Digital Foundry's Alex Battaglia analyzes Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, the first AAA game built around ray tracing. It covers the new global illumination, emissive lighting, DLSS and performance on AMD and Nvidia hardware.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN recommends it as a good overview of what ray-traced lighting changes for developers and players.
“is a good overview of why this is such a huge leap forward for developers and players alike.”HN comment, 2021
“is a good overview of why this is such a huge leap forward for developers and players alike.”
Overview of real-time global illumination benefits in games
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Real-time ray traced reflections are an impressive trick, but real-time global illumination is where this tech shines IMO. This Digital Foundry video ( this video ) is a good overview of why this is such a huge leap forward for developers and players alike. Metro: Exodus EE (the game discussed in the video) is the only game I've played that really shows what 'RTX' and similar GPU hardware is capable of, IMO. Even CP77, which was supposed to push modern systems to their limit, feels like its ray tracing and GI stuff is janky and tacked-on.
RecommendsTiredOfLifeMar 2025
“Here is a good video by Digital Foundry looking at Metro Exodus Enhanced edition with devtools.”
Shows what ray tracing is versus regular lighting
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Here is a good video by Digital Foundry looking at Metro Exodus Enhanced edition with devtools. Where they show what raytracing is and how it differs from regular lighting. this video simplified tldr: with raytracing you build the environment, designate which parts (like sun, lamps) emit light and you are done. With regular an artist has to spend hours to days adding many fake lightsources to get same result.
RecommendsMawrOct 2025
“DigitalFoundry made a nice video on it”
Analysis of a game rebuilt with RT-only lighting
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There's also Metro: Exodus, which the developers have re-made to only support RT lighting. DigitalFoundry made a nice video on it: this video
Cites itpaavohtlDec 2021
“Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition uses RT for basically all lighting, doesn't it?”
Game using ray tracing for all lighting
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Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition uses RT for basically all lighting, doesn't it? this video Same with Minecraft RTX link Though both still calculate the lighting over several frames, so if you want to be pedantic you could argue that it's not strictly real time.
