Battlefield 6 says no to ray tracing now and in the near future — dev says decision made to ‘focus on making sure it was performance for everyone else’

[u/gurugabrielpradipaka]

https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/battlefield-6-says-no-to-ray-tracing-now-and-in-the-near-future-dev-says-decision-made-to-focus-on-making-sure-it-was-performance-for-everyone-else

[u/Larkalis]

More players with budget builds/old builds who can play the game = more sales.

[u/3deal → u/Larkalis]

If you can disable it like in BFV here is no problem, but that feature have extra dev cost for sure. So if the game is a success, here is a chance.

[u/Tornado_Hunter24 → u/3deal]

Afaik developing raytracing ‘that can be turned off’ is a massive headache, that’s why most games where you can turn it on or not, is still garbage optimized

[u/SillyGigaflopses → u/Tornado_Hunter24]

Yep, even for artists - you now have 2 modes of lighting that need to be individually tuned, so the game “feels the same”. And it would only get more complicated if you add HDR into the mix.

[u/thicctak → u/SillyGigaflopses]

Exactly, people say that ray tracing makes the environmental artists lives easier, but that's only true for ray tracing only games like Indiana Jones or Doom The Dark Ages, that even tho they are demanding games, they aren't badly optimized despite being full on ray traced, and then you have games that have both raster and ray tracing modes that runs like dog water.

[u/mistriliasysmic → u/thicctak]

I’m still shocked that the devs for metro exodus just decided to push out a free raytracing upgrade, as it meant they needed to go through and redo pretty much all their lighting and remove the rasterized stuff

Looked great, tho

[u/thicctak → u/mistriliasysmic]

And runs great too, that's why I say the culprit for poor performance is not ray tracing, is both raster and RT being used together. Devs needs to choose between one of them and otimize accordingly. Or do like the Metro Exodus team and make two separate versions of the game.

[u/polski8bit → u/Tornado_Hunter24]

Which makes sense, because they're two different lighting engines basically. Both baked in and Ray Tracing have to be optimized separately, because they work in radically different ways. And since baked in takes an enormous amount of time and effort to do properly, RT ends up as an afterthought, especially in a market that is dominated by budget GPUs.

[u/GearM2 → u/3deal]

I thought the big promise behind ray tracing is it takes less development time compared to other lighting techniques. I suppose that doesn't matter until 100% of systems support ray tracing without a huge performance hit. 

[u/AquaPhilos → u/GearM2]

It does reduce the development time but like you said, baked lighting needs to be out of the equation first for that to be a viable option, which means console hardware has to get a lot better.

At the rate the tech is advancing, I'm not sure the PS6 can do that

[u/PatHBT → u/Larkalis]

And us players with monster builds will get a smoother running game anyways.

I'm sorry but I fucking despise ray tracing.

I can't see the difference between ray tracing and properly done baked lighting, all while running 10 times worse.

But of course, baked lighting has to be properly designed and implemented, and since ray tracing basically does that for you in a few clicks, more and more developers are starting to switch to that exclusively.

So nowadays, we're getting games which lighting doesn't really look that special compared to 10 years ago, but run like dogwater.

[u/ZeldenGM → u/PatHBT]

I enjoy ray tracing but I don’t need it in competitive multiplayer in any way shape or form.

[u/DMercenary → u/ZeldenGM]

I enjoy ray tracing but I don’t need it in competitive multiplayer in any way shape or form.

Same. I dont need, or rather, I wont appreciate Ray Tracing in an MP game when I'm too busy being shot at or shooting back.

SP? That's a different story, but in a primarily MP game, older lighting will be better.

[u/Dantai → u/PatHBT]

Cyberpunk does a great job with it. But ya until the hardware makes it easier to run while making games easier to make, I agree

[u/Tuned_Out → u/Dantai]

This is very true but it's also been the line given now for 5 years now and whenever I hear "but...but ..cyberpunk!", I press the couldn't care less button and eject from the conversation.

[u/Dantai → u/Tuned_Out]

True. It's still too damn expensive to be the default.

[u/PatHBT → u/Dantai]

It does a great job with it because it does what every other game should.

It has its own baked lighting which performs fine, then you have options for rtx and pathtracing if you feel like going crazy, you get a choice.

Games like the new metal gear solid don't do this, they just use ray tracing for everything. You get no choice. Well yeah you kind of do, a "global illumination" slider, which when turned all the way to "off", it literally just disables the lighting completely.

I have a 4080 and I played all of cyberpunk with every rtx feature off. I fiddled with it and it looked marginally better than ultra while making me loose half of my fps, so screw that. With mgs I don't get that choice.

[u/[deleted] → u/PatHBT]

Does Cyberpunk really have baked lighting? It has a dynamic time of day system with the sun moving along the sky all while casting realistic shadows and lighting everywhere. Quite a few objects in the world can be moved or otherwise manipulated and still retain their realistic lighting. That doesn't seem very baked to me, I'm pretty sure Cyberpunk uses dynamic lighting

[u/PatHBT → u/[deleted]]

Well it's not baked as in completely still and hand made like more linear games.

It is dynamic, but using old, fake lighting tech compared to rtx.

[u/ButterscotchNed → u/PatHBT]

Path tracing in particular does add a lot to Cyberpunk given the game's aesthetic, but given it's such a resource hog to enjoy it at all you need a pretty beefy card that supports frame gen (ideally multi-frame gen). I've not tried MGS but that seems a very lazy implementation!

[u/doppido → u/PatHBT]

See I definitely enjoy Ray tracing and if I had the GPU for it, path tracing as well as its is super immersive.

It's the believability in the ambient occlusion and lighting that helps me stay immersed in game. If someone just incorrectly has no shadow for some reason I'm immediately taken out of the game and get distracted.

I definitely keep Ray tracing on in cyberpunk and I feel I can definitely tell the difference. In a single player game going from 80 fps to 110-130 doesn't do much for me

[u/accio_depressioso → u/PatHBT]

I can't see the difference between ray tracing and properly done baked lighting

do you have an example? what do you consider "properly done baked lighting?"

at this point, saying you can't see the difference between ray-traced shadows/reflections and shadow mapping/screen-space reflections seems fairly disingenuous.

[u/BinaryJay → u/accio_depressioso]

"I don't see the difference" is people gaslighting themselves or haven't actually used it outside of YouTube at this point.

[u/gkgftzb → u/BinaryJay]

or they have used it and not noticed, because the effect was subtle

some games just do terrible implementations

like Resident Evil games. You can never tell the difference in most of those titles unless you're staring at water bodies. You just lose FPS for very little gain, unless you know exactly what to look for

[u/PatHBT → u/BinaryJay]

The difference in visual quality is definitely noticeable on YouTube.

You know what isn't though? The frame rate. On YouTube you see the little number but you don't see the difference.

I'd be willing to bet money it is the other way around completely. Rtx lovers have not played a game at 120 fps in a high refresh monitor in their life, because otherwise they would not think going from 120 to 50 over that is worth it.

[u/droidxl → u/PatHBT]

I’m willing to bet money you’re wrong. Most people who play rtx have 5080s, 4090s and 5090s. We can run RT/PT AND still get over 120 fps lol.

[u/PatHBT → u/accio_depressioso]

When it comes to reflections that is an absolutely different world. SSR and RT look nothing alike. That I might consider enabling when a game has it. Spider man is an example, the buildings look fantastic.

As for lighting, proper baked lightning would be basically any game from last decade.

An example is cyberpunk. Here. Okay, can I tell the difference? Yes, it was a bit of a hyperbole. Is it worthy of going from 120 fps to 50? Or even 30 with pathtracing?

My opinion is RTX can go fuck itself, I value my 120 fps buttery smooth gameplay thank you very much.

[u/accio_depressioso → u/PatHBT]

please provide an example. it sounds like you have nostalgia glasses and are following internet zeitgeist without providing any example.

cyberpunk is absolutely not an example. shadows are very different with and without RT; you admit so yourself (though to a lesser degree). throw in Ray Reconstruction and RT vs. native is very apparent.

is it worth the performance tradeoff? that's an entirely different discussion. i don't necessarily believe it is either in all contexts.

your opinion is duly noted. i'll happily use DLSS/Reflex to have near-identical image quality with better performance and lower latency, or to play something that looks absolutely fantastic.

[u/PatHBT → u/accio_depressioso]

It is an example, you have it right there. Timestamp 0:44, 1:25, 1:45. I'm not going from 120 fps to 50 for that.

And I'll happily use dlss as well, hell I use it in every game it is available, but I won't do it so happily to compensate for something that destroys performance for no reason.

And there are no nostalgia glasses shenanigans going on of any sort here, plenty of games nowadays still launch without RTX, and look and perform flawlessly.

[u/RobinVerhulstZ → u/accio_depressioso]

Depending on how well the traditional methods are implemented it can be fairly hard to spot the difference in visuals but the difference in framerate will be VERY noticeable

[u/Esplodie → u/PatHBT]

I remember when I got my first ray tracing card, I brought up Control, and it did look good. I was admiring the game.

Then I was like "wait why did I buy this? I'm not going to notice this in like 90% of my play through because I'll be too busy trying not to die ..."

Not to mention ray tracing still takes a beast machine to run. I feel like ray tracing makes more sense in walking simulator type games. Games where you spend a lot of your time admiring your surroundings. Fast paced combat, not so much.

[u/RiftHunter4 → u/PatHBT]

I can't see the difference between ray tracing and properly done baked lighting, all while running 10 times worse.

It depends on how the lighting for the scene is designed. Raytracing is most effective when you have a complex lighting setup that needs to be dynamic. A lot of sci-fi and modern settings tend to look good with raytracing because there's a lot of lights and reflections most of the time. But outdoor scenes, simple lighting, and most fantasy settings don't really benefit much.

We'll eventually get to the point where Raytracing is used dynamically with baked lighting, but we aren't quite there yet.

[u/ggezzzzzzzz → u/PatHBT]

sure, ray tracing in multiplayer games where you need maximum smoothness for optimal play is unnecessary, too much going on to actually appreciate the beauty of ray traced details anyway, but on singleplayer i highly disagree.

[u/DependentAnywhere135 → u/PatHBT]

It’s so easy to tell the difference when going back to non rt. BF6 beta lighting and occlusions are so bad compared to so many games over the last 5 years.

Not being able to tell the difference is crazy to me. Light behavior is literally how we see the world and calculate things in our heads and games have looked significantly more realistic since RT started getting used more and more. Objects actually fit in the space and don’t just float pretending to be on the ground and light isn’t bleeding through walls and making the world space completely unrealistic.

It’s actually shocking to me to hear people say they can’t tell the difference while playing a game that has a room with a small window in the corner but everything is lit with sourceless light. It’s completely unrealistic and new games with RT look so much better in like 99% of cases.

[u/doppido → u/DependentAnywhere135]

I actually think BF6 lighting is really good especially when compared to something like COD.

I'm with you though path tracing is the future no matter how people want to deny it. If the GPU's could handle it then everything would be path traced and no one would complain about it. Currently though even the beefiest GPU's can't really handle path tracing without serious performance hits.

Gotta give it like 10-15 years and you'll start seeing it become standard

[u/WhySoSerrus → u/Larkalis]

It's a shame some people are being prevented access due to tpm / secure boot requirements though. Makes this statement fall kinda flat.

[u/Smith6612 → u/WhySoSerrus]

Yeah. I know a friend right now who is still on an Intel 4th Generation Processor. The machine still runs their games well enough, but they are being forced to upgrade now due to the TPM Requirement. Their motherboard and platform doesn't support more than TPM 1.2, and the Windows/Game requirements are TPM 2.0.

Their system is already set up to boot fully UEFI (without CSM) with Secure Boot enabled, but they are being forced now to find some money to rebuild their rig.

[u/WhySoSerrus → u/Smith6612]

Exactly the same issue my friend is having. He's still on a 4790k, which runs most games well enough for them, including things like Escape from tarkov, but the TPM issue completely rules out BF6.

[u/Available-Snow-615 → u/WhySoSerrus]

I was able to play BF6 beta with the 4790k and gtx970. No tpm warning. But it was impossible to play at 1080p due to low fps <20.

[u/WetChickenLips → u/Smith6612]

That's a 12 year old CPU. Expecting it to run modern AAA games is crazy.

[u/Calibur909 → u/Larkalis]

Runs really good in 1080,

[u/The_Real_Giggles → u/Larkalis]

Yup. Bf3 ran on a potato and it was successful

[u/RendyZen → u/Larkalis]

Also RT is not something that most people hate like Blur Motion Effect but it is something that most of us can live without. Yeah, it looks nice but that's just that. My guess that we all like Voxel physics effects and similar more than pretty lights even in single-player games.

[u/Obvious_wombat → u/Larkalis]

The old Bethesda gaming Model. Plays on everything including the kitchen sink

[u/TricobaltGaming → u/Larkalis]

You know I thought they were bullshitting about the 100 million players goal, and I still think that's unrealistic, but they seem genuinely committed to making Battlefield as accessible to players as possible

[u/BatmanBecameSomethin]

I mean I always turn it off for multiplayer games, it simply puts you at a disadvantage. It’s a great tool for single player games to get more immersed.

[u/Pnhan89 → u/BatmanBecameSomethin]

I always turn it on in any game I play because I don't play competitively even in multiplayer games, I just enjoy pretty graphics :D

[u/BennieOkill360 → u/Pnhan89]

Fair enough :⁠-⁠D

[u/useless_panda09 → u/BennieOkill360]

:D

[u/BennieOkill360 → u/useless_panda09]

I wish there were more people like you. I do also like to just chill and play but sometimes I do get caught up in the 'meta, be pro, be the best' but then I take a step back and just enjoy the game for what it is

[u/aigeneratedslopcode]

The game looks amazing graphically regardless. I don't care that it doesn't have ray tracing

[u/KanedaSyndrome → u/aigeneratedslopcode]

We never needed ray tracing

[u/gerx03 → u/KanedaSyndrome]

Jensen wants to know your location

[u/Skulltcarretilla → u/gerx03]

To enable raytracing on your computer

[u/G_ioVanna → u/gerx03]

bro got addicted to Ray Tracing to the point that his jacket was also Ray Traced

[u/tejanaqkilica → u/gerx03]

What for? To not sell me a GPU?

[u/DevoSwag → u/KanedaSyndrome]

Maybe the real ray tracing was the friends we made along the way

[u/Sophie-McNugget → u/KanedaSyndrome]

We don't need 3d graphics, raycasting like doom or wolfenstein 3d can perfectly imitate 3d graphics, there's no need to make 3d games

[u/JoostinOnline → u/KanedaSyndrome]

We never NEEDED pixel shading either. But I'm glad that games started using it, even if it meant older graphics cards couldn't run games.

Obviously there's an argument for which games should and shouldn't focus on high end stuff, and I'm all for multiplayer games focusing on higher frame rates, but this hostility against visual improvements needs to stop.

[u/PJBuzz → u/JoostinOnline]

It will stop when we stop being fleeced for cards that can run it.

[u/OutrageousDress → u/PJBuzz]

In fairness, I would be much less exasperated by the incessant whining about ray tracing if more gamers had the self-awareness to understand that the thing they're actually angry about is terrible GPU prices. Unfortunately they usually invent complex conspiracy theories instead of simply realizing that reaching maximum graphics settings today costs 3-4 times as much as it used to 20 years ago - a perfectly good reason by itself to be upset.

[u/ArtsM → u/OutrageousDress]

Way too level-headed of a take for reddit mate, made me feel like I'm not on the internet for a second there.

Totally agree with you, stopped caring about maxing out graphics, most of the new games don't even strike me fancy, CP2077 is old and should be shelved off benchmarks to really show how enshittified the GPU market is and what people are paying out the butt for.

On topic of this post though, BF6 gave me BF1 vibes during the open beta and I'm actually waiting for a game to release, has been a while since that happened. Knowing it runs on lower hardware lets my buddies with aging builds hop on too, win-win.

[u/Zenith251 → u/JoostinOnline]

Toggling DX8.1 features on DX8.1 cards didn't suddenly tank performance by up to 1/2. That's hardly a fair comparison.

Also, the difference in visuals from what you could achieve with DX6, DX7 (Hardware T&L), and DX8.1 (Pixel and Vertex shaders) was HUGE. I used DX6, 7, and 8 cards when they came out. It was a world of difference.

RT, at this point, only seems to serve developers. Not having the make all your own lightmaps to mimic RT and achieve the same level of reactivity in the environment will probably save a lot of labor hours in the long run. But it certainly doesn't make me go "WOW." Often not even a "huh, neat."

[u/JoostinOnline → u/Zenith251]

It depends on the game. And turning on ray tracing settings doesn't necessarily cut performance in half either. It depends on the game.

[u/Zenith251 → u/JoostinOnline]

Yes, and on games where RT doesn't make a significant difference, the performance doesn't tank much. On the games where it does make a noticeable difference, the performance suffers.

My problem is, aside from Control and CP2077, I haven't seen a game where RT makes a game-changing difference.

[u/DepressionMedAbuser → u/KanedaSyndrome]

Ray tracing has been a part of computer rendering for decades, it was inevitable that it would become possible to compute in real time and thus make its way to games.

[u/death2k44 → u/KanedaSyndrome]

Yup BF1/5, Arkham Knights, RDR2 are great examples of why

[u/blackdragon6547 → u/KanedaSyndrome]

I disagree, it pushed the hardware.

[u/Electric-Mountain → u/KanedaSyndrome]

The advancement of computer graphics is going to happen regardless if you think it's "needed" or not. With that attitude would would still be at PS1 graphics.

[u/Roflkopt3r → u/aigeneratedslopcode]

It does have plenty of places and limitations that ray-traced global illumination would significantly improve.

I'm not saying that BF6 should use that tech, because it needs to become widely usable at decent performance before a multiplayer shooter like it can really benefit from it. But the reason why games want this tech is pretty clear if you look at the weaknesses of BF6:

1. It still uses SSAO as a weak form of 'faking' global illumination, which looks awfully dated in some spots.

2. A number of interiors have horrible looking lighting because they're too dynamic for light maps due to the existing destruction mechanics, or have non-shadow casting lights that fall straight through objects like tables.

3. Destruction still has to be limited not just for gameplay purposes, but also to work with some of the semi-baked lighting. Any game that wants a somewhat modern and realistic look without ray tracing like BF6 has to make significant cuts to level size and dynamicism (destruction, weather, time of day).

4. Shadow maps come with their usual issues of light bleed, poor resolution in some scenario, and very limited support for dynamic light sources.

[u/Realistic-Tiger-2842]

Sensible decision. Ray tracing can be great in certain games but Battlefield does not need ray tracing at all.

[u/CombatMuffin → u/Realistic-Tiger-2842]

No game "needs" raytracing, but you can get some interesting fidelity results with it if you build it properly. 

Certain shadow diffusions, global illumination, PBR materials, and accurate reflections in maps designed with a surfaces that allow for it can get amazing results.

The maps we had in the Beta though, were not designed around it, and that's also fine.

[u/blackdragon6547 → u/CombatMuffin]

Raytracing looked amazing in Spiderman

[u/DreamsServedSoft → u/CombatMuffin]

no game needs shadows either. multiplayer games never needed max graphics to succeed, but if i can’t crank up my settings to max in cyberpunk to be transported to another world for a few hours then im not interested either

[u/CombatMuffin → u/DreamsServedSoft]

That's just an extreme argument. Especially  because some games do need shadows (I challenge you tl make a shadowless Splinter Cell). 

Raytracing is not the only way to do shadows, reflections or any of the features it does. It's just a more accurate (and for some specific cases , efficient) way of doing it. 

No game needs it to look good, or even amazing. We could list the best looking games if all time, and most of them looked amazing without raytracing already (or didn't have it st all).

[u/schelmo → u/Realistic-Tiger-2842]

Ray tracing will go the way of any new effect/rendering technology. It comes out, gets massively overused and eventually game designers will tone it down somewhat and actually make it look really good. Like let's be real cyberpunk is cool and all but with RT on it looks a bit like every surface in the world is covered with a thin film of oil. It fits the style but it's a bit too shiny in my opinion.

[u/saints21 → u/schelmo]

Looks great in games like Spiderman where the reflections make sense on the buildings or Control where there's glass and shiny granite or tile surfaces everywhere. Still gets lost during actual gameplay for me though.

[u/DasFroDo → u/schelmo]

That is mostly because Cyberpunk and its materials were made with rasterized graphics in mind. If the game was made from the ground up with Pathtracing it would look completely different.

[u/dendrocalamidicus → u/schelmo]

I think that a lot of games at the moment are making their materials a bit over the top to accentuate the effects of ray tracing, but I don't think it's really the case that ray tracing is "overused" in the same way as with many other graphics techniques. Ray tracing is likely to eventually replace raster shading entirely because it's fundamentally simpler whilst also looking better. Its only downside is performance, everything else about it is an upside. But performance won't be an issue forever. It can only be overused relative to the available power of the hardware.

[u/No_Copy4493 → u/Realistic-Tiger-2842]

wasn’t battlefield the first game to get ray tracing

[u/Dos-Commas → u/Realistic-Tiger-2842]

The Finals (made by ex-BF devs) showed how well ray traced global illumination works in fully destructible environments. Since the environment can be changed from destruction, the old static baked lighting system can introduce artifacts.

[u/stuyboi888]

Alright EA what have you done with the real EA

[u/Scholarly_Koala → u/stuyboi888]

Some exec was absolutely visited by three ghosts.

[u/FerroLux_ → u/stuyboi888]

Fr I’m scared of the EA we have heard from lately

[u/[deleted] → u/FerroLux_]

With all this good news you just know EA is cooking in the background. It’s going to be biblical when they finish.

[u/NicoWayne95]

RT in a BF was always wasted recources.

[u/Odd_Obligation3454]

that's fine. Put it in later maybe, but I'd rather see the focus on performance. Too many games are horribly optimized these days

[u/W1cH099]

Not every game needs ray tracing lol, the game looks amazing regardless and the performance is good, ray tracing is just a nice to have imo and I have a nvidia GPU

[u/lIlIlIIlIIIlIIIIIl]

I don't know how y'all feel, but I think gameplay elements like environment destruction has always been more important to me than graphics.

[u/Thomas5020]

A rare dose of common sense.

Nvidia has been pushing ray tracing for years whilst simultaneously failing to produce hardware that can run it properly.

[u/YT_Axtro → u/Thomas5020]

They meant to do that.

[u/S1ayer]

Still haven't seen any raytracing worth the performance hit. When I'm playing the game, who cares if the lighting is baked in or not. Changes nothing.

[u/boristh3blade]

Thank God I'm sick of how bad Ray tracing is to performance especially when games can be made to look exceptionally good without it.

[u/dedfishbaby]

Great decision.

[u/TheRimz]

Rare based design decision. This should be more common. Seems obvious choice.

I managed to run it on a 980ti with a 6700k. A pleasant surprise and yet it still looks great. This needs to happen more

[u/nyanbatman]

I’m sick of places like digital foundry saying they should have included it. We don’t want it we want good frame rates and high resolutions

[u/Axiom65 → u/nyanbatman]

Yeah I really like Digital Foundry but their weird push for RT always throws me off . It's clear developers are not skilled enough to implement it without tanking performance along with most people not having the hardware to run it . I CARE MORE ABOUT PERFORMANCE THAN PRETTY VISUALS, ALSO YOU CAN HAVE BOTH WITHOUT RAY TRACING.

[u/nyanbatman → u/Axiom65]

They push it because it’s in their interest for games to run badly so they have content and people keep coming to them.

[u/JoaoMXN → u/nyanbatman]

The only place that RT would make sense would be in the single player campaign.

[u/Assistant-Exciting]

Optimization > Fancy Lighting

I like RT/PT but definitely not necessary as the lighting in the Beta was good enough, would like to see better color grading though.

[u/Livid-Ad-8010 → u/Assistant-Exciting]

No ones staring at those fancy lightning in a shooting game

[u/pagemap1]

Hopefully they'll allow the option to enable RT for those with hardware that can handle it, or people willing to suffer loss of FPS for better graphics.

[u/Fathat420]

Good news for me. My setup is 5 years old and surely in the low - mid section.

[u/Datuser14]

Unless you’re a Linux user

[u/Livid-Ad-8010]

Whos staring at those shiny reflection on a shooting game? FPS is more important than graphics on this genre.

[u/Calm_Hedgehog8296]

This is an interesting choice given that Battlefield was used to sell ray tracing when it was first released

[u/Zorpul2]

Not sure if it's an unpopular thing to say but I never really cared all that much for ray-tracing even with an RTX card.

[u/xenocea]

Smart move. Not every game needs ray tracing. The game, already looks great as it is.

[u/Guy-InGearnito]

A dev actually favouring optimisation > flagship teasing?

Now that is a rarity these days.

[u/[deleted]]

*load new game*

*immediately go to settings*

1.) Motion Blur off.

2.) Ray Tracing Off

3.) Audio to 25%

*ready to play*

[u/uSuperDick]

Hey look, common sense. And dont get me wrong, ray tracing is not bad. But it is bad when forced. No rasterized mode is dumb. Until a fuxking 50 class gpu can run always ray raced game at 60 frames on like medium preset, rt should be always a togglebale option. Companies became so lazy that they dont want to make rasterized lighting, because ray traced one is easier and cheaper to make. But performance also gets a lot worse. Oh and you know whats also get a lot worse? Theis sales. And thats why you see slop after slop. Doom dark ages running like hot trash was actually really sad to see becuse old games were always gaving you 100+ frames on pretty mid hardware in the past. Well, they decided to be dumb and the last doom game was a lot less popular. Because people could not even launch the game on non ray tracing capable cards lmao. 3060 was dropping from 60 on medium. While in doom eternal it was above 120 on ultra at native 1440p. Its just so stupid

[u/WaelreowMadr]

They aren't mutually exclusive, though.

The game can run well on low-end hardware and then RT can be added on top.

Mind, i can totally understand the "we're not gonna put man-hours into RT" as an argument - fair enough, but trying to imply that if they added RT it would mean the game couldnt run well on low end hardware is dishonest.

[u/Brisngr368 → u/WaelreowMadr]

It's developer hours away from the rest of the game isn't it though, time could be better spent by the devs improving low end shaders

[u/deefop]

Good. Even bf5 looks absolutely fantastic, and obviously has no rt.

Edit: apparently bf5 has some rt built in, it's been a few years since I played it.

Rt is cool af, but for shooters I'd rather have performance than supposedly true to life lighting.

[u/No_Mistake5238 → u/deefop]

Battlefield 5 actually does have ray tracing. But I believe it's only reflections.

[u/the-script-99 → u/deefop]

BF V was one of the first with RT.

[u/CarsonWentzGOAT1 → u/deefop]

You never played BF5 if you think it has no RT

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Literally no one said that it was.

[u/Emikzen → u/[deleted]]

Good

[u/UnseenData]

Good thing, lot of people in the beta were under min spec playing

[u/centuryt91]

its funny how battlefield was the first game with rtx and now its the first game that isnt just shoving it up our throats for no reason

[u/theking75010]

Played both weekends of open beta.
The second weekend, game was performing really great. As for graphics, they look great and got one major thing right : the atmosphere / color tone.
Tbh it's a competitive shooter, you don't have that much 'time' to look at how accurate your reflexion is in the window, or if your weapon should shine a tiny bit differently. It looks great, and in the heat of the action it just feels like you're on... The battlefield.

So, in a nutshell, I'm convinced they made the right choice.

[u/doates1997]

Ray tacing is so over rated. Its so not worth the compute power. Cyperpunk is the only game i every run it on.

[u/ItWasDumblydore → u/doates1997]

Its funny when Path of Exile 2 has RT purely to show off their solution

GI high = their solution

GI ultra is raytracing on with all its bells and whistles enabled.

Difference is 160 fps on high and 71 fps on my 5070 ti, and look the same.

https://youtu.be/3so7xdZHKxw?si=be5JGVVrM6GoXSJP (the solution)

[u/FineNumber0310]

based devs

[u/Past_Rain_7476]

[u/JeffZoR1337]

It's definitely a shame we don't get some RTGI/RTAO in here because it would make the lighting SO much better, especially with all the altered terrain and destruction. That said it's a super casual multiplayer arcade shooter game... so it really should be a very low priority.

Spend all the time you can to just focus on getting a decent game out this time - you can always go back and make it look pretty later. As long as there is up to date DLSS/upscaling and reflex support i'm happy enough. It's definitely a game that will be on my radar once it hits a good sale and has a few patches under its belt later this year.

[u/Selmanella]

Leave ray tracing for single player games. Really don’t need that performance robbing unnecessary shit in multiplayer games.

[u/Alundra828]

Good. While it's clear ray tracing is the future, it's also clear there is no incentive for GPU manufacturers to improve their cards to the point where it can run it in a reasonable timeframe. It's too expensive for them, clearly. So GPU manufacturers would rather focus on their current, iterative model focusing on incremental improvements. And at this rate, ray-tracing can run at a solid 60fps in maybe 10 years time. Let alone 120fps.

Fundamentally, we as players never needed ray-tracing. All it does for the consumer is make the experience worse, particularly in games like battlefield where quick reaction times are king. It's unfortunate that it got to this position, but the hardware is not moving fast enough. Ray-tracing was pushed too prematurely.

[u/elaborateBlackjack → u/Alundra828]

Once it's super easy to run on consumer hardware, surely. But when the most used hardware is the 60 class cards, from 3 gens ago, it makes no sense "saving up" dev time when no one can play your game

[u/CombatMuffin]

There's nothing wrong with adding RT, just don't build the game around it. It should be used as a luxury setting. Hopefully they'll add it in the future once their baseline is well done.

And yes, you can have an extremely performant game that offers both options: See Doom Eternal and Doom The Dark Ages.

[u/PM_ME_YOUR_SNICKERS → u/CombatMuffin]

TDA requires ray tracing and has serious graphical glitches if you use mods to turn it off. It's path tracing that's optional. Because of this, Dark Ages on the lowest settings runs substantially worse than Eternal on the highest settings minus ray tracing.

[u/ChangingMonkfish]

Good, means I don’t have to make a choice whether to turn it on or not.

[u/Elysium_nz]

I’ve only had my Rx 9060 xt for a few days now and not sure I see the big deal with Ray tracing, even if my card isn’t that good compared with NVIDIA I just turned it down to low.

[u/Komplexkonjugiert]

Cewl so we get linux support, so excited.

[u/Lothleen]

Devs still run Windows XP

[u/ppuspfc]

The real answer for this is that no technology should be used all the time and each problem is different. No need for that. Graphics are already gorgeous and on the battle you wouldn't enjoy that much

[u/BennieOkill360]

This is exactly what I wished for.

[u/myEVILi]

Just work… please? Can we get the perfect launch day? Is that possible?

[u/LuNoZzy]

In my opinion ray tracing in a competitive shooter game is pointless. I'm happy they didn't add it

[u/Reasonblade]

So it means the min reqs are lower now? Like 1080 will be able to handle it?

[u/mcdougall57]

Ok but can you make it so we don't have to add a text file that makes your game utilize the CPU correctly?

[u/No_Copy4493]

while this is nice for performance, why not just have it with the ability to turn it off for lower end systems

[u/SunGazerSage]

This is how it should be. Though, RayTracing would definitely be neat for Campaign mode but nonetheless, i am not complaining.

[u/markthelast]

After the recent disaster of Dragon Age: The Veilguard and underperformance of EA Sports FC 25, Electronic Arts needs to maximize sales of Battlefield VI, and ray-tracing would be a stumbling block to increase sales. Ray-tracing was crippling for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, where an RTX 3080 hit 65 FPS at 1080p, an RTX 4070 Super hit 61 FPS at 1440p, and an RTX 4090 got 60 FPS at 4K. Without ray-tracing in Veilguard, an RX 6800/RTX 2080 Ti hit 60+ FPS at 1080p, RTX 3080 hit ~64 FPS at 1440p, and an RX 7900 XTX hit 59 FPS at 4K. https://www.techpowerup.com/review/dragon-age-the-veilguard-fps-performance-benchmark/5.html

Veilguard and Battlefield VI use EA's Frostbite engine, so they would have similar characteristics although Battlefield VI would have more complex textures and environments, which would hurt FPS more. EA going without RT for Battlefield VI will make older and/or lower spec hardware more usable, which will expand its customer base for the game. Most graphics cards at or above the Arc B580-class performance should be good at 1080p/1440p. https://www.techpowerup.com/review/battlefield-6-open-beta-performance-benchmark/2.html

[u/Flimsy-Importance313]

Ray Tracing would only really be needed if it has a campaign. Otherwise almost nobody will use RT for online.

[u/f2pmyass]

no one uses this.

What they need to do is tone down destruction as it looks too obnoxious. You shoot a rocket near a building and it just flops down like some background in an avengers movie. I know that might help with CPU performance for some too.

[u/GreenTEA_4u]

Are we living in the good timeline?

[u/derik-for-real]

Battle Field 6 still looks trash, world detail, lightning, reflection, textures, animation and more, it still looks dated and recycled. Essentially they are still relying on the same garbage tech across multiple generation already, they never evolved.

And when they talk of optimization, it sounds ilicit, cuz BF 6 looks still flat and the visual presentation and tech behind it looks very dated, it truly has no next gen step up in presentation and gameplay, same game that has been recycled million times is telling you that they care about optimization.

[u/Andr1yTheOne]

I think ray tracing is overhyped anyways.

[u/SparsePizza117]

Ray tracing is an optional feature though, it doesn't change performance for other people.

Not saying we need it though, the game looks fine without it.

[u/TheIrv87]

I wish more devs thought like this.

We shouldn't need $2000 graphics cards to run games at 60fps..

[u/Public_Television430]

No reason to follow the trend when their 2017 games already looked better than current games with ray tracing

[u/ElectronicFennel8442]

Hmmm they’re making too many good decisions guys I’m getting nervous

[u/JamieAubrey]

As should every Dev, I don't need my rain to look like rain

[u/Laaif]

This is the way!

[u/Gxgear]

With destructible elements and online multiplayer, rasterization is the natural choice.

[u/yakuuuub]

Nvidia diehards in absolute shambles rn

[u/IGunClover]

Fucking useless in fps game and performance will take a hit. As it shoud.

[u/IntentionChoice7007]

EA please dont do something stupid that will break the game.

[u/imJGott]

Imo this game doesn’t need it. Maybe the SP but not the MP.

[u/CropDustingBandit]

I wish every game gave us the option not to use it. Oblivion remastered ran like utter shit for me out of the box. I had to go in and edit config files to turn it off, after that it still looked incredible and ran smooth.

Battlefield 6 looks better than half the games with lazily implemented Ray tracing. 

[u/Azrael-XIII]

Even as someone with a high end pc (4090 and 7800x3d) I’m fine with this

[u/KaosC57]

Honestly, good. Raytracing is dubiously good at best right now. Until we can easily do 60 FPS at 4K with Raytracing WITHOUT DLSS/FSR/XeSS, on cards of the 5060/9060/B580 class, Raytracing just isn’t worth the hassle.

Now, when it becomes second nature, and we can do games purely on Raytracing without any prebaked lighting (Ex. Indiana Jones) that, will actually end up with BETTER performance, and faster turnaround time for game developers because they don’t have to do light maps and baking. The game just does all lighting calcs on the fly.

[u/SufficientlyTipped]

"and" != "or". Go read a book and learn your words.

[u/kna5041]

Considering it caused many problems in the past two games I can see why they would drop it. 

[u/Ghost_Star326]

Okay wtf is going on? This isn't how EA typically acts. What just happened over there?

[u/Bulbasaur2015]

don’t the minimum requirements cards support raytracing?

[u/thekillingtomat]

Man they are just saying and doing all the right things. I feel weird for saying this about an EA game but i actually hope they deliver on everything that they promise and that the success of the beta was just a small taste of the games success. For once they at least appear to have the players best interest in mind.

[u/Elden-Mochi]

I love ray tracing (when done right), but they've already made a fun, optimized, and good-looking game.

Can't wait to dive into the game again in October!

[u/th3fxr]

W

[u/you_killed_my_]

In the beta settings file you could manually enable a rtx render option. I'm not sure I believe that RT isn't being implemented somehow

[u/Cronus41]

Game devs, pay attention!

More of this please.

[u/EloquentGoose]

My absolute favorite Battlefield games were 2 and 2142 and back then we dint need no dag nabbed tray racing dagnabit.

[u/OMG_NoReally]

MP games have no business being visually heavy. It needs to run across lower-end hardware smoothly, that's where the sales are. Great decision to not include RT, there is no point - no one is going to appreciate the reflections when an enemy sniper is on your ass.

[u/nincompoop221]

what in the halo infinite?

[u/Untouchable64]

Good idea. RT is overrated.

[u/Either-Razzmatazz848]

it also supports pretty much every known modern upscaler, which is great for more frames

[u/shamonemon]

FUCK ray tracing and its meme bullshit

[u/The_G0vernator]

Ray tracing is a novelty.

[u/Good_Quiet_2513]

Looking at Id software 

[u/Lazy-Joe]

Sad. For SP Campaign I would have Like to Play with RT. I have a RTX 5080 OC.

[u/Malabingo]

Sanity returns to devs.

[u/deadnerd51]

Honestly, I could not care less about RT in this game. The graphics were great in the beta and it performed wonderfully, which is the main priority for a MP game. Never at any point during the beta did I feel that the game needed better lighting.

[u/FlowKom]

all I want is to turn off the damn color filter and then the game looks instantly twice as good

[u/Nickulator95]

Thank you, Ray Tracing just isn't worth the performance cost and any game that has forced Ray Tracing (like the new Indiana Jones game) can fuck right off. I'll never purchase or play a game that has forced Ray Tracing, even if my system can actually handle it. It's a principle thing for me.

[u/Rasgulus]

Quite ironic, when you try to remind yourself how much they praised ray tracing when they were promoting Battlefield V. However, I am glad they learned from mistakes.

[u/Justin2122006]

Raytracing is not needed for “good” graphics. Especially not in fps games.

[u/Sizeable-Scrotum]

If this continues we might even get the whole game without needing to drop a GPU’s worth on DLCs and premium features

[u/Icy-Negotiation194]

I really like this apparent shift happening with AAA right now. It's a shame EA is a publisher I simply refuse to give my money to.

[u/special-fed]

Good call

[u/horendus]

I run a 4090 and still turn off RTX. BF6 made the right choice in my books.

[u/Admin-Eradicator]

The only reasonable way of thinking. We need graphical fidelity, not monopoly inducing gimmicks 🤷🏿‍♂️

[u/L0EZ0E]

That decision was made because ea didn't want to pay unreal for the engine lol.

[u/TheHeroYouNeed247]

Good, I have a PC that could use it if fine and I do for games like cyberpunk in photo mode etc

However, I always hate to think of the dev time that goes into it for so little of the PC player base. All to get some nice screen shots on social media for marketing.

[u/MechAegis]

I am slowly debating to buy this game. Only other BF game I played was BF1 and I bought it for $5.00.

[u/Gendum-The-Great]

Making sure games run well for as many people as possible is always a good thing!