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Intel: Rasterisation will be seen less in 5-10 years
Intel’s Daniel Pohl hints at Larrabee’s ray tracing capabilities, and says he believes that rasterisation will be seen less and less over the next five to ten years
Intel may have revealed the theory behind its forthcoming Larrabee graphics architecture, but so far it hasn’t revealed much beyond its DirectX and OpenGL capabilities. However, there’s little doubt that if it catches on, a freely programmable x86 graphics architecture could have massive implications for the future of games. In particular, Intel now says that rasterisation will start dying out over the next five to ten years.
Speaking to Custom PC, Intel’s ray tracing guru Daniel Pohl said that: ‘Looking ahead five to ten years from now, I believe that rasterisation will be used less and less in games, and will instead be used in combination with other algorithms.’
Pohl also hinted at some of the ray tracing capabilities of Larrabee. ‘Besides being a rasteriser with DirectX and OpenGL support,’ explained Pohl, ‘Larrabee will also be a freely programmable x86-architecture, so you’ll be able to do real-time ray tracing.’ However, the more interesting question, according to Pohl, is ‘with what scene complexity, in what resolution, with what kind of light settings and with how many dynamic objects it will be possible to do that.’
Real time ray tracing is the talk of the town at the moment, and not only with regards to Intel. At Siggraph this week, Nvidia also demonstrated real-time ray tracing on GPUs. Of course, shifting the games industry away from rasterisation will be a big job, and one that is likely to take many years, but Intel clearly sees this as the way of the future. Is Intel on the right track here? Is ray tracing going to play a big part in games in the future? As always, let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Look out for a full interview with Daniel Pohl about ray tracing and the future of games next week.
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I'm sure you can get a cooking game/helper now on the Wii or there is at least one in developement. The DS version is already on sale. As for the fishing, I know they do a bass fishing or something as I've seen the fishing rod holder for the Wii remote and nunchuck. I remember buying some absolute stinkers for the NES and SNES and playing some more on the PC but it's always the good ones you remember. I remember playing WWE Royal Rumble on the SNES on difficult and using Mr Perfect I eliminated every wrestler but looking at the game now it's really crap. Shame as I was well chuffed at the time. The one PC game I still have on the shelf is Lucasarts Full Throttle. That's over 12 years old now but at the time I thought it was great. That could do with a remake or sequal.
Comment by crazyceo at 9:28pm 19th August 2008
I think alot of 90's games are still good fun and the whole 'let's just leave it there' is a bit daft as people do go back to them for inspiration. I'm not saying there aren't any good games now, far from it, and yes of course there were games made in the 90's that were sugar-coated with effects to hide the crap game itself. My point was that back then, the gulf between movie sfx graphics and pc/console graphics was huge and developers were alot more limited graphically then they are in this century, where the gap has narrowed incredibly, which means in some cases, developers can concentrate on dramatic cut-scenes in between levels etc. Heavenly Sword, for example, looks quite remarkable and is quite fun to play, for about 20 minutes, afterwhich, the matrix-style slow-mo special moves become annoying, as does the scene where the homosexual evil king is the other side of some logs, and for all the game's 'free-roaming' 3D environment, you can't just jump over the logs and kill the git, even though you can jump a mile in the air in other parts of the game. And the 'dramatic' cut-scenes in GTA3 & 4. And for once I find myself agreeing with crazy_ceo - the wii is quite groundbreaking and nothing like the 90's consoles, however two problems...firstly diving would be a hilarious addition to the olympics game, secondly, there is a real danger that someone like Jamie Oliver is going to release some kind of cookery game or even worse...canal fishing
Comment by EdArch at 12:33am 19th August 2008
I love they way that now 90's games are old everyone pretends that games back then we're all about gameplay and story yada yada etc etc. There was just as much guff talked about graphics in the 90's as now and masses of terrible games that were made just to look pretty, just as there are now. Nothing has changed and people will be having the same discussion we are now about this decade in 10 or 20 years. And to the guy that's saying 10 -15 years for "cinematic" quality - guess what, that's what they were saying . . . 10 - 15 years ago. The more things change, the more they stay the same. . .
Comment by phil54321 at 11:15pm 18th August 2008
Nintendo have done a fantastic job with the Wii console. Not only did it pee on the 360/PS3 fire, it's made them take notice and make huge changes to gameplay which have again become fun! The Wii was never going to be a next gen console and Nintendo stated that months before launch. The PS3/Xbox360 HD formats are stunning but not everyone has a HD TV for gaming use. Nintendo knew this and stuck to its original plan. Now they have been proved right with record sales around the globe. Wii Sports, Mario Kart, Smash Bros Brawl are all fantastic 21st century games to play. Gaming in the 1990's was actually quite good and judging by the developers who keep going back to that decade for inspiration and remakes, it seems a lot of people think so too.
Comment by crazyceo at 1:00pm 18th August 2008
Just want to clarify a point I made earlier about Nintendo being stuck in the 90's. There's absolutely nothing wrong with 90's gaming....when it is actually 1990-1999, but now its 2008 we should be moving forward. Twilight Princess??? You're kidding right??
Comment by gavomatic57 at 7:52am 18th August 2008
they're picking shiny surfaces because they think it showcases the abilities of ray-tracers. However while alot of RT do give lots of shine but little in the way of texture depth, bump maps etc, just do a google image search for "Revit Mantal Ray" and you'll see a proper ray-tracer with full environmental effects, soft shadows gradual light changes, bump mapping, proper reflectivity, photometric lighting etc etc...in other words, what we all really want things to look like! As for the console thing, maybe Intel are planning a LarryBird assault on the console market? And I agree with NewParadigm, games should be games first, I am getting a bit tired with games having more motion/film-like sequences then actual playing time (MGS series anyone?)...but wait a minute, wasn't there a time when developers concentrated on gameplay first, and graphics second? Yes there was, it was the 90's! and even now any one here could sit down with a SNES or MegaDrive and have hours of fun and possibly a day off work! Alot of really good RPG's such as Final Fantasy 4, 5 & 6 had over 150 hours of gameplay and (for 16-bit machines) outstanding graphics...and few in-between animation sequences - well there were a few that were relevant to the plot of the game. And even Goldeneye proved Nintendo being hell-bent on keeping games in the 90's...
Comment by EdArch at 5:25pm 17th August 2008
Films are generally rendered in hours per frame lol. And that's on a dedicated render farm consisting of hundreds of multi-core PCs. Just look at Dreamworks' lastest deal with Intel. I simply cannot see ray tracing becoming mainstream anytime soon, even in the next 10 - 15 years. Making games is about expressing yourself, and as others have said, games would just look like stiff tech demos if ray tracing were used. The development time required for "good" graphics when using such an intensive technique is simply too high.
Comment by Zhaoman at 2:13pm 16th August 2008
Surely this is the future? Once PCs achieve the necessary power, then all PCs will be capable of photo realistic graphics. The fact that intel are looking ten years into the future says it all. They are predicting massive CPU power being mainstream. Films like Beowulf are rendered in 'seconds per frame'. This will obviously come down as time goes on and eventually PCs will be capable of rendering in real time. I think we are entering the 'final phase' of computer graphics. Once all PCs are capable of 'cinematic' graphics, it will no longer even be listed as a feature. We're obviously still a long way off, but 10 to 15 years sounds about right.
Comment by michael at 2:50am 16th August 2008
They do not make their own GPUs. MS went with ATI and Sony with Nvidia. Just because Intel is making their own Ray Tracing CPU/GPU doesn't mean console makers have to buy into it. There is alot of reasons why they would shun something like that. Especailly if it's brand new and unproven. If they don't buy into Ray Tracing expect rasteration to be here 10 yrs from now. For me, graphics are about the "realism" they bring to the world they're trying to replicate. Not having a super shiny car driving down a super clean street, with stiff, super clean people around. It looks artificial, like a tech demo.
Comment by Warrior24_7 at 9:02pm 15th August 2008
just feel that i should point out that M$, Sony, and Nintendo do not produce their own gpu's or cpu's (i may be wrong about M$, but i doubt it, i just don't know who makes theirs). sony's stuff is made by Nvidia, Nintendo's gpu's are made by AMD/ATI and their cpu's are made by IBM (though i feel like amd may try and take their place in the near future, just a feeling). @ gavomatic, while their graphics are not exactly cutting edge, nintendo has always focoused on the most important parts of games, gameplay and storyline. btw; pick up a copy of Twilight Princess and say that they are stuck in the 1990's, i dare ya.
Comment by yougotkicked at 8:07pm 15th August 2008
5 yrs? Not if the new next consoles still use rasterisation. MS, Sony and Nintendo will have a HUGE say in what stays and what goes. That market is too huge to ignore.
Comment by Warrior24_7 at 5:52pm 15th August 2008
we need is developers spending even more time on graphical 'improvements'... the other spects of gameplay allready suffer enough as it is. Let them concentrate on making good fun games first, then we can worry about whether to change the way the graphics work... remember ray tracing and resterisation are just tools, a means to an end, the yare not the be all and end all by themselves.
Comment by NewParadigm at 1:27pm 15th August 2008
They use the shiny chrome effect because with the limited number of surfaces, ray traced images look really flat, dull and lifeless unless the surface material is reflective... one of the major hurdles that has to be overcome for ray tracing to be an effective alternative.
Comment by NewParadigm at 1:27pm 15th August 2008
Crysis, piracy aside this games main failure was gamers needed top notch hardware to play the game the way it was intended by the developers. Yes you can play it on lower settings but that wasn't the way it was meant to be played (Isn't that Nvidia marketing?) If Ray Tracing needs new hardware and that hardware costs more then the wallet will win everytime. Now consoles are the main problem here. Developers clearly prefer consoles to PC gamers as that's were they make their money. I don't agree with that but it is a fact of life. If one or two of the console giants pick up this new Intel idea then just maybe they can shift everyone else over to it. Is this really the end of dreadlock hair, woolly hat, none washing, Bob Marley listening, Weed smoking as we know it? Or is Rasterisation not what I think it is?
Comment by crazyceo at 11:44am 15th August 2008
I ust don't get it at the moment. Do I want all the enemies in my games looking like the Terminator 2000 from T2? nah. It is interesting to watch the progress though ... but is the shiny chrome effect really the future?
Comment by CSQuake at 10:37am 15th August 2008
I get your point. Even with ray tracing how is all the hardware going to cope. You would need a bit of a monster rig to play anything with ray tracing on the highest details unless they make more use of quad core cpu's. Whats wrong with 1990's games? We had Sonic the Hedgehog, Legend of Zelda and Doom back then. Graphics may look like MSpaint now but they kicked bottom when I was younger lol.
Comment by Nickuk1987 at 10:28am 15th August 2008
I guess it all depends on how much it will cost to use ray tracing for a game in an apparently shrinking market riddled with piracy. I somehow can't see Nintendo embracing ray tracing either and they seem hell-bent on keeping gaming in the 1990's.
Comment by gavomatic57 at 9:45am 15th August 2008
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