Intel topples Nvidia's ray tracing monopoly in World of Tanks

(Image credit: Wargaming)

World of Tanks is one of the most popular games in the world, and at its annual Wargaming Fest: Tanker Day event, it was announced that Intel is working with the devs to bring ray tracing technology to the game for any DirectX 11 graphics card – not just Nvidia’s latest RTX cards.

This is exciting news, as ray tracing, which is a realistic way of rendering light and shadows in games for impressively life-like effects, has previously only been available to people who own Nvidia’s latest RTX range of graphics cards, such as the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080.

That meant anyone using AMD GPUs, or even older Nvidia cards like the GTX 1080 Ti, would not be able to experience the new tech – until now.

Any DirectX 11 card will do

Wargaming – the devs responsible for World of Tanks – announced that its “Ray Tracing (RT) technology developed... with close collaboration with Intel… further immerses you in an atmosphere of furious tank combat and provides an even more enjoyable gameplay experience.”

Most importantly, the tech “will work on all graphics cards that support DirectX 11 API and higher.” This means that it won’t matter what brand of GPU you have, as long as it supports DirectX 11 – which most modern high-end GPUs do – then you’ll be able to experience ray tracing.

The tech allows Wargaming to “recreate the 'main actors' of [the] game in higher quality; their smallest details will give super-realistic shadows when the sun hits them.”

We certainly welcome technology that allows more people to experience ray tracing, though there are some caveats, as the effects only work on “intact vehicles that are in direct sunlight.”

Still, it’s a start, and hopefully we’ll see more examples of ray tracing coming to non-RTX GPUs in the future.

Via Wccftech

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Matt Hanson
Managing Editor, Core Tech

Matt is TechRadar's Managing Editor for Core Tech, looking after computing and mobile technology. Having written for a number of publications such as PC Plus, PC Format, T3 and Linux Format, there's no aspect of technology that Matt isn't passionate about, especially computing and PC gaming. He’s personally reviewed and used most of the laptops in our best laptops guide - and since joining TechRadar in 2014, he's reviewed over 250 laptops and computing accessories personally.

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