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Does Xbox One X Have ray Tracing?

When the Xbox One X was unveiled back in 2017 during the E3, the catchphrase was 4K. Eight generation of gaming consoles, and finally we had hardware powerful enough to render games at 4K on high FPS. Ray tracing was economically delivered first in 2018.

No. The Xbox One X doesn’t have hardware accelerated ray tracing. It was released before ray tracing was part of the common terminology of gamers. At that time, only the Nvidia RTX cards for desktops had ray tracing.

Games that come with software-based ray tracing (such as Crysis Remastered announcing ray tracing for the Xbox One X) are not as great as hardware-accelerated ray tracing, while still downgrading the playing experience – if you try to turn it on, get ready to say goodbye to 4K. 1080p or lower is the best the console can pull off with ray tracing on.

crysis remastered
Games such as Crysis Remastered deploy software-based ray tracing. Hardware accelerated ray tracing is not possible on Xbox One X.

The Xbox One X’s direct competitor, PS4 Pro, also doesn’t have proper ray tracing. Ray tracing was introduced in gaming consoles only in the 9th generation – meaning Xbox Series X and S and PS5.

Needless to say, the Xbox One S also doesn’t have ray tracing. The hardware needed for proper ray tracing costs double of what the entire console does.

So, is software-based ray tracing the way to go?

It’s debatable, really.

For once, Nvidia has already received quite the criticism for its software-based ray tracing on older GTX cards. Yes, if you wish to stand still and take in the sights, then you can turn it on in those cards. If you move, however, it becomes a damn slideshow of images. Regardless of how good the GTX 1650 is, if it has shoddy ray tracing for the sake of it, then it’s better to just not have that.

Software-based ray tracing is not a solution. It can get you by in certain games while being terrible in certain others. Bottom line is, it’s not as good as hardware-accelerated ray tracing.

Okay, so perhaps developers just need to make their older classics into ray tracing ready ones? Well, hypothetically, it sounds about right. For example, of course you cannot run Control with ray tracing on, but what about an older classic that has fewer bells and whistles?

Quake II was extensively tested when it supported the RTX renderer. Frame rate dropped ~50 times. Not good.

control
ShadowPanda

By ShadowPanda

ShadowPanda lurks in the shadows, eats atop the trees. Well, not really. Shadow is a cat-lover with 12 cute little kitties currently. He likes to spend his time by either drawing concept art of imaginary characters, debating in Reddit threads regarding the practicality of indoor golf, or fry some brains in the best landscapes the entire hack and slash genre has to offer. He likes quantity above quality when it comes to games and hey, we don’t judge!

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