The Witcher 3: Next Gen Update - Ray Tracing ON vs OFF Comparison
The Witcher 3: Next Gen Update - Ray Tracing Comparison (featuring Ray-Traced Global Illumination, RT Ambient Occlusion, RT Reflections and RT Shadows)
➡️️ Full ON/OFF Playlist: • Minecraft RTX - Ray Tr...
Maxed out Settings (including Ultra+), DLSS on Quality or Balanced Setting (varied depending on area)
Recorced and uploaded in 1440p.
This is a native ray tracing implementation and not a reshade mod.
Even with real-time ray tracing still being in its infancy, I believe RT will become more important with current and coming generation hardware, so I created this channel with the intention of covering ray-traced games. There are plenty of channels doing mainly performance comparisons, my intention is to focus on the visual aspect and make the differences more obvious through my videos.
If you want to see more on ray-traced games in the future, subscribe ! 🔔
/ @raytracingrevolution
Specs:
RTX 3080
Ryzen 7 3700x
32GB RAM
Music is from the Witcher 3 OST:
- Merchants of Novigrad
- Kaer Morhen
#Witcher3 #raytracing #graphics #comparison #realism #pcgaming #graphicscomparison
At last someone who understands how Raytracing works and where to compare, great video!
yeah finaly not someone looking at random puddles, and calling it a day XD
most games they say raytracing only have reflections, when this game has ambient occlusion and shadows, lighting and reflections so it makes bigger difference
This is one of the best RT comparison on this patch that I have seen on youtube.
@@eclisis5080 actually that’s not really true. There’s a wide variety of ray trace implementations in pc games It just so happens they in consoles Developers can only afford to implement 1 type of ray tracing. Because they have to go to the “most evident visual impact” And yes , when reflective surfaces , like bodies of water , and or reflective floors/metals/windows are present , it is the most noticeably change. It goes from , there is nothing but blurry cube maps , to “oh look , it’s actually reflecting stuff” The thing is , that when there aren’t reflective surfaces around , wich depending on the game , can be most of the time. RT reflections aren’t doing anything. RT GI and RT AO are a bit more subtle (and u say a bit , because depending on the scenery they aren’t subtle at all , they make a huge change) But the thing is they affect every scene all the time. So it is actually a better visual improvement than reflections. But when developers develop for console , their objective isn’t for the game to look better. It is for people to see , oh look , there it is. It’s reflecting , it does has Raytracing. Every idiot can notice oh look , reflections While using other types of RT might be giving a higher boost in image quality , but console players , that usually are not well versed in graphics can’t tell it is there. And end up thinking that there is no difference . But in the pc versions , Rt has been implemented in many ways beyond reflections for quite some years now.
Most videos i've seen place Geralt in direct sunlight looking at a long vista, which makes people say "there's no difference". That's the wrong approach, for the global illumination to really shine you need structures for the light to bounce off, obstruct, occlude.
Wow some of the changes are pretty insane. The hallway at the start is like night and day difference
imo all of the changes are pretty insane , not just some XD
All scenes are night and day difference.
Bro there isn’t a single instance where it doesn’t look like a last gen game compared to Rt. I commend cdpr for this implementation HOWEVER there is some MAJOR performance bugs rn. My 4090 5800x3d is seeings huge stutters and gpu utilisation randomly drops sometimes to 10% for no reason, Geralts armour looks all blurry in the inventory and Fxaa makes everything look blurry for some reason. It’s also somehow more demanding than cyberpunk Rt and portal Rt which also doesn’t make any sense 😢
@@Drip7914 Yes I noticed extreme performance issues on my RTX 3070 so you're not wrong. It looks great but there are issues
@@Drip7914 I agree with the second part , but not the first one. I do have the exact same set up as you , 4090 and 5800X3d , we pc twins haha. And I have the same performance issues you have , there is clearly some things to patch. But I can’t agree with the first part. Except for npc animations , that outside of Geralt and the main characters , can be quite rough some times. The visual presentation itself. With the much denser foliage. The 4 types of ray tracing working simulationously to give the both foliage , buildings and objects in general, a much more realistic look , and much more attached to the world. The new 4k native textures , the added mods. All things combined it is looking right now better than half of the games that came out this year . Actually wish I could show It here. I’ve always compared the Witcher 3 to RDR2 , because those are my 2 favourite games . And my veredicto has always been Physics , immersion , and graphics go to RDR2 Story telling , side quests , characters , gameplay , to the Witcher 3 I was so impressed with this update , that I’ve been taking screen captures. And then took some of the RDR2 maxed out screen captures. And when comparing , it definitely looks better than RDR2 right now. Now graphics goes to the Witcher 3 too. And that’s no small accomplishment. Even if it is from 2018 That game still gives most of 2022 a good run for their money. I think it definitely looks next gen. I mean 4k textures. 4 different types of RT Only those 2 alone sound pretty next gen already haha
From the promotional material before release I was expecting it to be minimal upgrade over a fully modded game, but damn. They really killed it with the new lighting. I can only imagine how good the next Witcher will look with this kind of hard work, ontop of it being UE5.
Photorealism here we come.
Nanites, lumen, just wow and all of that on ps5/xbox/pc now, shut up and take my money
@@johnnybravo5969 ps5/xbox won't be able to run all this xD
@@samusmaster64 shadercompilationstutter here we come :-(
They kill my fps too :\
Hope you like this comparison, this was a fun one. Pretty significant differences in many places. Thanks to CDPR for giving me early access to the build!
You did a good job!
Amazing work! I have nearly the exact same rig as you and saw MAJOR dips in FPS in certain areas with everything maxed. Did you notice the same?
@@jamesmorgan6042 Yep, the game can maintain 60fps with 1440p and DLSS balanced in most situations, but the citys bring down fps to the 30-40s with RT enabled. Hope there is some room for optimization.
Early access? Seems like you're going places, lol. Good video.
Wonderful Job you did here. Thanks a lot. Quality material to show to the Rtx haters.
RTAO seems to be the solution to games looking flat in the shade. Lighting has always seemed like a binary switch between sunny light, or shadow. But real shadows get darker the more occluded they are. When people go out into the sun to show off the ray tracing, they’re missing it. It’s all about those alleyways and interiors.
If you go into certain heavily wooded areas it becomes the most apparent from what I've seen so far. Thick brush is properly dark and shadowy and the way the sun cuts through the foliage is so much more convincing. The contrast between sun and shadow is mindblowing compared to the default rendering.
Thank god they added raytraced ambient occlusion for PS5 otherwise it would have looked pretty dull.
@@exxmodel Or games like Metro Exodus where you are in interior, but have slivers of light shining through.
I think that must be why I think raster looks so much better without RT than with it on. HBAO+ on raster looks better. Hairworks and RT just look worse to me. Like the only time I ever think CDPR games look better hands down with raytracing on is when there's lots of water.
Finally someone who really understand ray tracing and where to compare. This is the most noticeable ray tracing on/off comparison I've seen. Great work!
That's right
What do you mean by 'where to compare'? Isn't it that its effect should be visible everywhere, significantly?
@@abcdefgh6121It IS visible everywhere, but some places are much more noticable than others. Traditional rasterization and ray tracing are all but indistinguishable for parts of objects lit directly by the light, but any time there are reflections or just indirect lighting, rasterization begins to come up short. So the places you will see differences are precisely the places that rasterization comes up short. So look in the shade, and at shiny things, anywhere where the light plays, as an artist would say.
Love this channel, thanks for making these comparisons
Came straight to you the moment you showed up in my Recommended Videos section. Thanks a lot, as usual, for the great comparison; including the on-screen notes. (The latter always helps me appreciate the finer details that are important to understand and appreciate about ray-tracing. :))
3:52 lol the horse starts glowing hahaha
I think that illumination is the 70% realistic perception of a game. However, in some cases, the difference it's not too brutal... Cd Projekt made a huge effort in the "hand-made" illumination
This is absolutely true. Proper lighting in a scene makes up the majority of photorealism. You can even have a simple textureless 3D scene and as long as you have a physically accurate sun it looks pretty believable as long as you have global illumination with radiosity.
Lighting is a huge portion of what makes CGI in films look good or bad, most of the time when something is unconvincing it's the lighting rather than say texture quality
@@SpartanArmy117 that's got more to do with the way RT is set up in that specific game, they tend to use the minimum amount of rays with fast decay for performance reasons therefore it gets dark pretty quick where there's no nearby light sources. In such areas it can be compensated with extra lights, if the game is though out with RT in mind.
While "hand-made" illumation can still be on par, the same way a human can create photorealistic images, it still takes a huge amount of time and effort to imitate. RT basically reduces this to a matter of flipping a switch.
@@sendnoobsplease no, it's impossible to manually create illumination which is as convincing. You'd have to go back to using baked lighting and actually color the textures as if they were lighted in a realistic way (it's a bit more complex than this, but for the argument's sake this simplified explanation will do), which is an outdated technique for good reasons. We moved away from this technique not only because it's incredibly tedious, but you'd completely lose any dynamic light capability (eg lights which have to move). The torch in your character's hand which lights up the cave you're exploring? Impossible to implement without dynamic lighting. RT simply takes dynamic lights and computes the way individual photons bounce in a fashion which mimics reality.
Great comparison. Finally someone to know how to showcase the difference, knows when it really shows. I watched some videos that made me pretty underwhelmed, but now I've seen the light ;-)
Hey, great work in the video. Job well done with all the comparison shots. Game looks beautiful
This is very, VERY well done - you've really shown the RT effect to it's fullest in this video. The devs have clearly put a lot of work into this update (barring the odd issue to resolve for some - which may be their own hardware/other software at fault)
Looks pretty bland
Thanks bro, great work!
Nice job mate! That’s a great comparison. 👍🏻
Damn one of the best RT compare video. Really great job of understanding how it works !
Finally a game where RT make a real visual difference ... even tho sometimes it make the game too dark in some place which make seeing things harder like at 3:30 And sometime it make the scene worse like at 4:41 with weird "coloration"
Cyberpunk was first :)
*The best RTX highlights you can find on the web* 🤩 Great job 👏
RT* RTX is something different
Nice timing man, reckon this one will jump your subs quite a bit :)
ayy thank you for this really quick comparison video ! :) might i ask if you could do the calisto protocol if you got the time? i just finished the game and did some RT on/off comparisons myself but to switch from on to off midgame is really flow breaking , i'd highly appreciate it! as always thanks a bunch for this kind of videos, i got a couple of friends convinced that RT is more than just a feature if implementat correctly just cuz of your videos :D
I’ll do Portal RTX next (if I can get it to record at useable framerates, lmao) Callisto Protocol looks interesting, I’ll keep it on the radar
@@RayTracingRevolution awesome thanks for the heads up ! :D i am just about to play portal rtx myself , i grew up in the HL2 era so im really curious what the "rtx remix" feature brings to the table, looks promising for now... alltough rip performance ;_; (im using 3080TI and 5800X and im barley getting 60+fps at 1440p dlss balanced)
Calisto protocol requires a full game restart to change any settings, making comparisons near impossible and extremely time consuming. Even digital foundry isn't bothering to do PC coverage because of it. It's a shame because it would make for a very interesting comparison.
@@existentialselkath1264 that explains the really suttle changes overall god damn i feel stupid now ._. thanks for pointing that out tho xD
My issue with ray tracing is 4:24 for example. You're going to tell me that in broad daylight, that tunnel would be almost pitch black inside? That's not how lighting works.
it looks like they either mixed up the captions for the pictures or .... it got worse :))
I feel like it's more of a dynamic range issue. There's always going to be issue with rendered images having light range than we can see in real world. It's the same deal with cinematography.
I mean you're not wrong but the problem here is basically the number of light bounces. More bounces would make the light reach deeper in that tunnel. but yeah that's limited by current hardware but it's all still very new and this tech will get better soon with the 5000 series. Dont forget this is just a mod on a 2015 game.
I really hope lighting mods for Toussaint works with the new update : I can't stand the yellow tint everywhere and with RT on it's now bouncing on every surface, making everything MORE yellow
I wanted to include more Toussaint scenes but something is definitely wrong with it, it looks very odd.
this is the best rt on/off comparison video so far, thank you.
Man ive been waiting for this update for so long!
I know now what channel to watch for RT comparisons. It seems not many people understand what it actually does. CDPR has outdone themselves. This looks incredible.
4:44 Now Toussaint is Mexico lol
Excellent comparison. Thanks!
Nice video. Will you do a GTA5 RT video? The added RT Reflections are really great.
I have an RTX 3080 the game with everything at maximum without any alternative method of improvement like DLSS or FSR and resolution at 3440x1440 21:9 is staying at 30/27 fps, when I turn off ray tracing the game jumps to 120 fps, the visual difference is very little for such a significant loss of performance, if you turn on DLSS for quality mode the game goes up to 60/55 fps but even so it's not worth it, I prefer to play in native resolution with RT off and the rest on ultra, I would only like more options on RT such as being able to adjust the intensity, I believe that at the very least it could show me something beautiful and with a better performance, but the way it is, either play with it at maximum or turn it off, unlike some games that you can tweak it like in spider-man.
This is such a cope "there is little visual difference" the ray tracing is a huge difference. Just be a man and say you prefer higher framerate. Personally I prefer playing at 30 with all of the ray tracing modes on because its not a little difference its a HUGE difference.
@@AlternateKek In all fairness 30 fps is also a HUGE difference from 120fps. I think the RT looks better, but the 30fps sacrifice just makes me feel like all the improvements were made null because it looks and feels terrible for me to play.
While my fps loss isn't quite that extreme at 2560x1440, i too have about half the framerate I would with RT enabled. It's perfectly valid to not enable it if you prefer a high framerate, no cope about it.
I went from 120 FPS to 60 - 70 FPS (RT off) with just the update. With RT, I'm at 50 FPS. AA type doesn't change the FPS at all. I think this update just isn't implemented well.
Ray tracing is the whole reason DLSS exists, why would you run it at native 4k? If anything, the visual difference between DLSS on and off is small
Can't wait to have this downloaded and booted up. I know it's a limitation of SSR but it'd kind of bug me when a character would be in front of a body of water and you'd see that haze around them, RT adds so much to the scene.
enjoy your stutter even if you have a 4090 LOL!
@@visceraeyes525 No stutter on my RTX 4090, just enable DLSS frame generation.
@@paul2609 that ruins picture quality
Have fun with the dogshit performance... i closed the game after 5 minutes... before the update i had smooth 90 fps on 1440p, now it's 30 to 60 at best with horrible frametimes and stuttering. Without RT!
Great comparisons, good job.
Outstanding video, very good examples on what RT actually does. Also interesting to see some areas are arguably underlid with RT on, but that comes with the terrority when the game was original never designed to support RT.
This just goes to show that Ray tracing can look very substantial, the devs just need time to implement it well
I have a 3080Ti and RTX on = FPS off still applies lol, crazy how this game still looks insane after 7 years though
don't feel bad, even the 4090 is brought to just 60fps with RT, no GPU is ready for prime time with RT yet, we still have a few more generations to go before everyone can enjoy it
@@SharkWithADrill frame generation makes it butter smooth though
This is badly optimized for RT, Spiderman had some great RT at less performance cost
Bro my 3080ti cruise with RT on in this game lol
@@SharkWithADrill It's more that the DX12 version of the game is a bit weirdly optimized and It's clearly still not well optimized for RT as most people are getting worse performance than even in Cyberpunk, and there is an example of a game that pulls off very good RT performance with all the RT features (Metro Exodus) so I think the DX12/RT implementation just isn't up to par sadly :(
fist video i see from you. love it. subbed.
This is an incredible video, and the music selection damn.
wow, the RTGI here makes a huge difference, so much bigger then in CP2077 because there the lighting is much more advanced even without RT great comparison shots
Bigger then CP2077 no.
RT adds so much richness and depth to the scenes. Truly remarkable!
Nice comparison. I subbed
This is the comparison I was looking for! Best by far.
Just tried it on PS5. Love the ray tracing improvement, but I just cannot live with 30 fps after experiencing 60fps :(
Most of the time I've found it makes little difference to the quality, but when you find the right environment it is huge. Quite a performance hit though on my 3060ti.
I have a 3060ti as well, I used to play on intel integrated graphics so I’m honestly just glad that I get a consistent 50-60fps on RT Ultra at 1080p. Ray tracing has always intrigued me and I finally get to have an enjoyable RT experience :)
I think Running through a deep thick forest is probably the best show of RT Seeing how bright it is towards the top of the trees and how the ground is darker because the light is struggling to reach the bottom really makes the Forests look crazy moody
Amazing comparison vid!! PCMR
Great comparison!
Reflections and shadows are great and all, but isn't it too dark at many areas? Like when you look under an arc in the middle of the day and can't see shit, it's neither very realistic nor convenient. Moreover when you enter some low light area irl your eyes accommodates pretty quick and you can actually see things, so again neither realistic nor convenient
@@N7Andy You're wrong. In the game,there is only one or 2 light bounces which are replicated/calculated.So places which should be lighted by the 3rd,4th etc (it is unlimited) bounces aren't and they are dark when they shouldn't. You remember Metro exodus ? Its first RT version only had one or 2 bounces of light and people like you were screaming that it looked realistic.THEN they released Metro exodus ENHANCED version with the version 2 of the RT. With infinite bounces and guess what,dark places turned lit and people started to say that NOW it looked realistic and that before,it was trash. So the witcher 3 RT is not realistic at all . Next time,inform yourself before talking about things you don't know because atm,the witcher 3's maths and physics are wrong. LOL.
Awesome work! IGNs video on this subject was embarrassing compared to this! Fantastic job.
IGN is always embarrassing.
Nice to see an actually good comparison video
Best comparison yet. Thank you.
Next-Gen Update is pretty much: Ray-Tracing off = Witcher 3 (Enhanced) Ray-Tracing on = Witcher 3 Next-Gen Don't get me wrong, update is great and looks a lot better than vanilla regardless of RT, but RT simply makes it look amazing. Also great to see someone making these videos, that actually knows how RT works, ANNDD knows how to properly name it, unlike other KZheadrs who write RTX 🤦♂
great showcase, been playing for 2 hours now and everything feels so much more realistic and atmospheric, dlss 3 comes in clutch for being able to play it at good framerates :D
*cries in rtx 2070 super*
Do I need to update geforce drivers to play at better framerates? The RT is so awesome but mannn feels like im playing at 20 fps. Running 3070 ti
@Rome Same here. Can play it on ultra @ 4k with 60fps solid. Turn RT on goes to shit even at 1440p.
@@rome229 3070ti at what feels like 20fps? Dude, you need to buy a new CPU.
@@MonkeyDIvan 20 fps, really?
Excellent video and I'm impressed about rt in this game, it changes everything
Great Video!
Honestly the game looks pretty damn good on ultra plus settings without ray tracing. Unless you’re looking super close for it and not you know playing the game, the raytracing really isn’t that much better. I’ll gladly take the 130ish plus over 40ish with raytracing any day (at least on my pc). Ray traced reflections are the biggest thing I notice and that doesn’t seem to really impact performance much so I’ll leave it on
i am the other side i find RT is such a day and night difference so i cant paly without it i play with 30 fps +- over no RT with above 60 fps
@@tomhanke7703 Clearly. I dont even know how to say "Unless you’re looking super close " lol. Guess his eyes and brain are completly broken.
People always say they cant tell the difference when they are coping they cant run it. It's a huge difference and I can easily tell on vs off in games.
@@AlternateKek i can run it with raytracing though and do, everything except global illumination is raytraced. My fps doesn't suffer too bad that way and I still get a great looking game. I can tell the difference if I'm looking for it and it looks objectively better, but I don't think it's worth the performance hit for many
@@idkwhattohaveasausername5828 You can't reason with these people, their screenshots are more important than actually playing the game.
This is such a freaking improvement. Getting us all closer to the e3 demo. Excited to see how mods will progress going forward.
I wish they would have implemented the fur physics from the e3 demo!
LmaoThis is far Better than the e3 demo
@@sur3089 You need a reality check.
@@simonrockstream It is far better, the e3 demo lighting for example was way too intense in the e3 demo. Textures, shadow quality, reflections etc are much improved. At least unlike Ubisoft CDPR did something with a 7+ year old game.
The E3 trailer is overrated imo. There are a couple things you could point to that are better about it but overall this updated version looks better.
Great video as usual. GTA 5 just got RT upgrade too, but sadly only on consoles.
Will definitely check it out again then
Can you do a comparison for each RTX option available? Like vanilla vs. global illumination on vs. global illumination + rtx shadows... etc?
For me at least - it more or less just looks like a different shade of color for the vast majority of differences and not nearly worth the intense performance cut. Unless you are slowly walking around for the entire game, you will rarely notice the difference while playing the game.
That's exactly all it effectively is. RTX is a scam.
👍👍👍👍👍speaking the truth
The feature that even 4090 owners wouldn't use because of the fps loss
What? With DLSS3 this runs with like 100fps even on a 4080. It's only unplayable on amd cards.
@@Iconocla5t I run it with all ray tracing enabled on a 3070, people are over exaggerating the performance loss lol.. And a mix of high + ultra settings
@@MrAzmore what are your settings?
Couldn’t get it to run acceptable on an RTX 3080. Ordered RTX 4090. Well, not because of that, but let’s see.
@@cvayta How did it go dude, Im planning on a 4090 myself
Great comparison! I'm in awe at how stunning this game looks in your video in some scenes. Unfortunately, I don't really get above 40FPS with my RTX 3070 with Raytracing on (thankfully the game still looks beautiful without it). But do you have any tips on what I could do to have RTX on with my 3070 while still having a playable experience? Are there some options that I can turn down to gain performance without having to sacrifice too much graphic quality? Or is my 3070 too much of a bottleneck?
DDGI and RTAO combo seems like a pretty solid lighting solution for visuals and performance. DDGI for generally correct color, RTAO for details, and you could even throw SSGI in there for some more detail.
RT OFF: 60FPS RT ON: 23FPY (Frames per year)
Really nice RTGI and AO implementation. Reflections are good as well. RT shadows are always the weakest aspect of ray-tracing in my opinion.
Agreed, the RT shadows are nearly always "off" if the option is there. It's such a small difference.
are you high or smth, this update is a mess
@@bravethomasyt rt shadows in this game is pretty good, specially AO. Makes a huge difference on grass and tress.
This is the best video currently to showcase the difference full RT makes! Excellent work.
Thank you for this comparison. I have watched many videos, and most of them choose the worst places to compare before and after Raytracing. Well done!
no wonder cdpr jumped on UE5, fortnite had bigger visual improvements with less impact on performance
I only get like 30 fps with all rt max with a rtx 3080
buen video, el mejor en esto de comparar rayt on vs off, like.
The one that really gets me is in Novigrad. Seeing the lighting, shadows, reflections and bounces on dozens of buildings way out is WILD.
I can totally tell Raytracing in 1080p because fps tanks. Otherwise i can't.
I might be weird but in some of them I actually liked rtx off more. I need to hop on it today and see for myself it might look better with extra mods.
Learned a lot about RT from this thanks
Amazing video
Ray tracing in this game - was amazing. But performance so low, even on Rtx 4090 и rtx 4080 in 4K.
RTX in this game was a nonsense scam. Just like RTX in every other game.
@@thatfirstone It's subjective. If you need every frame per second in any game where's it added. You without problem can turn off it.
Its just darker with RTX and thats all. It is not some mind blowing effect.
Thank you, nice job
Ray tracing affects colors as well because of the bounced light, which gives more atmospheric vibe to the scenery
BTW: Nvidia pays developers to downgrade non-RTX settings to make the difference much bigger. For the Next Gen Update they massiv downgraded Ambient occlusion (overall picture Quality is shit now) and normal shadows are less effective (brighter rooms and corners). #Capitalism
Oh and they pay most contend creators too to make all those videos...
It's pretty but the performance is ass! I just tried it. It runs worse than Cyberpunk on my 3080. Framerate is 30 and below. Tested with the latest Nvidia driver. Quite disappointed. :(
It depends on the area for me. Some of the citys are very rough on performance and even DLSS can't quite save the day here.
Worse thhan cyberpunk!!! Jesus Christ Then imagine the RT overdrive for cyberpunk, you will need a 4090 for a console experience.
I agree, I ended up just turning RT of because while it does look insanely good the game is still very nice looking without it.
@@RayTracingRevolution Honestly, I also tried every single DLSS mode (except for dlss 3 of course), and it barely made any difference for me. I have a strong feeling that it's either broken in Witcher 3, or that it somehow doesn't work on my system. Every other game shows significant FPS gains when turning DLSS ON, so idk what's going on here. It's also weird how they have DLSS hidden in the Anti-Aliasing graphics option.
@@RayVa0 Yea it's getting ridiculous. Feels like we would need a 5090 to run overdrive CP smoothly, without the frame-generation tech.
Cannot wait to add this game to my kill count library! Another excellent showcase of RT mate, and amazing how my realism RTGI adds!
Best Ray tracing vídeo ive saw!
Fps on /off
Can't believe I would say this, but the more I look into it the more I like it without raytracing. 3:02 is a good example where sky is not taken into consideration at all when raytracing is ON and scene looks way too warm. While without raytracing it looks just right(?). Don't get me wrong it has flaws too, but it doesn't look uncanny, if that's the right word. in general, for some bizarre reason, raytraced versions have way too deep shadows and blow up lights (0:07), it percieves as ramped up contrast and does no good, reminds me of cheap hollywood movies (just in case, my screen is calibrated). But I guess it all will settle with time, remember bloom in Oblivion era? lol. Another thing to consider is that light of a given temperature has the property of being percieved colder when there is less of it (i.e. 6500K light source looks blue if it is very dim, and looks white when there is enough of it, and vice versa, 2700K looks comfortable to the eye in a dim room but becomes yellow if there is too much of it). Thanks for the video!
I can't believe you're referencing 3:02 and picking the non-rt version. The non-rt is lifeless blue and their is no depth to any of the scene. It's all the same garbage lighting. With RT enabled the lighting bounces and the wood and rocks come to life with natural warm lighting. The sky at 3:10 looks like a perfectly normal day, why should the city buildings look blue?
@@Phil_529Oh, sorry, I might have phrased it wrong, I was talking only about colors there, you can google "why shadows appear blue on a sunny day" answer would be too long for a comment. But yes, I think raytracing is an awesome tech and I am looking forward to it, Reflections and GI especially. Witcher team did an outstanding job here. I would like to see other old titles with full RT, something like Fallout: New Vegas would be insane.
Wasn't sure whether to start on performance mode or ray tracing, ray tracing it is lol thanks for this comparison vid 👍
Would you mind doing some gameplay demonstrations on another channel of yours?
it looksbeautiful but sadly the optimization is very poor
Bruh my overclocked 3090 ti top 35 fps with 4k Rt Ultra on. You literally need a +3500$ Pc to afford playing max setting.
First video that truly highlights the improvements. Blood and White is too yellow with RT on, though.
Been trying this out on *deep breath* a 3070, 3080 Ti, PS4/5, and Steam Deck, lol. PS4 doesn't get the visual enhancements, so it's mainly for a point of comparison to OG TW3. At Ultra+RT the 3080 Ti is really pushed and can't reach anywhere near a stable 60fps at 3440x1440 with DLSS auto on. Running this maxed out on that card at 4k60 is a thing of the past with the full suite of RT on. RT is a big improvement in spots, mostly interiors and areas of deeper shadow from what I can tell but the reflections on bodies of water are nice as well. Just as impressive though are the improved PBR material rendering, anti-aliasing/reconstruction methods, and higher res textures. And the grass! All these things combine to really freshen up the visuals. And it's free! Well played, CDPR, and thanks for this wonderful update :) Oh, and even without RT the game looks noticeably improved on the Deck as well at medium settings in large part due to the new lighting, textures, TAAU, offset camera...and the grass!
Sure it looks different...but not different enough to justify the 50% or more reduction in framerate. It's a video game. Lighting is supposed to be fake. Tricking the players eyes should be graphics devs jobs while also keeping framerates high. That's how you make a responsive and enjoyable game. When you start bruteforcing inefficient rendering techniques then you get a mess of a game.
Looks shit on both. It's a very pathetic upgrade
This is a good comparison. It's kind of hard to tell in some circumstances when I don't see them next to each other.
do you enable all 3 RT features on the 3080 or did you find that just baseline RT + AO was enough to get proper frames?
I played the witcher ages ago but didn't play the expansions when are apparently amazing. I am now playing them for the first time with next gen update and Ray tracing, so bloody happy I waited. (Reason I couldn't get into it originally was the 30fps on ps4 was driving me nuts but years later I now have a top of the line pc)
excellent video
The efect of ray tracing is much more noticeable in shadow zones and interiors with big apertures, doors windows, etc like this frames: 3:06 and 5:04. It add so much volume and realism
I have almost the same PC. How many FPS do you have in Boucleair at night?
Unbelievable differences, wow! 👍
Definitely gotta use ray tracing for this one. My FPS will suffer, but this is my first time jumping in after the next-gen patch was released and I want to experience all the improvements that are on offer.
Just got myself a 4080 super, and this inspired me to try ray tracing out even more than I was planning to 👌
I’m so glad that Ray Tracing is finally realizing its potential in games. Lighting is a critical factor for realism. I can’t wait to see how creative devs will get with it.