Here's why we actually don't need Ray Tracing (or Path Tracing)

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]You have 3 seconds. Tell me which one of these has ray tracing enabled.

[00:00:06]It's hard to tell, right? Welcome back to Nexify. Today, we'll be focusing on one question. Do we actually need ray tracing? Just a few days ago, Rossa Horizon 6 came out and I played [music] for quite a bit. Now, what actually surprises me is not the Japan map or the new cars, but the lighting. [music] And I'm not talking about lighting with ray tracing on. I'm talking about traditional rasterization.

[00:00:32]You see, in Frost Horizon 6, you get to choose between screen space rendering and ray tracing. Technically, ray tracing offers better lighting and stuff, but as you can see earlier, you can't really tell the difference between the two. However, ray tracing comes with one drawback. It dramatically drags down the FPS and you have no choice but to enable upscaling or frame gen. Honestly, I don't hate DRSS or FSR at all. But in racing games, it's better to turn [music] them off to avoid ghosting.

[00:01:06]Frankly, if we can have extremely realistic graphics without using ray tracing, like in Rosa, then why the hell are we sacrificing the smoothness for something we can't even notice? I mean, I have an RTX5080, which is the third fastest consumer GPU, and it can't even sustain 60fps in native 4K with ray tracing on. But when I turn it off, I can easily get over 100. [music] To me, it's ridiculous that ray tracing requires so much processing power while we can have similar graphics in the oldfashioned way. Honestly, ray tracing, DOAA, DOSS, and frame gen feel less like innovations now and more like excuses for developers to avoid optimizing traditional rasterized lighting. I mean, just have a look at this. The reflection of puddles, car bodies, shadows, everything looks great here. And all of these don't even need ray tracing at all. To be fair, it took Playground Games 5 years to perfect this game, and it looks great. But look at games like Blackmare Falcon, Silent Hill 2 Remake, and Resident [music] Evil Racles to get 60fps in native 4K with ray tracing turned on. Not to mention that the latest Resident Evil needs path tracing to make their characters look right. Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that we can only game with the absolute best graphics. What I'm saying is that developers shouldn't rely on ray tracing as a shortcut. Traditional rasterization when done properly can deliver stunning visuals without tanking performance like ray tracing does. Rosa Horizon 6 proves this [music] point very well. Its rasterized lighting looks phenomenal and you don't need ray tracing to enjoy the game's atmosphere.

[00:03:01]The problem is that too many studios now lean on rateracing, DLSS, and frame gen as band-aids instead of optimizing their game engines. And that leaves us gamers with a choice between smooth gameplay or ray tracing features that barely changed the [music] experience. Ray tracing was first introduced back in 2018, and at the time we all thought it's going to be a gamecher. Fast forward to 2026, most of us are still gaming with rasterization because of performance.

[00:03:33]Seriously, when an RTX 5090 struggles to maintain 60fps with RA tracing on, what chances do lower tier cards have? It simply shows that the technology just isn't practical yet for the majority of players. Ray tracing was marketed as cinematic realism, and I guess they were right. When you turn rate tracing on, you only get 24 frames pers just like a movie. Maybe 10 years from now, mid-tier or even budget GPUs will finally be able to run [music] ray traced games smoothly. But by then, game graphics will have advanced to another level, and we'll be right back where we started, waiting for the hardware to catch up to the visuals. It feels like an endless loop. Performance is always one step behind the visuals. So tell me, would you rather have rateracing enabled at 40fps or turn it off and enjoy the buttery smooth 120? Thanks for watching.

[00:04:32]Don't forget to drop a like and consider subscribing. Nexifi out.