New Graphics Firm Promises Real-Time Ray Tracing

arcticstoat writes "A new graphics company called Caustic Graphics reckons it's uncovered the secret of real-time ray tracing with a chip that 'enables your CPU/GPU to shade with rasterization-like efficiency.' The new chip basically off-loads ray tracing calculations and then sends the data to your GPU and CPU, enabling your PC to shade a ray-traced scene much more quickly. Caustic's management team isn't afraid to rubbish the efforts of other graphics companies when it comes to ray tracing. 'Some technology vendors claim to have solved the accelerated ray tracing problem by using traditional algorithms along with GPU hardware,' says Caustic. However, the company adds that 'if you've ever seen them demo their solutions you'll notice that while results may be fast — the image quality is underwhelming, far below the quality that ray tracing is known for.' According to Caustic, this is because the advanced shading and lighting effects usually seen in ray-traced scenes, such as caustics and refraction, can't be accelerated on a standard GPU because it can't process incoherent rays in hardware. Conversely, Caustic claims that the CausticOne 'thrives in incoherent ray tracing situations: encouraging the use of multiple secondary rays per pixel.' The company is also introducing its own API, called CausticGL, which is based on OpenGL/GLSL, which will feature Caustic's unique ray tracing extensions."

Comments

2009

[stonedcat]

2009 is the year of the ray traced desktop.

Shitty summary!

[drinkypoo]

Stop copying and pasting the article to generate almost the entire summary, especially when you don't do it right. The However, the company adds that 'if you've ever seen them demo their solutions you'll notice that while results may be fast -- the image quality is underwhelming, far below the quality that ray tracing is known for.' makes it look like you're talking about the Image quality of Caustic's new solution, which is obviously wrong. Here's the real paragraph:

"Some technology vendors claim to have solved the accelerated ray tracing problem by using traditional algorithms along with GPU hardware," says Caustic, referring to companies such as Nvidia which recently demonstrated real-time ray tracing using CUDA . However, the company adds that "if you've ever seen them demo their solutions you'll notice that while results may be fast--the image quality is underwhelming, far below the quality that ray tracing is known for."

In other words, it was someone at Caustic talking about everyone else's solutions, the opposite of the implication of the summary!

Re:"Caustic"?

[flewp]

I assume you're kidding, but for the uninitiated: Caustics also refers to light reflected and refracted by a curved object. Think the pattern of light cast by a glass on your desk, or thrown off by a ring sitting on a surface.

Re:cant wait.

[Goaway]

I know! This is totally going to solve the problem of the utter lack of glass spheres and infinite checkerboards in today's games!