welcome to the death of game optimization.
it especially sucks for Doom: The Dark Ages since both Doom 2016 and Eternal were considered very optimized for their times of release.
I especially fail to see the value to drive up obsolescence. Look how the Final Fantasy XIV art team, or the Tyranny RPG expressed so much through comparatively ancient engines of the PS3 era. And for shooters we have so much visual polished fidelity, with physics, high resolution textures and dynamic lighting to create anything you want. From "Prey" (2016) to Prey (2005) I think both look amazing.
I especially fail to see the value to drive up obsolescence.
"Can't afford an upgrade to a high-end PC? Buy one of our Xboxes." --Microsoft
Doon 2016 really holds up, it's still one of my favorite games
Not sure why you are so worried. Based on those requirements a Radeon rx 6800 should be able to do Ultra 4K @ 60. The main differentiator seems to be vram.
My GPU can do ray-tracing and that's usually the first thing I turn off because it absolutely destroys performance for minimal effect. I think ray-tracing is cool and all, but I don't really care when it makes most games run like shit. I thought Elden Ring was poorly optimized until I turned it off and than BAM 120fps no problem.
Honestly if it has to be enabled, as much as I love the Doom games, this'll be a pass for me. Smooth combat doesn't mean shit when it stutters every 2 seconds.
Tbf, elden ring is still poorly optimized. It's been 3 years since it released and I still get cutscene stutters and no ultrawide
I once watched a 20 minute video on how in order to compute trajectories for the rocket launcher in the original doom, they did some of the most advanced math I have seen in any context to avoid doing any division which is computationally expensive. How the mightly have fallen.
Yep the original Doom was something else and the way John Carmack built his engines was something to be in awe of.
I didn't plan on buying this, but now I extra don't.
id software moving PC specs forward? You're KIDDING. Outrage, I tell you!
Wait, didn't Quake require a math coprocessor enabled CPU?
Hang on, Quake 3 required a 3D accelerator... Outrageous!
Raytracing hardware has been around for the better part of a decade now. It's time.
The same id managed to keep the hardware requirements for Eternal amazingly low. I have a pretty beefy PC, yet I'd prefer to play without Ray Tracing, as that usually keeps the framerate from reaching a stable 120. It sucks they are taking away that option.
ray tracing is the AI of pc gaming. A bunch of hardware made "obsolete" just so a few nerds can get marginally "better" lighting.
I would say AI is the AI of PC gamimg.
Fake frames and upscaling everywhere.
It's to make development easier.
With ray-tracing it becomes much easier to light environments in game. You don't have to have devs adding artificial light sources or painting environments as of they're lit.
unfortunately most developers can't make a game with raytraced lighting
I wouldn’t say better lighting, just easier
Ray tracing really is the future. Instead of doing a bunch of tricks to make things look good all lightning is just simulated using ray tracing.
I remember when metro exodus enhanced edition came out and they explained that when they remade the game for RTX only, they could remove a lot of workarounds like invisible lights. And actually just light the scenes with actual light from bulbs or the sun and it just looked great.
IMO we have to move someday to the newer technology. Whenever that's today or not, I don't know. But it really is the future. Historically it also isn't unusual at all that someone had to get new hardware to play new games. It's just that it was stagnated for a while.
Edit: pretty sure it was this video from digital foundry: https://youtu.be/NbpZCSf4_Yk?t=1376
Game engines don't have to simulate sound pressure waves bouncing off surfaces to get good audio. They don't have to simulate all the atoms in objects to get good physics. There's no reason to have to simulate photons to get good lighting. This is a way to lower dev costs and increase spending on the consumer side, I would not be surprised if Nvidia was incentivizing publishers to use ray tracing.
It won't be for this game that I don't care about, but seeing the recent trend of requiring ray tracing, I will probably have a good reason to build a new computer (you served me well 1070 Ti) !
Or maybe I'll stick to only playing games that work on a Steam Deck. I might not game enough anymore to justify the cost of new hardware. Especially when I look at the current AAA games (which would probably be the ones requiring RT), none of them really make me want to buy them anymore.
sounds like I'll have a great time with this in 10 years when I do my next upgrade.
I don't care much about RT but the reason they've decided to do RT implementation mandatory is quite good and revolutionary and I can't wait to see it in action. Using RT for pixel perfect hitboxes? Sign me in!
"And now, it has been revealed that the game will use ray tracing (RT) not only to enhance visuals but also to offer key gameplay improvements, such as better hit detection and the ability to distinguish materials in a bid to make the game more immersive."
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