Okay nice, another lecture in a vacuum. Cool, I know why ray tracing is more computationally expensive. Now, let's focus on these core abstracts:
-what future does real time ray tracing have with the current physical limitations hardware is facing
-is it really the future of graphics or is it a dead end and the future will be going back to optimizing raster graphics
Because the way I see it, it is a dead end. No amount of optimization and hardware evolution will make ray tracing replace rasterization. The hardware demand for it is so exponentially higher and we're inching closer and closer to the upper physical limits of what we can pull out of semiconductors that I doubt we'll see affordable GPU's capable of perfect real time ray tracing that can match raster performance even within ten years.
Obviously ray tracing acceleration that Nvidia is doing will be immensely useful in workloads like Blender, but it will never be good enough to replace raster graphics in games. The reason I ranted about HL2 RTX? Nvidia keeps pushing those tech demos to prove that real time ray tracing is viable, and it's viable now. When it clearly isn't. When pushed to the max on a 5090 at 4K, it can't hold 30fps. It has to fill in the gaps with frame generation. Frame generation, which cannot overcome the input lag that's inherent to the raw frames.
The reason I'm outraged is that this is not an evolution, it's a massive regression. Nvidia is pushing something that'll never be viable, and with it they push technology that will lead to the demise of raster games as well, as developers will get lazier and lazier, where you will need to buy the newest Nvidia GPU to be able to have a
playable experience, instead of something in the 3090/4070Ti/5070 ballpark which is already a very potent amount of power.
The only future where video games run and look good, is if everyone goes back to faking real visuals well. We already have a heapton of PBR implementations in raster, they look great and they perform great. Zero need to push ray tracing. But with Nvidia pushing ray tracing, as well as frame generation, and everyone defending it because it's the new thing, it makes bigger number better and you're poor if you can't experience it, then it's only going to wither and rot.
Now, I know that you're constantly obtuse about what it is that you want to convey and your constant dodging of the topic at hand. Whether it's on purpose or whether it's genuine autism, I don't know.
For example:
a 4090 is to raytracing what an N64 was to rasterization
N64 costed ~$400 adjusted for inflation, it was a fully fledged gaming system. A 4090 launched with the MSRP of $1600 and it's only a GPU. You've implied that the future of gaming will demand you buying systems for, what, $6000 to enjoy them in what can be considered acceptable? And you never address whether or not this makes sense, whether or not this will be viable. You just throw this example out there, without any context as if it's something normal, as if it's something acceptable. It's ridiculous. N64 was revolutionary because it brought real time raster graphics to the masses. The 4090 is a premium product, so if ray tracing is meant to replace rasterization, and this is what Nvidia is pushing for, that means it's turning what was for decades available to the masses into an expensive premium product.
That's essentially what you're telling me by throwing this statement without addressing it from your personal standpoint, and I have no other choice than to conclude that you are paid by Nvidia to defend them. If you think that's retarded, then please, learn how to actually speak your mind so that you won't confuse people about what it is that you want to convey. So far you're doing a great job of coming off as an Nvidia shill with the amount of raw theory in a vacuum that doesn't relate to the current discussion you keep throwing around.
So, if you can, tell me this: with everything that's going on with what Nvidia is pushing, the current state of the market, the pricing of Nvidia GPU's, the push for ray tracing, it's lackluster performance with the current hardware. Do you think this is good? Do you thing this will be viable in X years? Do you think that everything that Nvidia is doing in terms of video game graphics makes sense? That it should be defended? Do you think it has a future? Abstracts, if you are capable of addressing them without talking about something unrelated.
EDIT: To clarify what I mean by focusing on optimization in video games:
-Ditching ray tracing, it will never be viable and the focus needs to be fully on rasterization.
-Focusing on pushing rasterization further, more cheap tricks to get believable graphics. We already managed to go far with it, like with NFS 2015, so we can push it further.
-Ditching the idea of realism. Realism ages bad. Stylized graphics don't. Even semi-realistic styles like in GTA V will age better than full realism.
-Making sure that all those rasterization tricks will deliver the most believable result at the lowest performance cost. Not best, not most realistic, most believable. That's what I mean by optimization.
-Set the golden standard so that you can push as many frames as possible on every resolution as the default. Don't waste computing power on doing something you could do with a fraction of it for the same result on screen. That way, frame gen will only be there if you want to go for really high FPS, like 200+ on higher resolutions. Not as a band-aid for not being able to push 60fps at 1440p because the devs didn't care about optimization.