NVIDIA showcases Black Myth: Wukong's impressive 'Full Ray Tracing' mode

Black Myth: Wukong launches this week, one of the most anticipated PC game releases of the year, and ahead of the game's debut, NVIDIA has posted a new trailer and a deep dive into the game's Full Ray Tracing mode. Full Ray Tracing or Path Tracing is advanced ray tracing that renders all light, shadow, and reflections in a game with the sort of realistic detail you find in movies.

It's incredibly hardware intensive, so, like with Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk 2077's Pat Tracing modes, Black Myth: Wukong also supports DLSS 3 Frame Generation to boost performance and NVIDIA Reflex for latency reduction. Technologies like upscaling and frame generation are the key reasons Full-Ray Tracing modes like the one seen here are possible and playable.

Granted, Black Myth: Wukong looks lovely with or without ray tracing, but with full RT, the visuals take on a cinematic quality. For those who love being immersed in games, PC gamers with a high-end GeForce RTX 40 Series rig are in for a treat.

In addition to the new trailer above, here are some screenshots of the RTX Off and RTX On comparisons for all the ray-tracing goodness in the game.

Full Resolution Multi-Bounce Ray-Traced Indirect Lighting

This refers to lighting that doesn't come from a direct source but bounces around a scene, taking on the color properties of nearby objects. In Black Myth: Wukong, light from objects like the sun bounces up to two times throughout the world to deliver more accurate lighting and ambient occlusion. Here's the RTX Off and RTX On example of this in action.

Full Resolution Ray-Traced Reflections

Ray-traced reflections are one of those less subtle effects you can immediately notice. In Black Myth: Wukong, the ray-traced reflections are 'full resolution,' meaning you will see the same level of detail reflected on surfaces like water as you will in other parts of the environment.

Ray-Traced Particle Reflections

This is an additional RT reflection effect found in Black Myth: Wukong, allowing the game to accurately reflect fire, particles, and other effects from the action in real time. This is not something you usually see in a game because the performance impact is huge. According to NVIDIA, Black Myth: Wukong solves this problem with a new technique that renders "order-independent transparencies for large sprite sets using two-level ray tracing, which efficiently renders the game's particle system in real-time reflections."

Ray-Traced Caustics

Caustics is all about reflections and refraction on water and other curved surfaces found in the game and how this interacts with other objects in an environment. While traditional shadows and scree-space reflections look pretty good in the example below, ray-traced caustics dramatically change this scene to present more realistic lighting to enhance the game's realistic environments.

Ray-Traced Shadows

The final ray-traced effect in the game covers shadows, delivering a more realistic silhouette, softer shadows for distant objects, and a more realistic look to the game's thick jungle environments.

With that, here's a look at the 1080p, 1440p, and 4K performance you can expect with the GeForce RTX 40 Series using the game's "Full Ray Tracing" setting with DLSS 3 and Reflex enabled.

• Read more: TT Show Episode 47 - Full Ray Tracing in Black Myth Wukong and Doom 2
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• Read more: Black Myth: Wukong 'Final Trailer' - over four minutes of epic action and stunning visuals
• Read more: Black Myth: Wukong will launch with full ray-tracing and DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction support