I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had bought myself an RTX 3070 Ti. For those who don't know RTX is Nvidias new range of cards that they first released in 2018 and that also features Ray Tracing.
Not everyone might know what Ray Tracing means either and without delving to deep into technological babble I'll just say that Ray Tracing is relatively new technology that simulates light in real time. Before there was Ray Tracing light had to be pre-calculated. In short; RTX makes lighting effects look better in games.
Let it also be said that's not the only thing RTX cards do. They also outperform the old GTX cards be quite a margin. It has also spawned a great new format of memes.
KnowYourMeme
I mentioned the other day that I went [shopping in the Steam Christmas Sale](LINK HERE) and that I picked up Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice which got a free update in November of 2021 to now feature Ray Tracing! Yes, not all games have Ray Tracing.
Being quite excited to see what my new GPU could do I jumped straight into Hellblade. This game immersed me from the get go so it felt kinda shameful to stop every now and then to play around with the settings. I nonetheless put that shame aside to take some screenshots with RTX on and off for comparison.
Comparison 1
RTX on
RTX off
This first comparison is done during the games opening cutscene. Since the boat is always moving it's hard to get a perfect side by side comparison but we can still see quite a difference in the water reflections. That's why I chose to include this comparison.
With RTX on we're seeing a near perfect reflection of what we're seeing above the waters surface. With RTX off the reflection is actually quite different from the above. The poles appear lighter in the reflection than they do above water. Definitely looks better with RTX although I probably never would have thought about it if I didn't do the comparison.
Comparison 2
RTX on
RTX off
Now this comparison is something different. I don't know how much I need to say as the difference should be quite obvious. With RTX on we're actually seeing things in the waters reflection that aren't even on the screen. We see the sky through the trees above. We also see great great reflections off the main character herself. Things are a lot more bland in this scene with RTX off for sure. We can even vividly see the ripples in the water with RTX on.
Comparison 3
RTX on
RTX off
Now this scene I have a bit more to say about for a couple of reason. To just do the general comparison we can see that with RTX on the scene is lit up way more than it is with RTX off. The ground and the shadows from the plants look way better with RTX on. There is one big loser here though and that's the tree on the right. It looks way better with RTX off in my opinion.
That's kinda the trade you make with RTX though. With RTX on you get more realistic lighting and with RTX off you get to see the lighting of the scene exactly how the developers made it, because of the pre-calculations. RTX just makes it more realistic. I do favor RTX though, definitely.
Performance
Now performance is something that needs mentioning. Ray Tracing really takes a hit on your performance. When I was testing it out I was able to play Hellblade with 120+ FPS stable while RTX was off. With RTX on high I was getting around 30-50 FPS most of the time but if I put it down to medium I was running it at a stable 60-70 FPS.
This means you gotta decide if you want the best performance or the best looks. I landed somewhere in between. I set the Ray Tracing setting to medium and locked my monitor to 60 FPS. Ray Tracing on medium versus high really doesn't look that different. It's very minor. That means I'm able to run the game with absolutely beautiful visuals while getting quite acceptable performance.
Final words
My new GPU is definitely paying off in terms of enjoyment so far. I was aware that playing with Ray Tracing on would tank my performance a bit so that's not a disappointment. I still think it's a worthy trade to have games like these look this beautiful. Also, while playing games that doesn't have Ray Tracing I'll have absolutely marvelous performance. I've already been seing a lot of that in Escape From Tarkov, Final Fantasy: XIV and Nier: Automata. My performance has pretty much doubled.
I'll end the post with a few more comparisons that I'm not gonna put words to. In every case the first image will have RTX on while the second image will have RTX off. Enjoy!
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me except the meme.
wow brother, your video card if that is fabulous, the difference when it is on or off is very noticeable, and that graphics so beautiful, I had never seen one like this, I like these types of publications because they teach me a lot, good post brother.
Awesome that my posts can be both entertaining and educational. Thanks for the kind words dude. This game is absolutely wild. I’m putting out let’s play episodes of it if you wanna watch some gameplay.
That's awesome! I bought an alienware aurora r5 years ago and have slowly been upgrading it. Going full blast into it this year. The case sucks ass for desktop so when I went to upgrrade the gpu in it, the only gpu that would fit in it was a compact 1060 (upgraded from a 9 something). I'm going to be buying a new case this month and a new motherboard so I can install everything into a bigger case so I can get a better gpu! I've actually been eying a 3070 myself!
Nice dude! I don't know much about Alienware PCs to know what that means. I bought a new case not long ago and the 3070 Ti fit into the new case by just a few millimeters, lol.
Very good comparisons, you can tell it's a very good card, but without a doubt Patrick Star's first comparison was the best of all lol.
It's a great card indeed. Patrick us of course the best example of what RTX can do.
Oh, don't mind me; just tryin' not to be jealous over here :*(
Those graphics really do speak for themselves, though.
With the rare you're stacking up HIVE you can get one for yourself pretty soon. 😛
First of all, congratulations for having been able to obtain a graph of that range in these times of so much lack of stock, my friend, and secondly I must say that I am a very fan of this type of graphical comparisons and analysis where we can see these comparisons,
The truth is that I was quite impressed by the quality with which the video game environment looks, the technology that nvidia added to these graphics cards is quite remarkable, so it must be a privilege to see it with your own eyes, very good post friend ,
I hope to continue seeing more comparisons of this style where we can appreciate rtx technology in its maximum splendor, it would be great if you would try it in video games like Red Dead Redemption 2, or Minecraft with some graphic mod, a greeting from the cave❗🐻🎮🚀
Norway suddenly had heaps of GPUs in stock all over the place which was kinda surprising. Me and a friend both went and bought the same card.
Glad you liked the comparisons! I'll probably do more like these when I try out other RTX games. There's about a 0% chance I'm gonna play RDR2. I played it for the PS4 and it was boring as shit.
Great friend, I wish we were all lucky that there was a stock of gpus in our respective countries, and well I will continue to follow up to continue seeing these comparisons with the rtx, the truth is that it is enjoyed a lot on a visual level❗🐻🎮🚀
really good card .. but too expensive for me :( I hope the graphics cards will get cheaper because the current prices are crazy
Yeah the prices are whack right now. I had saved for quite a while to buy a card like this so it felt good.
how much did you pay for it?
This card was $1300
This game looks pretty dope with RTX on. We should be getting the new Hellblade soon and I am sure that game will look amazing. This is such a cool game. Play it with some nice headphones.
I'm playing it with my 7.1 surround headset and it's a wild experience. Whispers from every direction.
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