True Ray Tracing on Consoles Will Take Another 20 Years — Insider
Insider Kepler L2 stated that AMD has made significant progress in developing graphics solutions for PS6 and the next Xbox. Both devices will receive improved ray tracing support, but a full implementation of the technology without compromises will remain a distant prospect — talking about a horizon after 2040.
The discussion arose on X in a thread about NVIDIA RTX Hair technology for more realistic hair rendering. Later, the conversation shifted to ray tracing. An enthusiast under the nickname LeviathanGamer, interested in processor architecture and games, said that Sony and Microsoft are aiming to support it, although AMD is "lagging behind." According to him, the basis of progress will be fast matrix mathematics: "RDNA 4 has already laid 90% of the foundation." He also listed steps that could accelerate RT: double acceleration of intersection checks, combining LDS/L0 cache, a dedicated block for managing stacks and scene traversal, hardware sorting by coherence, hardware decompression of geometry by three coordinates.
Later, insider Kepler L2 commented on the Neogaf forum: "AMD already has all of this and more." But in response to a question about prospects, he added: "We are two decades away from ray tracing without compromises."
According to him, Sony is actively working on accelerating ray tracing in PS6, placing more emphasis on it than on increasing performance in rasterization.
