Raytracing without RTX: Nvidia Pascal receives DXR support via driver

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 03/19/2019 09:02 AM | source: | 106 comment(s)

Nvidia announced that it will bring support for Microsoft's DXR-API (the API responsible for real-time ray tracing), to older GPUs. This invokes the 10-series and recently introduced 16-series GPUs series.

The new driver thus makes it possible to use real-time raytracing in games via DXR as part of DirectX 12 without exclusive RT cores and thus on the traditional computing cores. However, with DXR effects enabled, performance will be significantly lower than Turing's counterparts with specialized RT cores - so the purpose remains to be seen. Also AMD could use DXR on its Radeon graphics cards, if supported by the driver. AMD has not yet released an official raytracing driver.

A new GeForce driver is due to be released in April, that one will add the compatibility. The Titan X, Titan V and Titan XP would also get supported. It is good to note that laptops with similar GPUs may also expect to get DX-R with the new driver, including the more economical Max-Q versions. Performance can be disappointing, NVIDIA mentions. Only very basic raytracing effects would work.

DLSS remains exclusively for Turing RTX
From now on Raytracing will no longer be available exclusively on GeForce RTX at Nvidia. But with DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) it is different. The alternative AI-based antialiasing will continue to be provided only with the dedicated tensor cores of the RTX family, Nvidia said in the Q & A after the GDC presentation to media representatives.

At least theoretically, it would be possible to create a counterpart to the proprietary DLSS via the Microsoft API Windows Machine Learning (WinML) or DirectML. DirectML takes advantage of the unified compute units of GPUs, with which even Radeon graphics cards from AMD could offer such a function, as an AMD employee had already suggested in an interview.

So in short, people can enable DirectX Raytracing ( DXR ) on GeForce GTX 1060 6GB and higher graphics cards via a Game Ready Driver update, expected in April. DLSS, no bueno.

supported GPUs

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Aura89
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Joined: 2008-07-31

#5651370 Posted on: 03/19/2019 01:41 AM

seems like a marketing pitch, pascal doesnt have RT cores or Tensor cores. I question Nvidias intentions sometimes.... Wouldnt they want people to buy new RTX cards? From a business standpoint, It seems as if this would slow RTX sales more. Dont even get me started on the 1660ti and 1660, just why.... Theyre competing with their own cards. Buy a damn rtx 2060 or gtx 1070.

This should have been this way from the beginning. The biggest thing people have said about RTX cards is they don't like the pricing, they don't like the performance relative to Pascal, and they don't like the performance of ray tracing. Since no one has had anything but nvidias word about "how much faster" turing is compared to pascal when it comes to ray tracing, many people simply didn't care. They looked at the "Up to 6 times the performance compared to pascal on ray tracing" as simply a meaningless number, as it's not something that they or any reviewer could verify and legitimize.

Now that'll change and we'll see exactly where it stands and exactly how much of a leap the RTX cards actually are at ray tracing, and yes, there will still be people saying that it's not good enough, there always is, but for some, hopefully, it'll showcase where the future may come as people gotta remember: Current RTX cards are first iteration, first iteration are always the worst, and the technology, generally, leaps from there once they finally figure out how to do it (again, must remember tessellation, which is hardly mentioned anymore, because it's not that big of a performance hit it once was in its first iteration)

But i'm sure there will still be people complaining for the sake of complaining.

RzrTrek
Senior Member

Posts: 2549
Joined: 2012-04-16

#5651372 Posted on: 03/19/2019 01:47 AM

Another disappointing keynote with way too much focus on AI, data analytics and cloud "gaming"...

Fender178
Senior Member

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Joined: 2004-09-28

#5651418 Posted on: 03/19/2019 06:37 AM

Makes no sense because the 10 series cards wouldn't be able to handle it. The RTX cards barley can handle it natively. Unless Direct X can handle alot of the overhead needed but that is still pushing it. As mentioned maybe the 16xx based cards could possibly handle it because of the new technologies it has.

lucidus
Senior Member

Posts: 11835
Joined: 2011-12-31

#5651420 Posted on: 03/19/2019 07:03 AM

MS allows certain DX12 games to work on windows 7 and now nvidia enabling DXR on pascal? wut. Performance will be awful so it won't even matter.

sverek
Senior Member

Posts: 6070
Joined: 2011-01-02

#5651422 Posted on: 03/19/2019 07:11 AM

MS allows certain DX12 games to work on windows 7 and now nvidia enabling DXR on pascal? wut. Performance will be awful so it won't even matter.

You have tried both already? Nice, tell us more about it!
What's the performance issue you have experienced in Win7 with DX12? And how about DXR? Was it under-performing in some specific scenarios?

Can't wait to hear your feedback!

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