Hitman 3 showcases how pointless ray tracing can be

digitaltrends.com:

Nvidia and AMD revealed at Computex 2022 that Hitman 3 would receive support for ray tracing and both Nvidia and AMD’s supersampling technologies, following an announcement from developer IO Interactive late last year. The update is here and I’ve had a chance to try it out, but I wasn’t left salivating over all the visual glitter like I expected.

Ray tracing can certainly make visuals more realistic, but in this game, it proves that adding ray tracing to all games isn’t necessary — especially when it tanks performance without adding much in terms of noticeable benefit. Hitman 3 is a reality check, especially if you think ray tracing is the be-all and end-all of graphics.

Hitman 3 has very little to gain from ray tracing, and spending some time with the new update only confirmed that for me. The update brings ray-traced reflections and shadows, which you can toggle on individually. But after playing through several missions and capturing around 50 screenshots, it’s hard to see the benefit.

You can see an example of that from the Dubai level above. The ray-traced version (left) shows the beam that Agent 47 is climbing cast slightly more shadow, but these two scenes are almost identical. If they weren’t side by side, I wouldn’t be able to tell you which one is using ray tracing, certainly.

That’s not to say ray tracing isn’t doing anything, just that it’s not doing very much. I noticed the reflections most on semitransparent reflective surfaces (mostly glass), where ray tracing shows reflections that wouldn’t normally render. You can see an example of that in the Maldives level from Hitman 2 below (ray tracing is on the left).

I captured another example in the Miami level (below), where you can see the ticket booth window