Ray Tracing

A real-time rendering technique that simulates the physical behaviour of light to produce realistic reflections, shadows, ambient occlusion, and global illumination. Ray tracing has been available in PC games since 2018 (NVIDIA RTX series) and became a console feature with PS5 and Xbox Series X. While ray tracing dramatically improves visual fidelity — particularly in reflective surfaces and lighting — it has significant performance costs. Most games offer a Quality mode (ray tracing enabled, 30fps) vs Performance mode (ray tracing off, 60fps) on consoles.