https://www.overclock3d.net/news/software/amd_showcases_ray_tracing_in_dirt_5_and_godfall/1 Thanks to AMD's RDNA 2 architecture, AMD has delivered ray tracing on console hardware. While Nvidia was the first to deliver hardware-accelerated raytracing in 2018 with Turing, AMD is the company to make raytracing mainstream, transforming raytracing from a niche feature to a must use part of the next-generation graphics feature set. AMD is already partnering with developers to bring ray tracing to both PC and console gamers, having already showcased ray tracing in Godfall, DIRT 5 and World of Warcraft Shadowlands.
In both DIRT and Godfall, ray tracing is used to improve the shadows within both games, delivering more realism with subtle graphical changes. Image comparisons for both games with ray tracing on and off are available below, DIRT 5's use of ray tracing appears to be applied to vehicle shadows, providing high detail contact shadows without a huge performance cost. Ray tracing also adds diffuse shadows to the game, using AMD's shadow denoiser to improve the game's visuals further. DIRT 5 is also designed to support Variable Rate Shading on PC.
Godfall uses Ray Tracing to improve the game's shadows, offering notable changes to the game's environmental features. These changes are most noticeable on the distant plants, though parts of the player's armour also showcase altered shadows. Ray Traced Shadows add additional depth to Godfall's visuals, and while the change is subtle, it is a worthwhile addition. The game looks a lot less like a game, and more like a CGI movie rendering.
AMD has helped Godfall's developers to integrate support for features like DirectX Raytraced Shadows, FidelityFX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening, and Variable Rate Shading within their game, as well as other advanced features.
AMD plans to showcase the ray-tracing capabilities of their RX 6000 series graphics cards in the near future.
It will be interesting to see how well the 6000 series cards use ray tracing.