Neural Rendering Looks Real Impressive
The day started with an overview of NVIDIA’s current developments in graphics rendering, and how the company has arrived at this point. Exploring the advancements in graphics rendering technologies, the first part of the day focused on programmable shaders, neural shading, and RTX innovations. I learned a lot about the evolution of shaders, the introduction of neural shading with the new Blackwell architecture used in the latest generation of GeForce RTX cards, and the impact of Cooperative Vectors API on accessing Tensor Cores (which is the central ‘AI’ element of NVIDIA’s hardware). The session also covered Neural Radiance Cache, RTX Skin for real-time subsurface scattering (more realistic skin effects), and RTX Mega Geometry for handling complex scenes. Additionally, RTX Remix’s influence on the modding community is discussed, highlighting its integration with industry-standard tools.
Neural Radiance Cache Makes Lighting More Realistic
The 50 series of GeForce RTX cards will support Neural Radiance Cache, a technology that trains in real-time using the gamer’s GPU to create a model that caches light transport throughout a scene. In English, as I understand it at least, it means it can learn how ray-tracing and path-tracing behaves in the 3D world you’re inhabiting and will improve those paths to a point where you can have effectively infinite bounces of light to make every piece of lighting more realistic, with eye-catching improvements in shading, texture lighting and scene ambiance in the demos we saw.
RTX Neural Materials Promise Film-Quality Shading
RTX Neural Materials uses NVIDIA’s AI cores to compress complex shader code typically reserved for offline materials and built with multiple layers. The examples we saw on screen included tricky materials such as porcelain and silk. The material processing is claimed to be up to 5x faster, making it possible to render film-quality assets at game-ready frame rates.
RTX Mega Geometry Will Handle More Complex Scenes Than Ever
Another game-changer in ray- and path-tracing, I suspect, will be RTX Mega Geometry. It allows for handling complex scenes with high polygon counts in ray tracing and path tracing, by way of enabling the use of full-resolution meshes without proxy meshes (which have been used to save memory due to the high number of triangles/polygons in any complex 3D scene). It also efficiently compresses and caches clusters over time, which NVIDIA claims will speed up both gameplay and time on the development side.
Does DLSS 4 Mean We Don’t Need Higher VRAM Specs?
I noticed something interesting both at the event and afterwards during chats with some people who are a lot smarter than I am. The new NVIDIA graphics cards don’t seem to show a huge jump in VRAM compared to the last generation. For example, the 5090 tops out at 32GB, while a lot of the NVIDIA laptop GPUs in the 50-series come with either 12GB or 16GB of VRAM. From what I gathered, DLSS 4 could be a big reason. DLSS, or Deep Learning Super Sampling, has just entered its fourth phase at NVIDIA. This new version really aims to boost performance and image quality in real-time graphics using AI.
Video Rendering is About to Take a Big Leap
While NVIDIA did touch upon the widespread adoption of generative AI (whether I like it personally or not), and how the latest iteration of their graphics cards will aid generative extension of sequences and reframing shots, perhaps eliminating the need for costly re-takes within filmmaking in some cases, what intrigued me most were the developments in video rendering. With multi-camera set-ups for shows, interviews, video podcasts and even on-site reports (we saw an example from a vlogger’s racetrack visit with his nine cameras) on the rise, the need for more streamlined video rendering and editing is rising fast.
Digital Humans Are Still a Little Too Uncanny
One thing computers, CGI and AI-generated videos have struggled with, and continue to struggle with, is creating convincing-looking and naturally moving humans. At the NVIDIA showcase, and indeed at several places throughout the expo, I saw ‘digital humans’, ‘autonomous game characters’, ‘neural faces’, and even an ‘intelligent streaming assistant’ from Logitech, to use as your ‘companion’ during game streams. All of these are different approaches to create a ‘UI for your AI’, and while remarkable improvements have been made in some respects, we’re still deep in the Uncanny Valley.
I Wouldn’t Panic About ‘Lazy Devs’ Just Yet
As we were shown a developer demo from the makers of Doom: The Dark Ages, we saw how DLSS 4, neural rendering, improved path-tracing and ray-tracing and other introductions from NVIDIA have helped them create a more immersive, photorealistic and convincingly lived-in (and died-in, ey?) world. An argument I’m seeing in several pieces around the interwebz is that AI rendering of frames, multi-frame generation and other tools being introduced will lead to lazy devs pushing out poorly developed AI-reliant slop. And yes, that’s definitely gonna happen. But we also get lazy devs making poorly programmed slop now.
Conclusion
The new GeForce RTX 50 series has a lot to offer, from improved neural rendering to faster video rendering and editing. While some may worry about the potential for lazy developers to rely too heavily on AI tools, it’s clear that the technology has the potential to revolutionize the industry. With improved path-tracing, ray-tracing, and neural rendering, the possibilities are endless.
FAQs
Q: What is the new Blackwell architecture used in the latest generation of GeForce RTX cards?
A: The Blackwell architecture is a new technology that enables neural shading, allowing for more realistic textures and materials.
Q: What is Neural Radiance Cache?
A: Neural Radiance Cache is a technology that trains in real-time using the gamer’s GPU to create a model that caches light transport throughout a scene.
Q: What is RTX Neural Materials?
A: RTX Neural Materials uses NVIDIA’s AI cores to compress complex shader code typically reserved for offline materials and built with multiple layers.
Q: What is RTX Mega Geometry?
A: RTX Mega Geometry is a technology that allows for handling complex scenes with high polygon counts in ray tracing and path tracing.
Q: Does DLSS 4 mean we don’t need higher VRAM specs?
A: According to NVIDIA, DLSS 4 could be a big reason why we don’t need higher VRAM specs, as it aims to boost performance and image quality in real-time graphics using AI.
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