eli5: Could someone tell me what the big deal about RTX technology is?
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For a long time, the lighting in computer games has been ‘faked’. Clever techniques are used to come kinda sorta close to what actual shadows or reflections or highlights would look like because actually simulating millions or billions of rays of light is too computationally expensive. For example, the texture of a wall behind a light would just be painted white to make the light seem bright. Areas near corners would have their textures darkened to make it seem like they’re shadowy. Foggy areas would actually be made of several floating flat panels of transparent texture, like looking through several sheets of glass.
RTX hardware is specially designed to calculate those light rays, how they reflect or get absorbed, and how they change color. It can do these calculations in real-time, which enables their use in interactive video games. The result is a 3D environment with much more realistic reflections, lighting, and shadows.
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