Hell’s Beauty Burns Anew with Ray Tracing

On March 26, wanderers can conqueror the horrors of Hell with a suite of new graphical enhancements available to them with patch 1.3.5. Arriving alongside our next content update, Sanctuary will be further imbued with the luscious shadows and enhanced reflections of ray tracing, plus other visual enhancements.

Ray Tracing: Shadows

Ray Tracing: Reflections

Ambient Occlusion

Contact Shadows

Graphics Settings Requirements and How to Enable

Bask in the Glow of NVIDIA GeForce

This image shows the difference between all visual improvements settings being enabled and disabled: ray tracing, ambient occlusion, and contact shadows.

Ray tracing is the term that broadly refers to the ability for game engines to produce more lifelike images. For example, shadows cast by the Sun are enhanced with ray tracing.

On the left, ray tracing is toggled off, resulting in sharper and less accurate shadows. On the right the ray tracing is enabled—the shadows from the tree are much more realistic and lifelike. Notice the further you look from the base of the tree, the softer the shadows become.

Ray tracing off (Left), ray tracing enabled (Right).

This animated gif shows the contrast between ray tracing disabled (more pronounced, hard shadows from the Skeletons) and with ray tracing enabled (shadows are sparse, soft and realistic).

On the left, ray tracing is disabled, and the shadows are more angular and harsher. On the right, ray tracing is enabled and the shadows are softer and more lifelike.

Ray tracing also produces more lifelike reflections on surfaces like a still pond or a broad mirror. This enhanced feature can reveal more details around your environment, by not only bringing depth to the reflections of the water, but adding to the broader environmental storytelling as well.

In this Asset below, with ray tracing enabled you can see the reflection of the Ball Lightning off the surface of the water. One of the benefits of ray tracing is that it can also enable you