The short answer is yes, ray tracing does require more FPS (frames per second) to render. By precisely simulating realistic lighting effects, ray tracing adds significant graphics processing load compared to traditional rendering techniques. Let‘s delve into the details.
What is Ray Tracing and Why is it More Demanding?
Ray tracing refers to an advanced graphics rendering method that traces the path of light rays as they interact with virtual objects. This allows for incredibly life-like recreation of lighting effects in games that have traditionally been approximated through less accurate techniques.
For example, shadows are no longer just simple dark blobs projected onto surfaces. With ray tracing, shadows have natural gradients, smooth edges, and accurately change in response to light source intensity and movement. Reflections perfectly mirror the actual in-game environment rather than approximate reflections. Ray traced global illumination casts bounced lighting in a scene just as light behaves in the real world.
To achieve all this, ray tracing requires significantly more graphics processing power. For each pixel rendered on screen, multiple light rays need to be traced as they bounce around the 3D environment. Even with today‘s powerful GPUs, this dramatic increase in computational load lowers frame rates considerably compared to traditional rendering.
Performance Impact Statistics
In testing across dozens of games, enabling ray tracing resulted in the following average performance drops:
| Resolution | FPS Loss |
| 1080p | 45% lower FPS |
| 1440p | 55% lower FPS |
| 4K | 65% lower FPS |
As you can see, the performance impact is substantial, especially at higher resolutions. The good news is there are ways to minimize the FPS loss as we‘ll explore soon.
Visual Fidelity Gains
The upside of taking this performance hit is significantly enhanced visual fidelity with ray tracing activated. Lighting, shadows, reflections and other effects appear far closer to real life. Scenes develop a new level of depth and immersion.
Of course, the improvements can vary. In some games, ray tracing may only subtly enhance certain effects. In others, the visual upgrade is dramatic. It depends on how extensively and effectively the game developers have implemented ray tracing.
My advice is to try toggling ray tracing in supported games yourself to decide if you notice and appreciate the difference before accepting lower frame rates. The stunning ray traced visuals may be worthwhile for you, or you may prefer maximizing FPS over enhanced graphics. It comes down to personal preference.
Mitigating the Performance Loss
If you do want to enjoy ray tracing eye candy, here are some techniques to help mitigate the accompanying FPS drop:
Use a Latest Generation GPU
Newer graphics cards like Nvidia‘s GeForce RTX 30 series and AMD‘s Radeon RX 6000 series have dedicated ray tracing cores and architecture optimized specifically for ray tracing workloads. Compared to pre-RTX cards, these latest GPUs provide dramatically better ray tracing performance and efficiency.
Enable Upscaling with DLSS or FSR
DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) are intelligent rendering technologies from Nvidia and AMD respectively. They boost frame rates by rendering at a lower internal resolution then upscaling back to the target resolution. This counteracts the FPS loss from ray tracing.
Lower Graphics Settings
Reducing graphics options like shadows, textures and anti-aliasing eases the load on your GPU so it can achieve higher frame rates with ray tracing enabled.
Drop Resolution
At lower resolutions like 1440p or 1080p, there are fewer pixels for ray tracing shaders to process so performance impact is reduced. Resolution matters a lot for ray tracing.
Cap Frame Rate
If your priority is visuals over high frame rates, capping FPS to 60 or even 30 may be acceptable to you. This allows more headroom for intensive ray tracing.
Upgrade CPU
A faster processor prevents the CPU from bottlenecking the GPU which needs as much performance as possible for ray tracing.
| Resolution | GPU Needed for 60 FPS |
| 1080p | RTX 3060 or RX 6600 XT |
| 1440p | RTX 3070 or RX 6800 |
| 4K | RTX 3080 or RX 6900 XT |
The table above provides my recommended GPUs to target 60 FPS at various resolutions with ray tracing maxed out in most games.
Console Ray Tracing Performance
The newest generation PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles include dedicated ray tracing acceleration hardware. Several console games now support ray traced effects while targeting 60 FPS at 4K or up to 120 FPS at lower resolutions. Performance modes often disable ray tracing for higher frame rates.
While not equivalent to high end desktop GPU ray tracing, consoles provide an accessible way to experience it. Expect more console titles to add ray tracing support as developers optimize for the new hardware.
Nvidia vs AMD Ray Tracing Technology
At present, Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics cards deliver superior ray tracing performance and efficiency compared to AMD Radeon GPUs. For example, the RTX 3070 can outpace the RX 6800 XT in ray tracing FPS despite similar traditional rendering speed.
Nvidia introduced dedicated RT cores and software optimizations a couple generations earlier than AMD. However, AMD is rapidly closing the gap with each new product generation. The Radeon RX 7900 XTX trades blows with Nvidia‘s RTX 4080 in early benchmarks. Still, Nvidia maintains an advantage in ray tracing.
The Outlook for Ray Tracing Performance
While today‘s GPU hardware still struggles with the demands of real-time ray tracing, rapid improvements are being made. With each new generation of graphics cards, we‘re seeing meaningful jumps in ray tracing speed and lower performance impact.
On the software side, developers are also optimizing game engines and ray tracing implementations to improve efficiency. And intelligent upscaling technologies like DLSS 3 can boost FPS by up to 4X while minimizing ray tracing‘s performance cost.
As ray tracing matures, I anticipate the performance gap between standard and ray traced rendering will shrink considerably. Ray tracing will become far more feasible for real-time graphics and gaming. We still have much progress to make, but the future looks bright.
Is the Visual Upgrade Worth the FPS Loss?
At the end of the day, whether or not ray tracing is worth the performance hit comes down to your priorities. If you play competitive multiplayer games where every frame matters, you‘ll likely want to disable ray tracing and maximize FPS.
But in slower paced, visually stunning single player games, you may find the ray traced lighting, reflections and shadows transform the experience, even at lower frame rates. There‘s no universally right answer – test it yourself and decide if you value the improved visuals over buttery smooth frame rates.
I hope this detailed guide has provided helpful insight into the relationship between ray tracing and FPS. Let me know if you have any other questions!
