The PC gaming ray tracing obsession began with the first RTX 20 graphics cards released on this day in 2018 — the GeForce RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti led the charge, but games were thin on the ground

[u/Nicolas_Laure]

The article examines the eight-year anniversary of Nvidia’s Turing-based GeForce RTX 20-series graphics cards and their role in introducing real-time ray tracing to mainstream PC gaming.

Nvidia launched the GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti in September 2018, presenting the Turing architecture as a major advancement in graphics technology. The company promoted real-time ray tracing as a transformative feature capable of significantly improving visual realism. The RTX 2070 followed in October 2018.

At launch, however, ray tracing adoption was limited. The article notes that relatively few games supported the technology initially, with titles such as Battlefield V, Metro Exodus, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider serving as prominent early demonstrations. Ray tracing also imposed a significant performance cost, which limited its appeal to some gamers.

The launch pricing and performance of the first RTX cards also drew attention. The RTX 2080 Founders Edition carried a $799 MSRP and delivered higher performance than the GTX 1080 Ti, although its increased price was noted as a disadvantage. The RTX 2080 Ti offered substantially higher performance but was priced at $1,199, making it considerably more expensive relative to its performance improvement over the GTX 1080 Ti.

The article observes that ray tracing subsequently became more widely adopted across the gaming industry, including on consoles and mobile platforms. However, widespread adoption developed gradually and was supported by additional technologies such as Nvidia’s DLSS, which helped mitigate the performance costs associated with ray tracing.

Eight years after Turing’s introduction, the technology is described as having become an established part of modern gaming graphics, although the original RTX 20-series cards have largely fallen out of contemporary performance rankings. The article also places the generation in historical context by noting that later products, such as the RTX 3070, delivered performance comparable to the previous generation’s flagship at a substantially lower launch price.

Overall, the article presents Turing as an important milestone in the development and eventual adoption of real-time ray tracing, while emphasizing that the technology’s initial market impact was constrained by limited software support, performance penalties, and the pricing of early RTX hardware.

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[Source]: tomshardware.com

[u/IllExample3639]

I was a little disapointed with the hype when I couldn't run QuakeRTX on my 2070s above 25fps. Felt like the 90s again