One thing to look ahead to: Improved ray tracing efficiency is likely one of the key advantages of Sony’s newly unveiled PlayStation 5 Professional console. Previous to its debut, rumors had lengthy steered that the mid-generation refresh would incorporate ray tracing expertise primarily based on AMD’s upcoming RDNA 4 GPU structure. Latest feedback from PlayStation designer Mark Cerny have all however confirmed these theories.
In an in depth interview with CNET following the reveal of Sony’s PlayStation 5 Professional console, designer Mark Cerny confirmed rumors that the system’s ray tracing capabilities are constructed on an structure not but out there in AMD’s PC graphics playing cards. Whereas Cerny did not explicitly identify RDNA 4, no different viable candidates are recognized.
Cerny defined that the PS5 Professional leverages new ray tracing function units developed by {hardware} companion AMD for the following stage of its roadmap. Studies earlier this 12 months steered that RDNA 4 GPUs, anticipated to launch in 2025, will considerably improve ray tracing efficiency in comparison with RDNA 3, and particularly to the RDNA 2 chips that energy the unique PlayStation 5 and Xbox Sequence consoles.
Though latest AMD GPUs have stored tempo with Nvidia’s RTX merchandise in conventional rasterized lighting, they lag considerably behind in ray tracing efficiency. As an illustration, in Black Fantasy: Wukong, which closely depends on ray tracing, AMD’s $900 flagship Radeon RX 7900 XTX performs worse than Nvidia’s mainstream GeForce RTX 4060 Ti – a card that prices half as a lot and has solely one-quarter the reminiscence. Nonetheless, with ray tracing disabled, the 7900 XTX leaps forward by two Nvidia product tiers, rating slightly below the equally priced RTX 4080.
AMD’s shortcomings in ray tracing are evident in quite a few console video games that use the expertise sparingly. Titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Alan Wake 2 on PS5 implement little greater than ray-traced shadows, whereas their PC variations supply way more superior settings, together with path tracing. Whereas the PS5 Professional might not completely shut this hole, it should doubtless help extra ray tracing options or enhance body charges in video games using the expertise.
A July leak steered RDNA 4 will function a method referred to as “Ray Tracing Tri Pair Optimization,” which can both double the variety of devoted RT items or permit RT engines to course of twice as many ray-triangle intersection calculations per clock cycle. Additional optimizations in Bounding Quantity Hierarchy may additionally improve efficiency.
Regardless of these developments, AMD has confirmed that its subsequent GPU era will deal with inexpensive mid-range and mainstream playing cards, leaving Nvidia’s upcoming RTX 5080 and 5090 unchallenged within the high-end phase. Each GPU lineups, together with Intel’s Arc Battlemage, are anticipated to launch in early 2025.
