Real-time raytracing (CPU)
By Johan
Monday, June 9, 2003 12:06 PM EDT
Is software rendering dead? Some people do not seem to think so as for example EPIC has developed a software renderer for UT2003.
Some people go even farther and believe that one day, CPUs will be so powerful we will see real-time raytraced scenes on our machines. Apparentely, this is not so farfetched as it may seem. If LOD levels get so high that a polygon is as small as pixel on the screen, the typical "polygon and texture" approach of the current videochips might not make any sense anymore.
Anyway, whatever future may bring, such real-time software renderers are pretty cool CPU benchmarks, so I decided to do a testrun with
"RealStorm Benchmark final v1.10" to see how fast the current fastest CPUs can show raytraced frames.
All tests were done at 640x480, and the benchmarked configurations are exactly the same as the ones in our
"Athlon 3200+ versus P4 3 GHz "C" review.
