Forget ray tracing – Nvidia calls path tracing one of the “largest breakthroughs for real-time graphics in many years”

Related Articles

Where to find Stray Notebooks in The Slums

July 22, 2022

Assassins Creed is finally set to head to Japan, according to new rumour

July 15, 2022

After waiting almost 2 years, Genshin Impact fan community goes private after their favorite character is confirmed dead

July 15, 2022

Nvidia has debuted a look at path tracing technology, and the results look stunning.

Just below, you can see the beginnings of a tweet thread taking Twitter user inside Nvidia’s brand new path tracing technology for real-time results. There’s nearly ten examples of path tracing in action throughout the Twitter thread, which sure manage to make Nvidia’s new technology look absolutely spellbinding.

(1/10) Slides + Recording of Petrik Clarberg’s GDC/GTC real-time path tracing research talk are now available online #GDC2022 #GTC22https://t.co/CNAlWkIwlP pic.twitter.com/lhypEZAoTxMarch 29, 2022

See more

If you’re unfamiliar with what path tracing actually is, don’t worry, you’re far from alone. On Nvidia’s official website (opens in new tab), the new technology is called “the most accurate way of rendering,” and one of the “largest breakthroughs for real-time graphics in many years,” by using billions of triangle and millions of light emitters to render a scene in real time.

In short, path tracing is a big step up from ray tracing technology now used with PC and console games. We still think of ray tracing as being the pinnacle of graphical output right now across games, but what Nvidia is basically seeking to do with path tracing is turn everything up to 11.

As for when we could actually expect to see real-time path tracing out in the wild, it’s anyone’s guess. Nvidia is only just introducing the technology to the world for the very first time, so it’s not as if developers are realistically going to have this functioning in games within the next few years. If you’re really eager to learn more about path tracing in greater detail, head over to Nvidia’s website (opens in new tab) for a complete explainer.

Check out our upcoming PC games guide for a full look over all the more powerful games coming to your rig later this year.