This is the first explanation of Intel's plans for ray tracing, but its important to note this is merely one implementation of the technology that requires Dx11. They've basically optimised the game engine for shadows, which are the hardest thing to render well today. In part, shadows are harder because most TVs and monitors don't render blacks and grays worth a damned anyway, but the newer affordable ones do much better with the grays and colors than the old. Intel is using a technique taken straight from the movie industry, that they developed years ago on the assumption it would be useful in graphics cards in the near future. Intel's new 10nm APU laptop chips have also demonstrated physx that are off the chart, indicating they have integrated possibly shadows and physx into the geometry pipeline and are utilizing the new fpga circuitry on every processor they make for rendering simple phyx such as ragdoll physics where a character falls somewhat realistically. Exactly how they've combined everything into their rendering pipeline and what they plan to do with the help of Microsoft when they release their first discrete graphics cards remains to be seen, but this is a good indication of what we can expect. Note that Crytek already demonstrated the ability to add ray traced reflections easily enough and run them on even something as ordinary as a Vega 56 gpu. Adding ray tracing is not the issue, its how to implement it in every way imaginable, while requiring the least system resources and lugging the game the least. It could be that people will buy a gaming laptop in the future according to how many ray tracing features and things like physics that it can support in modern games. The AI that ray tracing empowers is actually one of the more mind blowing uses of the technology, empowering bots to act as if they can see the world around them and respond accordingly, and even see what the player is looking at, but that is likely to be the last thing the developers work on. They are going crazy as it is attempting to move everything into the cloud, because these newer chips with 8 core processors and 14 teraflops of gpu power are rapidly being converted to extreme high bandwidth capacities, allowing everything to be multiplex in unimaginable ways that make cloud gaming much more attractive and responsive. Between cloud gaming and adding ray tracing the developers have their hands full for the next few years, but things should take off like a rocket after that, and we can expect the system requirements for rendering AI, ray tracing, and physics to be cut in half for many games as they adapt to the new technology. You can see the same trend in old consoles, with developers figuring out the run amazing looking graphics on them, just as they start to introduce the next generation of consoles.
i just need an evee supporting gpu card with boqoup ram that'll plug into my 5 year old hp pavilion 500-214. (and not cost more then a couple month's rent) i thought all game engines did ray tracing, but of course i understand what you're talking about here is doing in hardware.
A five year old HP pavilion is a piece of crap by any definition for gaming, because it wasn't even originally sold as a gaming computer, but a wimpier multimedia computer. Technically, you might be able to add a new graphics card, but only a supercheap one that would be lucky to run even Quake with ray tracing, and would likely lug down anytime you did anything fun. The good news is, the Intel chips from around then tended to last forever, so you could possibly use that old piece of crap for another five years. The bad news is, you might have to look around for anyone who even wants to take it off your hands for free.
gaming isn't what i need the gpu for. and it works just fine with blender's internal render engine for 2.79. just need the gpu upgrade to run 2.8 and beyond. so none of that even applies. and like usual and certain politicians, not even remotely pertinent to the question.
I'd recommend the Steam hardware website for advice. Its moderated and has numerous experts who know what the hell they're talking about.
