Will KSP 2 support ray tracing? (And general graphics discussion)

[Kernel Kraken]

As the title says. How do you think the graphics are going to turn out? I think one of the first game's biggest drawbacks were the medium-tier graphics, which aren't bad, but leave a lot to be desired. I can see interesting atmospheric effects being made possible with ray tracing, but will it be supported?

[Bej Kerman]

My question is how interstellar raytracing would work.

[Guest]

I have a totally irrational thing for ray tracing because I first worked with it in 1992 and have been waiting for it to go real time in games since then.

That said, I don’t think KSP2 really needs it. It can look incredibly good with completely traditional rendering. I have high hopes for it visually and the screenshots they’ve shown look great already, I’ve no doubt it’ll be a treat when we get to see the final version.

I would expect that performance is a high priority for the team, they wouldn’t want to lock out people playing this on “work computers” — midrange laptops not designed primarily for gaming. I do hope they’ll find ways to give higher end systems some eye candy though!

[runner78]

I don't think KSP would have to use Unity's HDRP for that. I think they are still using the old build-in renderer.
But Unitys HDRP in a space game wouldn't look bad either, see Hardspace: Shipbreaker

[mcwaffles2003]

I think this is only being asked in regards to space but we will have large terrestrial areas filled with colonies and ray tracing seems to do really well in those circumstances and it seems like its a feature that can be fused into a made game and applied piecewise.

*cough* minecraft *cough* 

Cloud effects with something like this could make for some beautiful vistas

[The Aziz]

31 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

*cough* minecraft *cough* 

Haha gpu fan go brrrrr

I don't know how raytracing in minecraft is implemented but my geforce reaches 80°C in seconds when I turn it on. So currently optional or nothing.

[mcwaffles2003]

2 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

So currently optional or nothing.

It would always have to be optional. I'm not one for holding the game back for people still playing KSP on their Ti-84+ silver editions but a GTX 1060 should be able to play KSP 2 at least

[Incarnation of Chaos]

16 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

It would always have to be optional. I'm not one for holding the game back for people still playing KSP on their Ti-84+ silver editions but a GTX 1060 should be able to play KSP 2 at least

You mean an RTX 2060....

GTX 1060 has no RTX hardware on it, and would be able to play KSP2 regardless.

[mcwaffles2003]

4 minutes ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

You mean an RTX 2060....

GTX 1060 has no RTX hardware on it, and would be able to play KSP2 regardless.

That's why I said 1060... I don't want to force RT on everyone, that would be absurd, please read again.

Edited November 3, 2020 by mcwaffles2003

[Incarnation of Chaos]

Just now, mcwaffles2003 said:

That's why I said 1060... I don't want to force RT on everyone, that would be absurd, please read again.

But the 1060 has nothing to do with RT, and wouldn't be unable to play KSP2 with or without RT features.

I was saying it's a non-point, not that you were trying to force anything on anyone.

I'd honestly be blown away if the MINIMUM requirement was even a 1060.

[mcwaffles2003]

1 minute ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

I'd honestly be blown away if the MINIMUM requirement was even a 1060.

As would I, I was trying to exaggerate... for comedic purposes, hence:

26 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

I'm not one for holding the game back for people still playing KSP on their Ti-84+ silver editions but

 

That said though, I would be excited if a 1060 was recommended... SO... MUCH.... DEBRIS... IN RINGS O_O

[Incarnation of Chaos]

Just now, mcwaffles2003 said:

As would I, I was trying to exaggerate... for comedic purposes, hence:

 

That said though, I would be excited if a 1060 was recommended... SO... MUCH.... DEBRIS... IN RINGS O_O

I'd imagine they'd scale the debris with a setting, so even if the minimum was low the maximum could actually be pretty high.

[Bej Kerman]

6 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

I think this is only being asked in regards to space but we will have large terrestrial areas filled with colonies and ray tracing seems to do really well in those circumstances and it seems like its a feature that can be fused into a made game and applied piecewise.

*cough* minecraft *cough* 

Cloud effects with something like this could make for some beautiful vistas

I do not have high hopes for an on-the-fly switch for raytracing and traditional rendering - besides, the sky is a thing and you'd have to raytrace that too.

[SpaceFace545]

probably not, ray tracing is only for FPS games and it doesn't really look that realistic.

[dave1904]

Now that I have a 3080 strix I wouldnt mind :p Sorry had to tell someone. Got it 2 weeks ago. I won a "lottery" apparently. 

Edited November 3, 2020 by dave1904

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

I do not have high hopes for an on-the-fly switch for raytracing and traditional rendering - besides, the sky is a thing and you'd have to raytrace that too.

Not at all, ray tracing is a really flexible technique, and there's no law that says you have to apply it to everything. You could only apply it to improve shadows and close-up reflections, for example. 

[shdwlrd]

Doesn't KSP use ray tracing already for non graphics based functions?

[The Aziz]

4 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

Doesn't KSP use ray tracing already for non graphics based functions?

Like checking if there's sunlight for the solar panels to work? I think it's more like much simpler "if object is in a line of sight" which was done already in many many different games before. Unless that's an ancient form of raytracing but not using this name, then no.

[Bej Kerman]

23 hours ago, SpaceFace545 said:

probably not, ray tracing is only for FPS games and it doesn't really look that realistic.

The same people who gave you that idea that RT is only for FPS games and isn't realistic also say that video games cause violence.

[shdwlrd]

10 hours ago, The Aziz said:

Like checking if there's sunlight for the solar panels to work? I think it's more like much simpler "if object is in a line of sight" which was done already in many many different games before. Unless that's an ancient form of raytracing but not using this name, then no.

Yes, that is exactly what I'm talking about. Ray tracing has been used in games for forever. It's just expensive to compute. (Any game where you have to shoot something, has dynamic lightning, shadows, reflections, AI visual sight lines, AI visual target following uses ray tracing.)

The ray tracing that NVidia keeps talking about has been around forever. It's just that the RT cores are dedicated to ray tracing calculations so the gpu or cpu doesn't have to do it. So software devs can project many more rays for more reasons other than needed functions for game play and basic environmental effects.

The question should be "Will KSP2 support NVidia API's for raytracing?" Or "Will KSP2 support any advanced API'S for raytracing?"

[SpaceFace545]

3 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

The same people who gave you that idea that RT is only for FPS games and isn't realistic also say that video games cause violence.

Dude, like why are you so aggressive about everything?

[Bej Kerman]

2 hours ago, SpaceFace545 said:

5 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

The same people who gave you that idea that RT is only for FPS games and isn't realistic also say that video games cause violence.

Dude, like why are you so aggressive about everything?

Aggressive? 

[The Aziz]

3 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

The ray tracing that NVidia keeps talking about has been around forever. It's just that the RT cores are dedicated to ray tracing calculations so the gpu or cpu doesn't have to do it. So software devs can project many more rays for more reasons other than needed functions for game play and basic environmental effects.

So that's about it now. Using the technology to create alive and realistic environments, as we saw for example in Unreal 5. So now the lighting doesn't have to be baked into scene. And we know (or at least I do) how too many dynamic lights affect performance, at least in ksp - for a long time I had to keep light sources limit at very low value (I think no more than 10 lol), despite having gtx 950. Not the most powerful hardware, but I was losing frames very fast when there were too many lights, even on the launchpad.

2 hours ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Dude, like why are you so aggressive about everything?

Didn't see anything aggressive there. He's got a point though, I wouldn't use RT for any sort of fps, where framerate is more important than nice shadow on the ground (that nobody would look at anyway).

[shdwlrd]

17 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

So that's about it now. Using the technology to create alive and realistic environments, as we saw for example in Unreal 5. So now the lighting doesn't have to be baked into scene. And we know (or at least I do) how too many dynamic lights affect performance, at least in ksp - for a long time I had to keep light sources limit at very low value (I think no more than 10 lol), despite having gtx 950. Not the most powerful hardware, but I was losing frames very fast when there were too many lights, even on the launchpad.

Yes, very much so. Ray tracing and HDR make for some real beautiful almost life like scenes. It's amazing that in about 25yrs we have gone from the blocky gloriousness of Doom or Wolfenstein, to the life like versions of the same titles.

I remember when dynamic shadows was a new technology. (The basic low-end shadows you see today.) You couldn't use it, it would tank your frame rate and make the game unplayable.