Hitman 3 mostra como o rastreamento de raios inútil pode ser

Nvidia and AMD revealed at Computex 2022 that _Hitman 3 _would receive support for ray tracing and both Nvidia and AMD’s supersampling technologies, following an announcement from developer IO Interactive late last year. The update is here and I’ve had a chance to try it out, but I wasn’t left salivating over all the visual glitter like I expected.

• Hitman 3 doesn’t need ray tracing
• Ray tracing can look much worse
• Hitman 3 de Ray Rating Tanks Performance
• Uma exibição ruim para o rastreamento de raios

Conteúdo

• Hitman 3 doesn’t need ray tracing
• Ray tracing can look much worse
• Hitman 3’s ray tracing tanks performance
• A bad showing for ray tracing

Ray tracing can certainly make visuals more realistic, but in this game, it proves that adding ray tracing to all games isn’t necessary — especially when it tanks performance without adding much in terms of noticeable benefit. Hitman 3 is a reality check, especially if you think ray tracing is the be-all and end-all of graphics.

Hitman 3 doesn’t need ray tracing

Hitman 3 has very little to gain from ray tracing, and spending some time with the new update only confirmed that for me. The update brings ray-traced reflections and shadows, which you can toggle on individually. But after playing through several missions and capturing around 50 screenshots, it’s hard to see the benefit.

You can see an example of that from the Dubai level above. The ray-traced version (left) shows the beam that Agent 47 is climbing cast slightly more shadow, but these two scenes are almost identical. If they weren’t side by side, I wouldn’t be able to tell you which one is using ray tracing, certainly.

That’s not to say ray tracing isn’t doing anything, just that it’s not doing very much. I noticed the reflections most on semitransparent reflective surfaces (mostly glass), where ray tracing shows reflections that wouldn’t normally render. You can see an example of that in the Maldives level from Hitman 2 below (ray tracing is on the left).

I captured another example in the Miami level (below), where you can see the ticket booth window reflecting the people in line with the ray-traced version (left).

The issue is that these comparisons only hold up in one-for-one screenshots. While playing, they’re hard to notice because Hitman 3 already has fantastic reflections and lighting. In many cases, you’re getting ray-traced reflections even without ray tracing turned on, which both the Maldives and Miami levels confirmed.

For the window in Miami, it showed the wonderful ray-traced reflections from a distance, but that reflection quickly shifted once I took a few steps toward the window. Hitman 3 already uses screen-space reflections, and even with ray tracing turned on, it will default to these reflections when you’re up close. Below, you can see how the middle and right images (ray tracing on and off, respectively) look identical despite the ray-traced reflection in the left image.

In this scene, ray tracing is helping the shadows more than anything else. They look fantastic, but that wasn’t my experience through all of the levels I looked at (more on that in the next section).

In the Maldives, I found similar shifting to the default reflections. The windows on each hut (below) look much nicer from a distance with ray tracing turned on, but they have the exact same reflection when you get up close to them.

There are some visual benefits to turning on ray tracing in Hitman 3, but the vanilla build offers much of the same experience, especially concerning details you’ll actually look at. Unfortunately, the pros of ray tracing in Hitman 3 are massively outweighed by the cons.

Ray tracing can look much worse

Hitman 3 wasn’t designed with full-on ray tracing in mind, which leads to some awkward scenes where turning ray tracing on actually makes the game look worse. I was especially disappointed in the neon-dripped Chongqing level, where I expected ray tracing to shine the most.

In the ray-traced image (above left), you can see the left wall doesn’t hold a reflection like the image without ray tracing. The ray-traced image is certainly more realistic — a rain-soaked wall in an alley wouldn’t reflect lights that are a mile or more away — but does it look better? Na verdade, não.

It’s a case of expectation versus reality. IO Interactive clearly designed this scene so that it was drenched in the neon glow of a Chinese city, which means bending the rules of how light behaves to achieve an artistic vision. Turn on the ray tracing switch, and those intentions are lost.

Chongqing was disappointing, but the Miami level was downright shocking. With ray tracing on, some shadows showed nasty interactions with the highly detailed surfaces in the game. You can see the streaking and aliasing present on Agent 47’s back in the ray-traced image (below left), which isn’t present with ray tracing turned off.

Enquanto minhas capturas de tela do Miami Show na seção acima, Ray Rasting renderiza sombras que, de outra forma, não estariam no jogo. É uma vantagem, mas quando uma sombra que está ocupando uma parte significativa da tela parece muito pior, é hora de priorizar.

Não estou batendo hitman 3 aqui. É um jogo bonito, um dos melhores jogos para mostrar o poder do seu PC para jogos. O problema é que o rastreamento de raios está chegando ao que já é uma excelente implementação de iluminação que economiza no desempenho, onde precisa sem sacrificar a qualidade da imagem demais.

E o desempenho é a principal métrica para o rastreamento de raios em hitman 3 porque absolutamente tanque sua taxa de quadros.

Hitman 3 de Ray Rating Tanks Performance

Você pode estar se perguntando: e daí? O rastreamento de raios pode não ser perfeito, mas ainda oferece algumas vantagens visuais. É difícil justificar o rastreamento de raios em hitman 3 quando o desempenho é trazido para a mistura. Girando o ratamento de raios em afundou minha taxa de quadros para cerca de um terço do que eu consegui com ele desligado.

Isso não é surpreendente, pois o Ray Racing está exigindo em qualquer jogo que o apoie, mas a super resolução FidelityFX da AMD (FSR) e a super amostragem de aprendizado profundo da NVIDIA (DLSS) não fazem o suficiente para combater o problema. Mesmo com o modo de desempenho mais agressivo do FSR, o rastreamento de raios está 36 quadros para trás. Lembre-se também de que a corrida sem rastreamento de raios está em resolução nativa.

FSR e DLSs também não parecem ótimos em seus modos mais agressivos. Você pode ver um exemplo disso em Berlim acima. As imagens DLSS (meio) e FSR (à esquerda) mostram uma lavagem desagradável na poça no canto inferior esquerdo, e ambos mostraram cintilantes e tremeluzentes na parede iluminada em direção às costas.

Uma exibição ruim para o rastreamento de raios

O Ray Rasting pode elevar a aparência de um jogo, mas não é uma garantia. Em um jogo furtivo de terceira pessoa relativamente lento, como _hitman 3, o rastreamento de raios não faz sentido quando equilibrado nas opções de reflexão e iluminação disponíveis hoje, bem como o custo de desempenho do rastreamento de raios.

Ao contrário do marketing RTX da NVIDIA e às reivindicações de consoles atuais de geração, o Ray Rasting não é um recurso essencial nos videogames AAA. É desnecessário em muitos casos, e hitman 3 é o melhor exemplo disso.