Subj : Microsoft has a potentially genius idea to make ray tracing work
To   : All
From : TechnologyDaily
Date : Mon Mar 25 2024 11:45:05

Microsoft has a potentially genius idea to make ray tracing work better even 
with lower-end GPUs

Date:
Mon, 25 Mar 2024 11:34:03 +0000

Description:
Your GPU cant handle ray tracing? 8GB of VRAM isnt enough? Microsoft could 
have a solution up its sleeve.

FULL STORY
======================================================================

Microsoft might have a trick up its sleeve that makes ray tracing more 
feasible with the best GPUs that have lower amounts of VRAM, or are a lesser 
spec in general, perhaps  though we should be cautious at this point. 

The broad idea is to make ray tracing less demanding, in short, as outlined 
in a patent from Microsoft that was highlighted by Toms Hardware . 

How does Microsoft propose to take some of the heavy lifting out of the ray 
tracing (or path tracing) process? By optimizing it using a level of detail 
(LOD) system. 

LOD is a trick already used to make graphics easier going on hardware, and 
what its doing is dropping image quality in certain areas of the screen  more 
distant objects for example  to allow for faster frame rates. Essentially, 
LOD is taking elements you likely wont be focused on, and dropping detail 
levels so that you wont even notice any difference, but the GPU certainly 
will feel the benefit of having to do less work. 

The same thing can be applied to ray tracing, although theres a lot more 
technical depth to whats going on here naturally  but the basic idea is to 
drop the quality to ease the workload, without any noticeable difference to 
the end result of the image displayed (in theory). Analysis: A game-changer 
for 8GB graphics cards? 

Granted, there are already tricks that can be used for more fluid ray tracing 
performance such as upscaling, using the likes of Nvidia DLSS , AMD FSR, or 
Intel XeSS. But those only work with supported PC games , and a broader LOD 
system for easing the demands of ray tracing, and reducing memory 
requirements specifically, independent of resolution or upscaling, could be a 
major step forward. 

If Microsoft can get it to work well, that is  bear in mind this is only a 
patent right now, and could end up going nowhere (much R&D does, on the 
software and hardware fronts). 

Should the system be realized as presented here, though, this could 
particularly help graphics cards which have a VRAM loadout of 8GB, which is 
on the thin side these days. Easing the memory demands as mentioned could 
help those graphics cards without plentiful RAM resources at their fingertips 
to manage a better level of performance with ray tracing. 

Its possible that Microsofts tech could even make ray tracing more viable for 
lesser spec graphics cards that currently cant handle the feature at all, but 
we wouldnt get our hopes up too much on that front. This is more about making 
it run better on GPUs where ray tracing is a bit wobbly, rather than well out 
of reach, or at least thats the way it seems from whats outlined here. 

This is a potentially huge development  for those who care about ray tracing, 
anyway, and were well aware that not everyone does. There are still PC gamers 
out there who would rather have smoother frame rates and plain rasterization, 
than the visual bells and whistles ray tracing provides, and we get where 
theyre coming from. You might also like Nvidia could have made its last GTX 
graphics card  so what budget options are left? Top gaming PCs: great rigs 
for serious PC gaming Nvidia RTX 5090 could have up to 77% more memory than 
4090



======================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.techradar.com/computing/gpu/microsoft-has-a-potentially-genius-ide
a-to-make-ray-tracing-work-better-even-with-lower-end-gpus


--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 (Linux/64)
 * Origin: tqwNet Technology News (1337:1/100)

.