Wait, AMD just Fixed Ray Tracing??

What this video covers

• Big picture: Ray tracing is a true light‑simulation technique that’s very demanding; denoisers and upscalers are used to make it playable. Nvidia has led this space since introducing it (Turing / 20‑series); AMD has been behind but has just shipped a competing solution.
• Primary testbed: Call of Duty Black Ops 7 (only uses ray‑traced reflections). The creator ran visual comparisons, built‑in benchmarks and frame‑time / FPS measurements across different upscalers and denoisers.

Technologies compared

• Nvidia
  • DLSS + “ray reconstruction” (AI‑assisted denoising/ray reconstruction integrated with DLSS upscaling).
  • Available in a growing list of titles (examples mentioned: Cyberpunk, Alan Wake 2, Indiana Jones, Doom: The Dark Ages, Hogwarts Legacy).
• AMD
  • FSR Ray Regeneration (aka “ray regen”) and the broader FSR Redstone feature set (includes radiance caching).
  • AMD’s design is more open/decoupled — ray regen can be used with any upscaler (FSR4, FSR3, Intel XeSS, TAA upscalers).
• Built‑in game denoisers
  • Game‑specific denoisers (the default Black Ops 7 denoiser used as a baseline).
• Upscalers tested
  • FSR 4 (best AMD option), FSR 3 (lower quality), DLSS (DLSS 3/4 referenced), and native (no upscaling / DLAA where applicable).

Key observations — visual quality

• DLSS ray reconstruction
  • Generally produced sharper, more stable reflections and fewer artifacts (less “light‑leak” behavior).
  • Resolved more detail in many scenes.
• FSR Ray Regeneration
  • Often responded faster to fast camera motion and flashing lights (less temporal smoothing), making transient reflections look better in motion‑heavy scenes.
  • Sometimes produced light‑leak artifacts, smear/splotchy denoising and instability compared to DLSS reconstruction.
  • In static scenes the game’s native denoiser sometimes resolved more fine static detail than ray regen.
• Overall
  • AMD’s ray regen is a meaningful competitor and can be preferable in motion‑heavy spots, but DLSS ray reconstruction is usually superior in detail and stability in the tested scenes.

Key observations — performance

• Ray tracing cost
  • Raw ray tracing (even just reflections in Black Ops 7) causes very large performance drops vs non‑RT. The reviewer measured up to ~75% frame‑rate loss on a high‑end GPU in this game when enabling ray tracing without aggressive upscaling.
• Relative GPU performance (summary of reviewer findings; transcript captions may be noisy)
  • The AMD card in these Black Ops tests was often ~25–27% faster than the Nvidia card across native and upscaled runs (average FPS and 1% lows), both with and without RT enabled.
  • Enabling DLSS ray reconstruction (on the Nvidia card) produced a small perf hit (quoted ~4% avg, ~2% 1% lows in one case).
  • Enabling AMD ray regen (with FSR4) had a larger perf cost in tests (quoted ~7% avg and ~7% 1% lows in one case); excluding native‑only cases this impact could be closer to ~5% avg.
• Upscaling and frame generation
  • When combined with aggressive upscaling (e.g., 720p→4K or 720p→1440p) and frame generation, lower‑cost GPUs can reach playable frame rates with RT enabled, but at significant visual compromises.
• Reviewer conclusion on performance
  • AI denoisers/reconstructors are generally worth the cost for image improvements, but ray tracing itself remains very expensive and often not worth the hit — particularly in poorly optimized titles.

Practical notes, constraints and ecosystem issues

• Black Ops 7 is poorly optimized in these tests — results may be worse than in other titles. The reviewer suspects developers didn’t target RT for multiplayer competitive players.
• Availability
  • FSR Ray Regeneration is very new and, at the time of the video, only verified in one title (Black Ops 7).
  • DLSS ray reconstruction is available in more titles but still limited.
• Hardware support
  • Nvidia’s approach benefits from a wider installed base (Tensor cores present since the 20‑series).
  • AMD’s ray regen currently requires newer AMD hardware, limiting immediate user reach.
• Integration model differences
  • DLSS reconstruction combines upscaling and denoising in the pipeline for efficiency.
  • AMD’s decoupled ray regen can be combined with any upscaler but may lose some efficiency for that reason (possible explanation for higher perf cost).
• Future possibilities
  • FSR Redstone (and radiance caching) might improve efficiency later, but the reviewer criticized AMD’s naming/branding and noted uncertainty about developer adoption.
• Anomalies
  • The reviewer flagged possible anomalies raised by others (Hardware Unboxed / Tim) about rendering differences in COD tests; Tim concluded AMD wasn’t cheating.

Tests and methodology

1. Visual side‑by‑side comparisons: native denoiser vs AMD FSR Ray Regeneration vs Nvidia DLSS Ray Reconstruction across camera motions and benchmark sequences in COD Black Ops 7.
2. Built‑in game benchmark passes (pool / kitchen / nuke sequence) for visual and performance comparison.
3. Resolution / upscaling permutations: native, FSR4 quality/performance modes, aggressive upscaling (720p→1440p / 720p→4K).
4. Measurements: average FPS and 1% lows reported for multiple GPUs with and without ray tracing and with/without the AI denoisers.

Conclusions & takeaways

• AMD has narrowed the gap and shipped a competitive ray‑tracing denoiser in FSR Ray Regeneration, but it’s not consistently better than Nvidia’s DLSS ray reconstruction.
  • Strengths and weaknesses are scene‑dependent: AMD can be better in rapid motion responsiveness; Nvidia is often better in detail and stability.
• Ray tracing remains very performance‑expensive; in many cases the cost outweighs the benefit unless you rely on heavy upscaling and frame generation.
• Ecosystem and hardware support still favor Nvidia (wider backward compatibility of DLSS ray reconstruction); AMD’s solution will have limited immediate reach until more titles support it and more users have compatible GPUs.

Main speakers / sources referenced

• Video creator / on‑camera reviewer (narrator).
• AMD — FSR Ray Regeneration, FSR Redstone, radiance caching (company demos/claims referenced).
• Nvidia — DLSS and DLSS Ray Reconstruction (and DLSS 3/4 discussion).
• Hardware Unboxed (Tim) — cited regarding possible rendering anomalies/benchmark questions.
• Games referenced (test or context): Call of Duty Black Ops 7 (main test), Indiana Jones, Arc Raiders, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Unreal Engine titles (e.g., games using Lumen), Expedition 33, Cyberpunk, Alan Wake 2, Doom: The Dark Ages, Hogwarts Legacy.

Notes on transcript / raw FPS data

• Per‑model numbers in the transcript are noisy — auto‑captions may have mislabeled GPUs.
• The transcript contains per‑GPU FPS and percentage numbers that can be extracted and tabulated; however, treat model labels and some quoted figures with caution due to potential caption inaccuracies.