ancient animations, it looks absolutely stunning thanks to realistic lighting and new surfaces. Screenshots are not doing it justice - it almost feels real when you play it, particularly outside sections in direct sunlight.
If you don’t own Quake II on Steam, you get the three levels from the old shareware version, which are more than enough to get an idea of the true potential of this technology. If you do, you can play the entire game with ray tracing. Note that this is not the same as the recent extensive remaster of the game by Nightdive Studios, which uses a conventional renderer, but makes far more substantial modifications to assets and level design (and includes lots of bonus features). Both remasters are awesome in their own different ways.
Your card can also handle some newer games with ray tracing. Control is an obvious candidate. It’s old enough to have reasonable hardware requirements even with RT on, but it was also designed from the ground up as a showcase for this technology. Medium RT at 1080p should get you close to 60 fps in this game. The other game you might want to try is Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, which is both visually stunning and incredibly well-optimized. You should get a locked 60fps at 1080p in this game - and even 1440p is possible. It’s night and day compared to the regular version of the game.
I think the spirit of what I was trying to get at comes down to the idea that RT is important for some and not for others. I’ve seen and played some games that look bad with raytracing, though I’d say on the whole it’s been positive.
Like other techniques, it comes down to intentional design choices. Where to place light sources, how strong they should be, what kind of surface radiance looks good aesthetically versus how well it functions to light the scene are all factors to consider.
I think until it becomes a requirement, there’s space for everyone’s tastes.
I wish he wouldn’t repeat the idea that Proton is acceptable to game devs and Linux users shouldn’t demand native games. I’m much closer to Nick’s (from Linux Experiment) idea: That these games work as long as a company like Valve pays for Proton. The day Valve stops is the day these Proton games start to rot. For archival, for our own history, and for actual games on Linux, we should want Linux native games.
The thing is, the “no tux no bucks” crowd doesn’t advocate for other people to say the same. The proton crowd is actively telling the “no tux no bucks” people to shut up, and it’s not very nice. We need a multitude of views to succeed in the long term as a community.
I maintain that Proton could be a gateway to open the Linux market and create a sufficient share of revenue that, if and when it is shutdown, it’s lucrative enough to make natively compatible games.
It’s a bit of a deadlock issue: Most Devs will only develop for Linux if they see there’s money to be made there and they can estimate it will be worth the effort. But we need games on Linux for that to happen.
Proton is a stop-gap solution to provide the latter and lower the barrier on both ends: I can play games on Linux and devs have an easier time shipping their games to a Linux audience. I hope long term, the major frameworks will feature defaults that allow devs to easily do so without relying on Steam, but until then, Proton is better than nothing.
This is fine. I don’t mind a diversity of opinion here. I agree that Proton is a stop-gap solution, and that most older games are going to need it, and newer AAA games are not going to support Linux all of a sudden.
However, I do think that we should continue to encourage developers to create native builds when they can. Indie devs tend to do this and it’s a pretty great experience. Not only that, it often enables playing on unusual devices such as SBCs. For example, UFO 50 was made in Gamemaker, which offers native Linux builds, and it’s already on Portmaster. You basically can’t do that with Proton.
My problem is calling people who want Linux native games misguided or wrong. I really don’t think that’s helpful.
I do think that we should continue to encourage developers to create native builds when they can
Yes
My problem is calling people who want Linux native games misguided or wrong. I really don’t think that’s helpful.
I’d prefer games to be compatible natively too, so I definitely count myself among them. I think it’s an issue of visibility, the usual “loud and visible minority”. A thousand calm “I would prefer games were natively compatible” just don’t stick out as much as one aggressive “Fuck every company that doesn’t make their games natively compatible, and fuck you for supporting them by buying their game”.
I just don’t think Proton is the worst thing to happen to Linux Gaming because it allows developers to target alternative platforms without having to actually support them. This is where my personal impression of “misguided” (again, probably a loud minority) native game advocates comes from: Platform Inertia works because people stick with the platforms holding things they like, and the things on those platforms stay there because their prime audience is there. If the extra effort (=cost) of supporting Linux doesn’t match a sufficient uptake (=revenue), profit-controlled companies won’t do it (as they can’t justify it to their shareholders).
This isn’t just an issue with the evil corpos, but with the whole system itself. Screaming at consumers to change their habits won’t make much of a dent either there. Compelling people to change rarely has lasting results, if any. Better to invite them over and make the switch attractive enough to break that inertia. Only then can we meaningfully challenge the status quo.
It comes down to strategy accounting for ideological passion, an understanding of social and economic dynamics and patience. By and large, I think many understand this. Proton may not be what we want, but it’s an ally in achieving our goal. When we get to the point where it’s no longer “Underdog Linux against the near monopoly of Windows”, we can push harder (and honestly, I don’t think Valve would be terribly upset if Proton became obsolete and saved them resources).
We shouldn’t stop asking for native builds, so long as we do it mindfully and respectfully.
This _ might_ be the dumbest take I’ve ever seen. Clearly someone made up their mind to hate Valve and everything they see just confirms their existing biases, reality be dammed.
If you care about this - the developer Unfrozen is russian in origin (although they are trying to make everyone forget about it), one of the investors that funded their previous game (Iratus), GEM Capital, has ties with the russian gas and oil business.
@mesamunefire What are y'all going to buy in this sale? I'm thinking Space Tyrant, to satisfy my itch for a more laid back 4X focused on combat; the Metal Gear Solid master collections; and maybe some indie games below 15 bucks
This looks interesting. I’ll definitely be buying it day one. I first thought it was going to be a remake of ALTTP or OaA/OoS in the style of Link’s Awakening. I never thought we’d get a Zelda game where you play as Zelda.
Never had it when it was new, and playing the original on a modern machine (even with GOG’s version) doesn’t really work. Riven and Creatures 2 are the only GOG games that refuse to work for me, and it sucks because those are the two I have wanted to play the most, the longest since I knew of them as a kid, but never had them.
I fuckin’ love Myst’s lore. My favorite book of all time became The Book of Ti’ana because of it going into great detail about the height and fall of D’ni. I’ve even made models of the city in Minecraft based on the descriptions of it in that book.
I love Salt, but man his videos are getting way too long. I put the speed at 1,25x for any of his videos and the pacing is still perfectly fine.
I’ve heard people enjoy his videos with some drugs and I get it, it sounds super chill. But this length is a stretch for me, it could be half the time and lose basically nothing. And this is coming from a guy who enjoys long format videos like hbomberguy.
Respectfully disagree when it comes to this video! I wouldn’t have fully appreciated the innovations he presents ~80-minutes in without the preceding historical context!
You can watch them piece by piece (meaning if its broken up by chapters like this), if its too long. I personally don’t do that, but can absolutely understand it. Nowadays I also watch most videos at higher speed. Some talk really slow, I mean slow that I watch it at x1.4 speed and it sounds like someone else is talking at x1.0 speed. But this video, I didn’t have a problem with the narration itself.
BTW I recommend Looking for an addon or like that if you watch on a browser. I have a more fine control over the speed values, as x1.25 sometimes is too fast. In example I often watch at x1.1 by default or sometimes at x1.2… and in really bad cases even faster.
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